Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Identity Safety / Fraud

How much do you think about your Identity theft? I've thought about it enough to purchase Identity theft insurance. It's cheap and easily added to your home owners insurance.

I came across a cool little online test that looks at your ID safety. This test got me thinking. Here are my results. Take the test and let me know what your score was. (I scored in the top 3rd) Click here for the test.

Your Score is 26.

Please note that a perfect score is 0 and the worst possible score is 100; a typical score is 38.

Congratulations! Your scored among the top third of those taking the Javelin identity safety quiz.

Here's what you need to do to improve your identity safety:

  • Eliminating paper statements eliminates the threat posed by unsecured mailboxes and minimizes the need to shred sensitive documents. Many companies allow you to turn off mail delivery of paper bills and statements. Whenever possible, cancel mail delivery of your paper bills and statements, and review statements and pay bills online.
  • If you have paper records, shred every document before placing it in the trash.
  • Regularly use and update anti-virus/anti-spyware software to protect your electronic transactions from potential online threats. Keep your home and office PC operating system and browser up to date.
  • Credit reports and credit monitoring services are very successful in detecting fraud cases and usually report the lowest consumer costs of resolving the fraud compared to all other detection methods. Review your credit report monthly or more because acts of fraud are generally harder to detect in new accounts than in existing accounts.
  • Almost half of fraud discovery continues to be done by the consumer. Self-detection also averages a quicker time of discovery, lower fraud amounts, and lower consumer costs than notification by businesses or institutions. Review bank and credit card statements regularly. You can monitor account activity on a timelier basis, 24x7, by having bills, statements, and checks securely sent online.
  • Refrain from leaving unnecessary sensitive information where others could potentially access it.

Javelin Strategy & Research is proud to present www.IDsafety.net and the ID Safety Quiz to help increase consumer and business awareness concerning identity theft and fraud. Hopefully this quiz has given you some useful tools and tips to better protect your identity in the future. For more information concerning this crime as well as additional tips on how to combat it, please download the "2008 Identity Fraud Survey Report" by selecting the "2008 ID Fraud Report" tab at the top of the page.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Go Tribe

I promise once the holiday weekend is officially over, I'll get back to my financial posts.

My family and I have had a great holiday weekend thus far. Spending lots of time together. We started it off with a Cleveland Indians game. Thanks for the tickets Larry. They were awesome. 2nd row on the third base side.

Here are some cool pictures from the game. Enjoy.

Grady Sizemore (It was Grady bobble head night)


Katie & Chaz before the game from our seats.


Cleveland has a great scoreboard.

Me time this weekend. . . . I road just under 100 miles on my bicycle. (Yes!)

Friday, May 23, 2008

Biggest & Best for last!

Spring is almost in the books and Summer is just around the corner. But wait, Thanks to Jim Troyer, a super volunteer here at NewPointe, I get one last great taste of Spring.

I know you cant see the ruler very well in the picture but these babies are 5 inches long. Ted, if you can get to my house by 5 pm, I'll put one on your plate.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Learning about money. . . .

Want a great and easy way to learn more about money and finance? I hope so. I'm always on the lookout for good information on the topics of money and finance.

It's well worth your time to explore bankrate.com.

Their personal finance tab is an outstanding place to start.

They have a 12 part series on personal finance that is outstanding. So, take some time this week and explore this site. You'll be better and hopefully richer for it.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Jing it

As I've noted in the past, I'm always on the lookout for great new, and my favorite "Free" tools. This weekend at the Dynamic Church Conference, my buddy Dave Moore told me about Jing.

So, what is Jing? Here's how Tony Dunckel, the Jing Product (err, Project) Manager describers it:

“Think of Jing as a supplement to all your chat discussions, email threads, forum posts and blog entries. It sits nicely on your desktop, ready to capture and share your stuff at a moment’s notice. Simply select an area of your screen, capture it as an image or record it as a video, and then click Share.

Here's my first Jing. I did it to show our staff how to get to the training videos for our church management software. I'll be creating lots more Jings soon.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Day one in Texas over

I wanted to blog last night but was too tired after leaving my house at 4:30 am and not getting to my hotel room until 9 pm. So, I'm blogging before I hit the Dynamic Church Conference for day 2.

A quick rap up of day one. (Great Day) - Sessions I attended

1. Key Note from Jeff Hook CEO of Fellowship Tech
2. F1 and multi-site campuses
3. Granger Community Church's F1 super team
4. Best practices for reconciling online payments
5. Dinner on F1, great conversation and ideas.

Have met some really great new people, touched based with friends made last year, scorring brownie points with F1 staffes with the giveaways I brought for them. I really appreciate all they do for me.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

2 for 2

I'm getting ready for my 2 trip to the 2nd annual Dynamic Church Conference. (2 for 2). I'm very much looking forward to connecting with Dave Moore, finance director at granger community church and Mark Lindsley, F1 Guru. I also hope to make a few new contacts.

Last years conference taught me a great deal on how other churches from around the country are using Fellowship One, our church management software, in creative ways. I'm hoping for some of that same type of insight this year.

I'm most looking forward to Granger's presentation as to how their F1 team works. (No pressure Dave.)

I've decided to leave my laptop sitting here on my desk as the conference pretty much runs late into the evening. On Friday night, I'll enjoy an up-close concert by Lincoln Brewster.

The only downside of this trip. . . . no bike riding for me on Saturday.

Monday, May 12, 2008

NewPointe's 50lb challenge results. (Wow)

90 days ago, the staff at new point formed 6 team for our third and final "health and wellness" program, year #1.

Each 4 person team had to loose 50lbs total in 90 days to reach the goal. I'm very pleased to say that all 6 team exceeded the 50lbs. With Team #4 "The BJ's" (Bill, John, Jon, Jane) loosing the most weight at a whopping 104.2 lbs.

Here are some other cool facts from the last 90 days.
  1. Total weight lost 449lbs
  2. Most weight lost by one person 32.6lbs
  3. Most percentage weight lost by one person 16%
  4. Total inches lost over 500
  5. A much healthier and happier staff.
As a side note, I dropped 10lbs. That weight loss has helped me peddle up the hills faster on my bike. I'm liking that.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Where's my stimulus check?

Have you received your IRS stimulus check yet? If not, don't worry. Here's the schedule from the IRS web site. (www.irs.gov)

Remember to pay yourself first and consider giving some of it away before you spend the rest.

People who use direct deposit also will be among the first to receive the payments starting April 28. Direct deposits will be made daily and completed by the date listed below:

DIRECT DEPOSIT

Last two SSN digits: Payments will be transmitted no later than:
00 through 20 May 2
21 through 75 May 9
76 through 99 May 16

Paper checks will also go out based on Social Security number. For Social Security numbers ending in 00 through 09, the paper checks will be mailed starting May 9 and will continue through May 16. A similar process will be repeated in the following weeks.

PAPER CHECK

Last two SSN digits: Payments will be mailed no later than:
00 through 09 May 16
10 through 18 May 23

19 through 25

May 30
26 through 38 June 6
39 through 51 June 13
52 through 63 June 20
64 through 75 June 27
76 through 87 July 4
88 through 99 July 11

People who file a return after April 15 will receive their economic stimulus payment, but probably later than the schedule shows. A return must be filed by October 15 in order to receive a stimulus payment this year.

If you still have questions after reading this schedule, you can call 1-800-829-1040.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Amazing Spring Time Treat

Last night at small group, my buddy Todd (Not me, the other Todd in our group) handed me a bag of just picked morel mushrooms. Now I'm not a guy who gives or likes getting hugged, but I gave Todd a great big hug for these.

If you never had morel mushrooms, you don't know what you are missing. I'd rather have these than lobster or shrimp.

The morel's on this plate are gone already. I had them for supper. They were unbelievable. I did save a few to cook up tomorrow morning for breakfast. Can't wait for that.

Saturday, May 03, 2008

500 miles rain and all

Do we? Don't we? We did. . . .

We decided to head out for a bike (bicycle) ride this afternoon. Ended up riding 15 miles in a downpour. But hey, I had to get home. (We were really hoping to have a 2 - 3 hour window with no rain. We were wrong.)

The good news is today's ride 33 miles pushed me over the 500 mile mark for 2008. 1,000 miles here I come.

Car replacement fund back at $0 (That's Life)

I finally got my 1998 VW Beetle TDI running great again. Thank you so much Beechy's. You guy do wonderful work. The problem was I had a tremendous amount of carbon buildup in the air recirculation system. Basically, my car was chocking for lack of air.

With my car in my garage, and repair bills topping $1,500, the thought did cross my mind is it time to replace my car? The short answer is NO. See, I had roughly $1,000 in my car replacement fund. The other $500 for the repair work came out of our emergency fund. Now for the longer version of the story.

While my car was in the shop and I was begging for rides to and from work, I started thinking what a hassle this is. I should be looking for a replacement car and say goodbye to the bug. After all my parents and mother-in-law were telling me it was time for a new car. Then I woke up.

See, here's what really matters.

  1. The average car payment is now $350 over 60 months. In one year that's $4,200. Much more than the $1,500 I spent in repairs.
  2. I'm never, ever going to be a slave again to a car payment. It's just not worth it.
  3. My son will be behind the wheal in 6 short months. I don't want him to think a car payment is the way "dad buys cars".
  4. I believe God will reward me for staying out of debt.
So, starting this next pay, I'll be building back up my emergency fund to replace the $500. Once that's done, it will be time to start saving in the car fund. Someday, I will have to say goodbye to the Beetle and when that day comes, I'll be paying cash.