Fearless Money

I’m reading”No B.S. Wealth Attraction for Entrepreneurs” by Dan Kennedy. He’s got a lot to say, and the book is filling up with highlighted notes. One section stood out for me.

[Read more →]

Checking my logs, I see quite a few people finding my site, searching for some of the very odd companies used to commit credit fraud against me and many others.

[Read more →]

OK, so I haven’t always been fearless about money. At times I was careless, clueless, or spineless. It cost me big.
Without beating up on myself too badly, I hereby present the list of my worst financial mistakes for inclusion in the Reverse Carnival of Financial Boneheadedness.

Ate out for lunch, almost every day, for […]

[Read more →]

Due to my recent debit fraud experience, I no longer trust debit cards. The risk is simply not worth the reward to me.

[Read more →]

It is an odd thing, but repeatedly proven to be true, that setting constraints often sparks creativity.The way we did it this year was by budgeting “gift money” every month. The money, $50 each for Dustin and me, goes in envelopes marked “Dustin Gift Money” and “Bruce Gift Money” in the safe…. We use it to fund all gift giving throughout the year, supplemented by whatever we feel like kicking in from our personal “mad money” allowances. Since we started the formal budget in June last year, there were a total of $800 maximum dollars in the envelopes…. $500 really is not a lot to buy presents for the five people in the family, relatives, and close friends…. We did this by setting our limits up front, and by not really buying any “impulse gifts”…. I found myself thinking things like “that is a nice shirt, Dustin would love it, but if I buy it, I wont have enough left to get that bracelet I came here to buy.”… Temptation is just easier to avoid when you are using cash.Another big help was something I read on another personal finance blog (sorry I can’t recall which). It pointed out that young children really don’t have the attention to enjoy more than three or four presents.

[Read more →]

If you’ve taken the time to read about my credit fraud or my debit fraud experiences, you’ll know that it hasn’t been any fun at all for me…. In this post, I’ll try to find a silver lining in the whole experience.The only positive element I can come up with is my lessons learned: Banks and credit card companies simply do not care. They will not follow up, and they will certainly not take any proactive actions to block credit fraud…. Put more bluntly, once debit fraud starts, you are liable for an infinite amount of money for an infinite time. If you must close your bank account due to debit fraud, it is better to change banks entirely. That way the bank will not be able to “attach” the money in your new account during the inevitable dispute to follow…. Many scammers will put a test charge in, and if it is not challenged, they’ll start a regular “leak” on your account…. Find out if your credit card allows you to generate “one time use numbers”…. This works by making a number you can enter on a website which will be valid only once and which must be used within a set amount of time, usually a few months.

[Read more →]

I have had an account with Washington Mutual for years. It is a good bank in the Northwest, with a lot of local branches and with absolutely free ATMs and online billpay. However, they just don’t know how to deal with Debit Card fraud.
It all started on September 24, when I got a […]

[Read more →]

I thought I’d start with the easy one. On November 29, 2005, scammers using the business name “JM Business Products” changed my Bank of America credit card $9.95. I noticed it straightaway when I was balancing my budget, which I try to do every week. I was paying pending bills, and noticed […]

[Read more →]

I am a victim of credit fraud. Actually, both credit and debit fraud. It is a terrible experience, and one I wish I could say has been a learning one. But really, it is mostly just painful and annoying. Luckily so far, it has not been financially dangerous. I haven’t […]

[Read more →]