Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

Archives for March 2011

Top 5 Tips for Staying Safe at the ATM

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We spend a lot of time talking about how to insure that our money is safely in a FDIC or NCUA insured bank or credit union.  We talk about finding the best ways to squeeze those last few pennies of interest out of our savings accounts and reduce the interest on our loans.  But, one thing we often overlook is our physical safety when it comes to money.

24hr ATMFirst, and foremost, I would like to inform you that having a swimming pool of gold coins ala McDuck is a really cool idea, but is somewhat hazardous to your health if you plan on diving into and swimming through said coins.  For those of us that can’t fill a pool full of coins (even pennies), the largest place that we need to ensure our physical and fiscal safety is while using an ATM.  Here are 5 tips to help you use the ATM as safely as possible, and protect yourself from ID theft (and physical harm).

  1. Choose a well lit ATM. Just because that ATM that’s hidden away in a dark alley is one of your in-network free ATMs, doesn’t mean you should put yourself at risk to use it.  Always choose an ATM in a well lit area.  The usage fee is worth your safety.
  2. Check for skimmers. The #1 most popular way of harming you at an ATM is the use of a skimmer.  A skimmer is a small device made to look exactly like the card reader that fits over the card reader.  As you insert your card into the reader to use the ATM, the skimmer reads the data on the card and stores it for the crooks to retrieve at a later date.  Some estimates say that these crooks have spent $250,000 on one of these devices, so they are very hard to spot.  Take a close look at the reader before you use it.  If you have any suspicions at all, report them to the staff at the institution that runs the ATM and then look for a new ATM to use temporarily.
  3. Check for cameras. Again, the crooks like to see what you’re doing when you enter your PIN.  So, they install tiny pinhole cameras that record you as you enter in your PIN and other information.  Also check for security cameras.  There’s usually one in the ATM housing itself, but having one or two in the vicinity is also a good sign.  Popular places for crooks to place pinhole cameras include the skimmer that they install, behind mirror housings, and as external stickies right out in the open.  Whatever it takes for them to be able to try and capture your PIN.  Which brings us to the next tip.
  4. Cover your PIN. When you go to enter your PIN, use your other hand or anything on hand (purse, hat, etc) to cover the PIN pad and your hand as you enter your PIN.  This little bit of caution can save you a lot of headache.
  5. Watch your back. One of the other popular ways for crooks to get your PIN is to do what is called “shoulder surf”.  Basically, as you walk up to the ATM, one of the crooks will walk up behind you and merely watch over your shoulder as you enter in you PIN.  If they can get the card, and the PIN, they can basically write their own checks from your account.  A quick glance over your shoulder or into the mirror on the ATM is usually enough to ensure someone isn’t taking a peek at your PIN

ATMs have become such a common thing in many of our everyday lives that we give very little thought to our own security while using them.  More often than not, ATMs are just as safe as going in to a branch and talking with a teller, and banks and credit unions do their best to make them ATMs as safe as possible.  Despite all of that, credit card fraud is a $1+ Billion dollar industry. Observing these 5 tips will help you avoid the risks that can sometimes occur and help you conduct your banking safely.

photo credit: ⓆiaoⒹaⓎe錫濛譙大爺

Early Morning Reality Check

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Early yesterday morning, I awoke to my wife jumping out of bed.  “Do you smell smoke?” She asked.  Let me tell you, there are few things that will pull you out of that just woke up groggy state than a question like that.  And, sure enough, I did.  A quick check told me that there was no visible fire or smoke in the upstairs portion of our house.  It wasn’t clear what the source of the smell was.  I quickly ran downstairs to check the rest of the house, fully expecting to find a smoldering spot somewhere.  Nothing.  Down to the basement.  Nothing.  Back upstairs.  Still nothing, but the smell is still there.  I went from room to room, floor to floor, sniffing the air trying to pinpoint where the smell was strongest.  The good news was that it wasn’t getting any stronger, but I still didn’t have  source for it. The only thing that I can find is that the furnace doesn’t seem to be working.

By this point, my wife has gotten the kids up, and is working on getting them dressed just in case we have to make a hasty exit from the house.  There isn’t any immediate danger, I don’t think, but you just never know.  It just so happens that a close friend is a member of the rural fire department here.  We’re in the city fire department district, but it doesn’t hurt to ask, so we called him for some quick advice.  I quickly fill him in, and he suggests that I call the city fire department and have them come check the house for carbon monoxide and also do a hotspot check with their thermal imager.  I certainly didn’t have to be told twice, so that’s exactly what I did.

A couple firefighters show up, give the house a quick once over and come to the same conclusion that I have.  The furnace has gone out.  And, for some reason, has filled the house with the smell that we awoke to.  They can find no hot spots, and the CO tester is not indicating any CO threat.  We cut the power to the furnace, and everyone agrees that there is no immediate threat.  We can go about our business.  Well, with the exception of calling the furnace repair folks in to figure out what’s wrong with the furnace.  Some of you might not think it’s a big deal, but we still haven’t seen 30 degrees in March.  The nightly lows are in the single digits.  In just the short time that the furnace has been out, the temperature in the house has dropped 10 degrees.

Gas Furnace Blower Motor -- IMG_9823I called the furnace repair company, and, to my surprise, they sent one out right away.  Luckily, I caught the guy as he was headed out the door for a call, so he could easily be rerouted to our house.  A couple hours later, and we had a working furnace again.  Turns out, the blower motor that pushes the air through the ductwork and into the house had stopped working.  It lost its bearings.  Literally.  The result was that it started to leak some lubricant oil and actually melted some of the electrical work in its housing which is what made the stink.  The company bills for the repair, so we only have an estimate as to what the cost of the repair will be.  The repairman thinks less than $200.

We’re lucky.  We’re lucky, because our house didn’t catch fire.  We’re lucky, because we aren’t trying to figure out how we can live out of a motel room until our fire damaged house can be repaired, or, worse, until we can find a new house to replace our destroyed house.  We’re lucky, because we aren’t trying to figure out how we’ll replace any of our belongings.  We’re lucky, because we’re safe.

But, to a lesser degree, we’re lucky, because we can afford the repair.  It wasn’t that long ago that an unexpected bill for $200 would have had us wondering if we were going to have to choose bills to go unpaid.  But, we took control of our finances.  We’ve got a long way to go, but, a $200 emergency doesn’t mean that a bill goes unpaid.  And, that makes us feel safe too.

photo credit: stevendepolo

Supply and Demand Goes Both Ways

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Supply and Demand.  We all learn about this tenet of the capitalist market at a rather early age.  It’s a pretty simple concept really.  When one increases the other decreases.  As supply grows, demand diminishes.  As does the price for that product.  As demand grows, supply diminishes.  And price goes up. It’s a function of our market.  And, I think parts of it are broken.

As a frugal blogger, I’m constantly wracking my brain trying to find new ways to be more frugal, and new ways to present that information to you. Part of that includes keeping an eye on the market.  And as such, I’ve come to the conclusion that the law of supply and demand has become more of a guideline than a law.

How so?

Take airfare for instance.  According to this CNN Money article, airfare prices have been raised twice as many times this year as they were all of last year.  And we’re only in March.  What allows them to do that and get away with it?  You keep paying for the tickets.  Gas goes up, and we still fill up our SUVs.  As long as you continue to pay the prices they are asking, the prices will continue to go up.  And, recently, they’ve gone up anyways.

We all know that some of the things that we are buying are too expensive.  I read several articles a day about how expensive somethings have gotten and ways to save money by making your own, or frugally using what you do buy.  And, to some extent, that does work.  For a select few.  But, there are others who are willingly paying that price and then complain about it afterwards.  Why?  They’ve been conditioned to do that.  When was the last time you heard of a boycott based on the price of a good, rather than something the company did to offend you?  Do you think that if even half of the consumers boycotted flying for a month, that prices wouldn’t drop?  They’d have to or they’d have to go out of business.

Why can I buy a ticket from Fargo, ND to Las Vegas, NV for less than $150, but it costs me 3x that much to fly to San Antonio?  It’s not 3x as far.  Why can I buy a bag of malt-o-meal cereal for $2 that tastes exactly the same as a name brand cereal but I can’t buy that name brand cereal for less than $3.50?  The examples of this are plentiful.

We aren’t just consumers.  We have brains and are capable (in most cases) of thinking with them.  It’s time we used them to demand fair prices for products.  We’ve forgotten that supply and demand goes both ways.  We do have some small modicum of control here, but we’ve grown complacent and forgotten that we have it at all.  Many of you are frugalers.  But, we always say that we’re doing it to save money.  And, that’s true, but maybe it’s time we also say that we’re doing it to protest the high prices that we’re being charged.  Oddly, saving money isn’t always a good enough excuse for some people.  Sometimes they need a moral soapbox to stand on.  And, maybe that’s the way to take back supply and demand, and turn it into a working machine again rather than a pleasant theory in economics textbooks.

What say you? (So Say we All.  If you’d watched BSG, you’d get that.)