Summer Lovin'

Yes, I know. February to August is like half a year. So what? We've been living just like everybody else. Time passes.

With our summer vacation half gone and the year more than halfway through, I figured a financial update was due. My summer savings goal of 7K was almost reached; I squirreled away roughly $6200, of which $3800 is left. I have a mortgage payment and big credit card bill due in the next two weeks, which will eat up all but $1000 of that so the belt tightening has begun.

I'm not quite as worried this summer as in year's past, which is curious because I'm not even working! Usually, I would have gotten my first summer school paycheck today and that cash would help get me through to our first paychecks in September. This year, however, I didn't get the summer school gig and didn't care all that much. My aces in the hole were two CDs maturing in mid-late August, earning me roughly $4000. Knowing I have that money to fall back on has really eased the annual financial pressure as school just starts. Next year, though, I'm going to try a bit harder for that summer school job.

The summer started pretty well financially. I keep forgetting my wife gets an extra paycheck at the end of the year, which was pleasant like always. Also, I earned some extra professional development hours through a special opportunity at work and the $800 stipend I was expecting turned into $1400. Some financial deals happened to work out right at that time as well like a BOA Keep the Change award ($250), two Chase rebate checks ($200), Chase checking account promotion ($125), Discover Card promotion ($100), and an AMEX error in my favor ($200)*. This all happened over a 10-14 day period of time - made me feel like we were rolling in iti for awhile. I have regularly been getting about $200 a month in interest from a couple accounts as well, which I have been putting to unexpected bills like tires for my wife's car and expected ones like the next 6 months car insurance.

The AMEX error thing was pretty cool. Late last year I got an offer from AMEX stating that if I opened up one of their Business Gold Rewards Cards and spent a thousand, I would receive $200 back as a statement credit. Sweet deal, too good to pass up. Technically, I didn't apply for it quickly enough though in my conversation with the CSR, he assured me the timeframe wouldn't come into play. Fast forward a couple months. It took me awhile to put the grand on it. I was right in the middle of using the Citi CashReturns cards that gave 5% rebate on everything, and it bothered me that I would waste $50 of rebate money to do this deal. So I waited until those 5% deals ended.

My spending was still within the allotted time so I felt pretty good. But when statements kept going by with no credit, I started getting antsy. The paperwork (which I kept thankfully) did say the credit would take 6-8 weeks, but when 8 weeks came and went I started contacting them. It took a couple phone calls and they brought up my late application time. I argued a bit, sounded upset. They took pity on me and credited me the $200 as a "courtesy". Happy day. Well, guess what? A couple weeks ago, I just happened to look at this account, which I don't use, and I see a $200 negative balance. Seems like the promotion got fulfilled anyway. Should I give the other $200 back? What would you do?