My tips for Rental Cars

We all know that shopping for prices and reserving a car well in advance of the travel dates are important to secure the best prices.

I rarely need to rent a car in my home country since I have a car. When I need one, I shop around using international sites and believe it or not, I get the best prices through them.

I usually need a car when I am abroad. With my upcoming trip I need a car for about 41 days. Rental companies allow you to rent for only 30 days so, as I am dropping the first rental, I will be picking up the other.

I have started searching and reserving good deals months ago and made and canceled several reservations. I wasn't expecting to find better deals as the date approaches but, I kept on looking and am very glad I did. This week I have been pleasantly surprised by a better deal on the first rental.

I use AUTOSLASH and a few other sites but, I found the best prices through AUTOSLASH this time. It is a real neat site where you can enter your reservation details so that they can track and find you even better deals if possible. You get to see the offers and then make the reservation online through Priceline. If you are a foreigner like I am, do use a VPN to be able to see the Autoslash offers on Priceline. If you don't, you may see higher prices. Autoslash has a pop-up that tells you this. You may always ask for help and they respond pretty quickly. I am not being paid for this post and this represents my experience.

My time frame for rentals include Thanksgiving and days close to Christmas. One of the busiest times when car rental prices sky rocket. It is always more expensive in the New York area anyway.

I am pretty comfortable with the current prices on my reservations. The killer is Damage Waiver and Additional Liability Insurance. American consumers who already own cars and car insurance do not have to purchase those since their policies cover rentals. As a foreigner I have to. I knew this from the start and have made my budget accordingly.

I have rented cars several times and have never needed the insurance but, I am not going to risk anything. Peace of mind is important. I hope never to need the insurance and always be able to pay for it.

Screwed up Health System and Insurance Decisions

In the past, the health system was pretty good in this country but, the current government (idiots!) gradually and intentionally screwed it up to create this big mess during the last 17 years. It is still not as bad as the US but, slowly getting there.

The Social Security system provides some basic care but, the co-pay has become pretty high if you go to private hospitals or private university hospitals which I prefer. As long as I have worked, the companies I worked for, provided a supplemental insurance with excellent coverage and 20% co-pay. Now that I am not working, I must take care of the supplemental insurance which is a higher cost for an individual as opposed to a company who buys these policies in bulk with a big discount.

I have called the insurance broker and he is currently working on some alternatives for me. Sigh!

This expense was built into my budget but I think, I have underestimated this. It is not a huge deal and I can certainly cover this expense. Still, it annoys me.

I have updated my projection going forward.

I sometimes think, what if the people of the world had decided to live in peace and stopped investing in stupid weapons and pour those resources into education and health. Wouldn't the world be a better place? May be we are past that point with so many people on Earth? I do not know. The only thing that I know for sure is people never take any lesson from the history and keep on doing the stupidest things.

I like watching WWI and WWII documentaries. It is so sad how many people and mostly young people lost their lives for exactly what? So, so sad.

Tweaking the Budget

I have started to look at my budget items to see if there are anything that I can lower. My phone contract still has 4 months to go before I can make a change. I looked it up and saw that I can save about 30%. I have made a note of it on my calendar.

As for Cable TV, I will cancel the sports package when mom leaves. She is the only one watching them. She is a volleyball enthusiast. When she comes back, I can always add the sports package. The rest is very basic except for my documentary package which I am not willing to give up. That is about 15% savings when mom is not around. I plan to freeze my account till November since, I will not be around much.

I have checked my insurance items and do not see any room for improvement there just yet.

Other items are pretty standart and beyond my control. For instance, the heating system is central. I am very careful about electricity. My normal usage is perhaps at a minimum.

So, I will track my spending for a month when I come back from vacation to see exactly where my money is going. I think I can lower my general expenses by about 25%. That includes groceries, eating out, clothing, cleaning supplies and etc.

I will keep on having the cleaning lady every two weeks because, it is not just an expense. She has moved to her parents' home with two young daughters and she needs a little bit of pocket money. That expense has a social aspect. Her folks want her to go back to her husband who has cheated on her several times and have been physically abusive. He also cannot hold a job. I do not understand her parents. They do not let her to take him to court for divorce either. Anyway, one day the guy will probably want to re-marry and he will then, divorce her.

I will also keep the donations to charity in my budget. I would be willing to lower other spending but, not that.

I am ready to retire, relax and take some time off. Then I will go back to part-time, project based work.

Loyalty Programs for Gas and a New Budget

As soon as I retire, I will have to start buying diesel for my car myself. Goodbye having the perk of the company paying for all car expenses and car lease!

So, I decided to look for loyalty programs and ease of use of major gas chains. Ideally, I would like to be able to pay for gas without having to get out of my car. 

There are so many campaigns, perks whatever that I started feeling dizzy and to my chagrin, none of them are so great. I guess, I will keep on using the two stations closest to my home and get out of the car to pay.

BTW, we do not have any Self-Serve stations in this country. 

Nevertheless, I will keep my ears and eyes open because, sometimes credit card companies may have campaigns and I can take advantage of those.

I also have to draw up a new budget. My income will be significantly lower so, I must lower some expense categories such as clothing, eating out and etc. My passive income covers all my living expenses. When I get part-time projects and make money, that money will be spent for travel.

So, I sat down today to figure out how much of an Emergency Fund I must have sitting in an easily reachable savings account. The rest of the money will be in savings accounts earning more interest. The economy is going downhill here in this country so, I have taken some precautions to protect my money.

My sister and I have also discussed our family assets and income and knowing that the youngest child born to this family is now 43, we think, we do not have to worry about the future. It is more my issue than my sister's. She is totally cool about it. She says "whatever will be, will be" and when and if push comes to shove, we will figure a solution out. She has a point.

New Year New Budget

I use an excel file with many sheets dedicated to different aspects of my budget. One sheet shows my monthly income and expenses as my budget. Another sheet contains a graph with my Net Worth. Another one is dedicated to mid and long-term unavoidable expenses which I need to forecast such as renovations around my house, a new car and etc.

I also keep a lot of my personal info on this excel file and that is why it has a strong password.

Now, it is that time of the year again when I start working on my next year's budget. I will up all the expenses since we are being hit by double digit inflation for the last year and the Government is ruthlessly upping the taxes because they manage the resources very poorly. Such idiots!

I am also expecting a salary increase but we shall see. Before I see it in my bank account, I am not counting on it. 

My mom is refusing to go abroad for a vacation. She says she is getting very tired and she cannot handle long flights anymore. Therefore, I am planning two vacations this year. One with her and one alone. I do not know where we shall go together just yet but, I would like to go to Scotland by myself.

Since I am not comfortable driving on the left side of the road, I will not rent a car. I want to stay in small towns; the kind you see in Midsomer Murders. 

Other than getting a couple of things fixed and buying two TV chairs, I am not planning any expenses at home because I do not spend much time there.

I started looking at my budget and I will tweak it here and there till the end of the year.

Mid-Year Assessment of Financial Status

As we have completed the first half of the year, I have decided to look at my financial goals and assess my status.

Although there is still time till the end of the year, it looks like I will be missing my Savings Target by 5%.

Thinking back, I now know that I had not budgeted for my progressive glasses and the need for some new wardrobe items due to unexpected weight gain. My estimate for charitable giving was also underestimated by the beginning of the year. I paid all the real estate taxes (not as horrible as what you guys have to pay) for all the family owned property. That was also not in my budget.

Next year, I will be better at forecasting these expenses. I have already noted them on my budget sheet.

Now the question is whether I should update my goal and move forward or wait until the end of the year to see what the real damage will be or whether I can make up for some of the "loss". Changing the goal seems a bit like cheating so, I am leaning towards keeping everything as is. This is going to be a reminder of better forecasts.

My budget when I was a kid

For some reason, even when I was really little I liked to count my money, separate it into categories as to what I would like to do with each little sum.

Both my grandparents were very generous and for the two religious holidays we celebrate, they both gave me the highest valued banknote in circulation. Imagine being 7-8 and receiving USD 100 each from your grandmoms for Easter. Other relations would also give smaller amounts and after the holiday, I would feel filthy rich! Lol!

My mom still laughs at  the "pleasure" category my budget had. Well, I still have that category with the name of "Misc. and Fun"

I do not quiet remember my exact budget categories but mom remembers it went like this:

Books (I was an avid reader and although mom bought me a book every week, it would never be enough. If the book was "thin", I would beg her to buy two and usually succeeded at that)

Clothes and accessories (Although mom bought me everything, every once in a while I wanted to buy myself something that I chose myself such as fancy socks, hair accessories or something small like that)

School Supplies (Again, my folks bought what I needed but, I bought things I wanted.) I think choosing something on my own and paying for it from my pocket used to make me feel very grown up.

Pleasure (could be used for anything from buying treats for myself or treating friends to ice cream to buying story books or little toys for my baby sister)

Gifts (I would set aside money to buy gifts for Mother's and Father's Days and birthdays)

Savings (Even then, I was a saver)

I disliked sharing how much money I had even with my parents. I always thought it was a private matter and I still do believe that. So, I am amazed at the people who open their finances to others in their blogs. It surely makes their stories more believable and honest but, telling the world how much money or debt I had? Forget it! Not my thing. Only my sister has a general idea about how much I have.

I will talk about how I handle my budget as an adult later. Do you have a budget? Have you had budgets as a kid?