My Missing Money Was Returned!
Back in April I found out about MissingMoney.com. It’s supported by the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA) and is completely legit. Basically you can search for your name and see if you have any unclaimed money somewhere, maybe from an old bank account or a last paycheck from a job that you never got.
I searched and found my own name which surprised me greatly since I just looked for laughs. It even had my hometown listed, so I claimed it. I had to fill out an electronic form with my social security number and other details.
A few months later I received a letter in the mail asking for a photocopy of my social security card and my driver’s license or passport. I sent those right along, still not knowing how much money I was getting.
Yesterday, nearly five months after the initial request, I got my check! It’s for $14.51 and it’s money from a tax return that I never deposited or something. It’s not much, but, hey, it’s something!
I’d recommend that all of you check it out for yourselves. It’s a legit government agency and they transfer your claim to your individual state. Not all 50 states use the program just yet, but most of them do. Now that I’ve proven to myself that it works, I’m going to get my dad to start requesting the stuff with his name on it…his name was on the list three different times. My mom was miffed that her name wasn’t anywhere even though all that means is that she has all HER money.
If you find yourself on there and get anything out of it, please let me know!
My Net Worth, May
Thanks in large part to my tax refunds/rebate, my net worth went up a fair amount! Yay! You can access my page here.
Last month’s net worth: -$9,406
This month’s net worth: -$6,293
For a difference of: $3,113
Reasons for this:
Even though money is only being added to my 401K currently (about $78 each paycheck), the money in all three retirement accounts has grown a little.
Tax refunds+rebate= $2294
$100 owed to me was paid back.
$35 from Revolution Money Exchange.
Didn’t spend too much last month while budgeting.
My Net Worth-April
I’ve updated my Net Worth since it’s the first of the month. For some reason, it won’t show up as a picture on my side bar, so I have a link to my page under the blogroll. I may end up moving it to a more prominent spot. Right now you can access it here. My net worth has risen $1,978 in the last month to -$9,406. This is for a few reasons:
1. Last month I didn’t take into account my 401K from my current employer. At this point, I’m only contributing 3% of my salary (they match 50% up to that point), so it’s less than $800, but it’s still something.
2. I contributed $1000 to a traditional IRA and it’s already gained more than $20 in interest.
3. I changed my car loan agreement with my dad, lowering my interest rate to 6% and extending the length of the loan. My car loan total is a little misleading because I have down the entire balance plus the interest I’ll be paying, assuming I pay exactly $88.71/month (until November 2010), $5000 November 2008, and $500 November 2010. So my balance is lower than indicated, but I don’t keep my amortization schedule sheet on hand to determine exactly what my balance is each month. I might start doing that in November after I pay the big lump sum. My student loan balance is calculated for me, so that is correct.
Soon I should be receiving my $600 tax rebate and my over $1600 tax refund, which will be nice. I’ve thought about changing my withholding, but I haven’t yet worked a full January-December year yet, so I think that I’ll wait until next year to look at that.
This month I’m also going to track what I spend, which I’m looking forward to and dreading all at once.
