Saturday morning my husband went to return a boat battery to Wal-mart because after only three uses, the battery wouldn’t hold a charge.

The clerk gladly refunded his money so he could exchange the battery for a new battery, but told my husband that there would be a core charge for the new battery.

My husband didn’t think anything of it, except to tell me (by cell phone) that he would need to find an old battery to turn in so he could get his $9.00 core charge back.

A $9.00 core charge on a replacement for a defective battery?

I don’t think so.

I asked him for the phone number of the store and told him I would be calling and that he didn’t need to leave the store until after he heard back from me.

Of course, I was hoping it was a mistake, because it made no sense to my why we would be responsible for a core charge on a replacement for a defective battery!

I was nice, but firm when I talked to customer service, and yes, the customer service manager admitted it was an error that my husband had been asked to pay a core charge and that they would refund the $9.00 as soon as my husband returned to the customer service register.

Needless to say, this would have cost us $9.00 if I hadn’t been been aggressive with my husband. He would have left the store without the money and then had to return later with a battery he might or might not have been able to find in order to get the core charge refunded to him.

He didn’t mind that I wanted to call about the issue, but he also didn’t think it was that big of a deal that he’d been charged a core charge.

But I’m thinking, $9.00, for something we didn’t owe! That’s enough to pay for a movie ticket, 3 car washes, or 1 1/2 month’s service of Netflix.

Ultimately, that’s why it’s so important to watch for and react to these kinds of charges. Blindly accepting them lowers your standard of living by taking money out of your pocket, in a time when you might be fighting to make every dollar count.

Vigilance pays off. Keep your eyes open for charges that don’t make sense and pursue the matter when you see them.

That said, here are some tips I’ve used over the years to help me deal with these kinds of problems.

How to get a refund for a charge you don’t owe

1. Call or visit right away. Be firm when talking to representatives, but never rude. You want to be taken seriously and to have your complaint addressed by someone who isn’t offended by something you’ve said.

2. Be specific. Tell the person what you want them to do about your problem. Sometimes it’s just that they haven’t thought of the possible solution you’d like them to think of.

Useful phrases:

• Please explain why I was charged…
• I have a problem I would like you to take care of for me…
• I’d like a refund or credit for this charge today… (or, before I leave…, by tomorrow…)
• I would appreciate it if you could solve my problem today

Polite phrases are more powerful than insults and threats.

4. Thank the person helping you even before they’ve helped you—this can sometimes create a feeling of obligation on the part of the “helper.”

Useful phrases:

• I appreciate you looking into this for me… Here’s what I think happened… and I shouldn’t have been charged because…
• Thank you for taking the time to research this… My records show… What do your records show…?

These steps are the steps I always try to follow when I file a complaint or ask for help with a problem, and they usually work for me.

Have you ever had to deal with a situation like this? What’s worked for you?

We traded in my car for $6,500 (which we had the cash to pay off (about $4400)). We got that trade-in credit against a $12,500 used truck that has about 39,000 miles and is in excellent condition. The reason I’m not all up in arms about the truck with my husband is because I can easily see it as something we can keep longer term, not to mention that we traded in my car for it instead of his. We’re now down to two vehicles. Since my actual gas costs for commuting to my job are reimbursed, I won’t be spending any additional money on gas even though I now drive a vehicle that gets significantly less efficient gas mileage than my previous car.

Money-wise, we ended up with an auto loan of $6,500 or so at 4.79%. There’s no prepayment penalty so we let them make the loan for the standard term they wanted to make it at which was 4 years. I don’t really care, since I’m going to pay it off early anyway, but I like that I still have the option if I want to take it, to pay off a higher interest debt first, because this payment of $148 each month is much less than what my car payment was.

I have to sit down and rework my plans for paying off my debt now, but with the lower payment related to the lower interest rate on my home and the lower auto payment (but still a payment), I will have cash available to put towards other debts.

When I do that, I’ll be sure to post here.

As for the truck, I like it. I’ve never been the primary driver for a truck before and it’s an interesting experience. 

The car I owned before was the only vehicle I had ever bought new. I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone, but I have to say, I did like the car and the whole newness of it when I got it. Buying a new car doesn’t make a lot of financial sense though. I’ve also never done a trade in for a vehicle either, because usually you can get $1000+ more for it by selling it yourself than you can by trading it in. In our case this time, we got lucky. The dealer where we got this truck was going out of business because he was having too much trouble getting loans for people wanting to buy automobiles from him. That’s something to keep in mind. Right now is a great time to buy an automobile, if you can get the money you need for it.

Here are the highlights

1. Spent too much at Christmas and used my Discover card which I intended to pay off in full. I’ll still be able to do that, but it took some serious finagling and a stroke to luck.
2. Intended to refinance my home loan to take advantage of lower interest rates and get 10,000 cash out to pay for a truck we need.
3. Refinanced home loan but got no cash out.
4. Put the family truck up for sale because it can’t haul my RV camper long distances.
5. Prepared tax return so I would know what, if any, cash I could expect to get refunded.
6. Looking for a truck and a way to pay for it that won’t put me back in debt up to my eyeballs.

Christmas spending

I knew going into the holidays that I didn’t have enough money saved up for Christmas. I intended to cut way back on my spending this year, but when the numbers came in on my Discover card, it was clear that my spending hadn’t decreased at all. If anything, it went up. Take that on top of the $389+ I had just put on there for my refrigerator repair and my bill seemed overwhelming.

When I paid the first statement, I paid it in increments throughout the month until the full statement amount had been paid. I took the $389 from savings and the rest from my bonus and some overtime my husband worked. The dates crossed over onto two statements thank goodness, splitting the amount owed into two payments that wouldn’t cost me any interest since I wouldn’t be carrying a balance from one statement to the next. That left the next statement, which still came in at $1,118. Eeik!

So, lesson learned? Cash, cash, cash. I should have carried cash and stopped spending when I hit zero.

I’ve already talked to my husband and he agrees that this is what we’re going to do next year. We’ve also added $50 a month to our savings so we have the money when the time comes. That’s approximately $11.60 per week and we think we can handle that okay.

Refinanced home loan to save money

Our original plans when we started talking about the refinancing of our home loan was a simple re-fi to cut our interest rate. Then my husband started talking truck. Now, I understand the need for the truck. The truck we have won’t pull the camper more than a twenty or thirty miles before it starts acting up. It’s a 1994 model and it doesn’t have the power needed to handle the weight of the camper. I want to take some trips this year to some campgrounds that are farther from home. I mean, we bought the camper; we’re paying for it, and I want to use it.

But the numbers didn’t make sense and we had to sacrifice the dream of having a few extra dollars on our house payment and no other payments and a newer used truck.

The refinance of the principal only incurred no fees (at our local small-town bank) and our interest rate went from 7% to 5.75%. Before you mention that I could have gotten a better rate somewhere else, you might be right, but we’ve never had to have an appraisal and we paid $0 in fees.  This is just a 2 year balloon based on our original construction loan. We won’t qualify to get a traditional mortgage with all the associated fees and hassles until we finish our master bathroom’s shower and some additional work on our staircase. I like having my loan at my local small-town bank and will probably keep it there for as long as possible.

The refinance to get cash back, however, was a different story. The rocky economy has made even my small-town bank nervous. To get the $10,000 cash out, we would have had to get an appraisal and pay fees and it would have cost about $1,500 total. Not worth it in any universe. I want to reduce my debt not add to it, if that’s at all possible!

Finally, my lender asked if I wanted my first payment due in January or February. I said February. And just like that, I had the money to pay my Discover card. :-)

Buying a truck

Okay, so I’m not sure how this fits with my determination to get debt free forever, but here you have it. We need a truck. We’re going to buy used, and since my husband is handy with the autos, we’re hoping to get the best deal possible. But that still means $6,000 to $8,000 we need to come up with.

$500  – Tax refund

$1,000 – Bonus (fingers crossed for more!)

$2,400 – Truck we’re selling (if we get within a few hundred of our asking price)

$145 – Difference in old house payment and new house payment

Finally, we’re going to get rid of our third car. At the moment we have two small cars. One, my husband drives to work (80 mile commute, 5 days, 34 mpg) and one, I drive (112 mile commute, 2 days, 34 mpg — BUT I get reimbursed for gas based on actual cost). Two days a week, I’ll drive the truck to work. My husband will start driving my car, since we’re going to sell his. We should come out with no changes to our gas budget, since my car is the family car and will remain the vehicle of choice for weekend and evening driving.

So, that gives me the last bit of money we need to pay for the truck.

$2,000 – Car we’re selling

Closer than ever to living debt-free

Despite all that’s happened in the last few months, I feel closer than ever to living debt-free.

Going forward, that $145 difference in our house payment is going to go toward one of my current debts (see my NetworthIQ for details of my debts). I’m excited. Once we have this truck, we’ll have everything in place to start moving forward, and barring any emergencies that we aren’t yet financially prepared for, we’ll have time to start saving now for future purchases.