$500 to Honda Windward, my deductible for truck repair;
$224.20 to Hotwire, for my car rental;
$10 in cash to a couple of friends for giving me rides during this tough time.

GEICO’s share of this was more than $800. Yes, I’ll get 5% in rebates on the repair and rental, but that’s only a small bit of the total that I shell out of pocket. Still, I’m lucky; at least I have that money to do the repairs necessary. To this day, I still don’t feel angry toward the individuals who did this; I just feel sorry that they were that desperate. It’s sad, though; just think how much good that money could have done donated to a social service agency or given out in gifts to those in need. But instead, it’s now in the hands of the repair shop and the car rental company, which will help their businesses, but not as many as it could have.

The Money Hacks Carnival, brought to you this week by Steadfast Finances;

The Carnival of Money Stories, with this week’s edition hosted by Funny About Money;

and finally, the Carnival of Personal Finance, brought to us this week by Living Almost Large.

If you’re visiting us from one of these, welcome!

No amount of stuff is worth this kind of tragedy. No discount can be enough for someone to die.

As a former retail manager (at a store about a thousand times smaller than WalMart), it frightens me that crowds could become so uncrontrollable.

While I’m not opposed to capitalism in any way, this is the kind of tragedy that makes me wonder what people have as priorities in their lives. I wish only the best for his family and friends.

While this is likely a great development for Rael Dornfest of Values of n, it leaves users of the two services without the information and utility they’ve come to depend on. Yes, there are replacements–Remember The Milk is a popular alternative–but it brings forth a scary thought: are the online services I use, including the data I have there, safe?

It’s not an unreasonable question. For instance, not long ago I discussed Google based applications, and while there are few tech companies as profitable and large as Google, it’s clear that it’s possible that your data and utilities can just go away.

This is not totally unprecedented. For instance, when Internet service providers have changed hands or gone out of business, your email address (and sometimes your email and your Web site or anything else stored there) would go away as well. So how to prepare?

Treat your online services and data just like any other kind of computer–meaning backup, backup, backup! Redundancy is good. Take this Web site–it’s 100% backed up locally at the end of each week. Email is archived regularly and my personal computers all have dedicated backup drives. Remember: backing up saves money; just treat your online services and data the same way. And consider having your own domain for email; even if we think GMail is forever, you never know when you’ll need a different address.

I have a little time for perspective today. I’ve been stating a lot recently that I need some antisocial time, basically meaning I’ve been feeling like I’ve had too many obligations and not enough time to take care of parts of my life that I consider important to myself but not so important to other people. And while things have not been ideal (right now I’m still not feeling 100%, my truck fiasco is not yet resolved, and I had a couple of my very young clients pass away in the last two weeks), I am still quite fortunate and thankful.

Part of my thanks is to all of you for helping to make this blog a success. Uncommon Cents continues to grow and while it’s not by any means my primary or secondary source of income, it’s doing better and better as time goes on. Thanks to all of you and have a great holiday (if you’re in America; if you’re not in America, have a great day anyway).

This is certainly a higher dollar purchase than many, and I’m not sure that the buyer could even afford the first camera, let alone the second. A discussion about having the flash repaired (or going with an external flash) ensued, which resulted in research about the cost to repair the flash, the cost of an external flash, and the apparent desire of the photographer to have a perfect camera.

Searches on Amazon and eBay ensued, price comparison was done, until the potential buyer stated that she didn’t want to wait for a camera to ship; she wanted it, and she wanted it now, and it was worth several hundred dollars in price difference to have it now.

While I certainly understand that sometimes there’s a pressing matter that needs to be attended to where price becomes less of an issue, and there are advantages to buying locally. But an item like this–definitely a luxury, as it does not relate to her livelihood in any way–is a case where this seems to be simply a matter of desire overwhelming everything else.

The power of now–at least in this case–is a couple of hundred dollars.

Is that worth it?

Some of the expenses that I (and others) have for entertainment–television, music, movies, magazines, newspapers, books–can be replaced free or at low cost with a computer and fast access to the Internet–or what passes for fast access in the US (and with the proper equipment, on a television and through a home sound system). Others can be replaced with decidedly lower tech but time tested solutions–thrift stores and the public library.

Television: Many of the network Web sites have replays of their shows available, or you can also try Hulu. iTunes has lots of shows for sale at pretty low cost as well. If you can stand to wait, often after a season is done, they are often available on DVD as a complete set.

Music: the iTunes Store or competitors like Amazon allow people to buy just a single song at a time for a buck or less. AOL Radio, Last.fm, and Pandora let you set up “stations” of your favorite artists or genres; The Sixty One helps you discover new music; and lets not forget how independent artists like Geoff Smith or Jonathan Coulton sell music directly to the listener on the Internet. And the library may be a big help here; our public library system has hundreds if not thousands of CDs available for borrowing at no cost.

Movies: Subscription type services like Netflix allow either rental of DVDs or streaming video into your home; the iTunes Store also sells or rents movies online. Let’s not forget our old friend the public library; here DVDs are rented for a buck for a week! Also see the discussion above on the public library for DVDs; remember that a lot of shows come out on DVD after the season!

Magazines and newspapers: The public library has magazines free for browsing in house and often has a swap table where magazines are exchanged without cost; let’s also keep in mind that Web sites often have all or most of the content of the magazines online.

Books: Repeat after me: the public library. Besides loaners, we also have “honorbacks”, which people can just take and return at their leisure. Additionally, our libraries have “Friends of the Library” groups which have book sales on a constant basis. And let’s not overlook thrift stores as well.

There are many ways to cut your entertainment costs; as you can see above, some are right at your computer, others involve some low tech time tested institutions, but all of them can help you spend less, and that’s what frugality ends up being all about!

My emergency fund, which I’m going to need to tap soon, is at iGoBanking.com. This is a true online bank; no checks, but online transfer options galore. The interest there was the highest I could find when I started, and now pays 3.28%; as usual (just like all my other bank accounts), it’s FDIC insured–not that I have anywhere close to $100,000, let alone $250,000, in there.

My budgeted expense account, where I send in a certain amount of money twice a month for regular expenses like mortgage, insurance, vehicle registration, and memberships, gets a lot of action; it’s in a Capital One Direct account. This has an ATM card (which I’ve never used) and checks (which I do use, although there is a limit on how many checks I can write a month) as well as online transfers. I can also send in deposits in prepaid envelopes, which I like. It pays 2.98% interest, which is less than the iGoBanking.com account, but the check writing makes it more flexible (as you may be able to tell, while I can get my money in a couple days with the iGoBanking.com account–the emergency one–a couple of days can be a real issue).

Finally, my standard, everyday account is at a local bank. I’ve had it since college at a bank my mom is a retiree of. It pays no interest, but I keep it there due to its accessibility and the fact it’s linked with my mother’s accounts in the event she needs money urgently. The local ATMs and branches are an advantage, and they recently opened one branch in a supermarket that’s seven days a week. It has limited online banking as well.

Having multiple funds is a given; having multiple accounts helps me to keep my banking situation straight on paper as well as in my head. This might be a concept worth trying if you, like me, need help keeping your money separated physically as well as mentally.

Some of the expenses that are out the next few weeks:

Taking one of my friends out for her birthday;
First birthday party for a coworker’s daughter;
Coworker’s wedding;
Going away party for two coworkers.

Some of the expenses that are suspended for awhile:

Nikon D40 digital single lens reflex camera;
1.5 terabyte hard drive.

Some of the expenses that will be paid without interruption:

Offering (tithing at the temple);
Mortgage;
Monthly investment via Sharebuilder;
Regular budgeting for fixed expenses;
Connectivity (Internet, phone) bills.

Some of the expenses that will be looked at for any way to reduce them:

Lunch out on the weekends;
Holiday presents;
Coffee and snacks.

It’s unfortunate that all of this happened; I will miss the fun of going out with my friends (even though I’m not going, gifts are on the way–I find that for me, giving a gift is a priority, but going on the outing, which only saves me a small bit, is not), and I really wanted to get a hard drive with more capacity for my growing media collection. Still, this is what might be called a first world problem. This is not my losing my home or being unable to afford food to eat. In a theme continuing from last week, I realize I have lots to be thankful for in this holiday season and am far more fortunate than many others. Sooner or later, I’ll get a new digital camera and a larger hard drive–and I’ll do it without going into debt and with a fully funded emergency fund.

The real issue regarding the money isn’t so much the $724 being spent (although it’s not like that doesn’t hurt), but the fact that that $724 can’t be spent on anything else. I was hoping to get a head start on my 2009 Roth IRA contribution, but that’s out the window; I was thinking I could pad my emergency fund a little, but instead, I’m needing to dip into it a bit; and I was hoping it would allow for a little more to be spent on holiday presents, but now it might cause a little less on them.

This is real life opportunity cost–I’ve lost the opportunity, at least for now, to use the money for things I’d like to and instead for things I have to. Often, however, opportunity cost is time, and while more money can be made, once time is gone, it’s gone, and it’ll never be recouped.

For me, time that’s been lost has been the time I spent waiting for the police and the tow truck on Monday night; time trading phone calls with GEICO and the shop; time I spent taking off early from work on Thursday to pick up the rental, including waiting in line and waiting for shuttles; and time I’ve spent figuring out what items I’ve lost or been unable to use because of the whole incident. That’s time I’ll never get back, and time I could have spent on all kinds of projects, personal and professional–that’s real opportunity cost, or, more to the point, opportunity lost.

While I wish this whole thing had never happened, it has–I can’t change that. But the $724 (and counting) is just part of what the incident is costing me; the time, which I can never get back, is the other part of it, and that is the much bigger loss.