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As with most people, I had to renew my license plate tabs again this year.

Something new I noticed, though, was that we in Michigan now have an option to renew for 2 years at a time, instead of just one.

“That’s a good idea,” I thought, ready to take advantage of halving the vehicle paperwork over the next several years. I got most of the way through the process online, and then it showed my total: exactly double the one-year rate.

When I state it like that, you may think “what’s the big deal? It’s twice as long so it should be twice as much.” Yes, but the down side outweighs the up side, at least to me.

The Michigan Secretary of State is thinking that most people will go along with my initial thought (“less work for me”) and not think any further.

But I want a price discount from them before I sign up for a longer term. Mainly because I have 4 vehicles, and that’s around $450 per year. If I sign up for two years at once, I am giving the state a $450 interest-free loan for that second year.

What is my incentive to give them a chunk of money up front and lose out on my using that money for a year? Especially now, with interest rates being higher.

For example, most Certificates of Deposit are giving about 5%. For a 1-year CD at 5%, that $450 would earn me $22.50. If Michigan wants me to lose out on theoretical interest, they need to give me a discount for the longer term.

Plus, how much does it cost them to mail out reminders, process the renewal, and print out the new tabs? Why don’t they pass those savings on to me? I don’t even need my discount to be all of what they save, but they need to make at least some effort.

For now, all the benefits go to the state and I’m left with only drawbacks. So I’m going to keep renewing annually, until they come up with a better offer.

Here’s a lesson from the grocery store this last week: is a bigger box of cereal a better deal than the smaller size of the same cereal?

Answer: usually, but watch out for sales.

Exhibit A:

Looking at the non-sale price, you see that the larger box (19.1 oz) is a better deal because it is 26.1 cents/ounce – lower than the 26.3 cpo for the 12.5 oz box.

As an aside, I prevent whining from the kids about picking out cereals when they accompany me to the grocery store. I do this by having a consistent rule and reminding them of it beforehand. Before we reach the cereal aisle, I let them know they can each pick out one box of cereal, whatever they want as long as it is less than 20 cpo. This heads off questions about what they can get and keeps them busy as they scan the shelves for qualifying items and weigh their options. It also usually weeds out bad choices such as Lucky Charms, but on the rare occasion when that is on sale I do let them get it.

Back to today’s topic… The sale price knocks the price of the smaller box down to be the better deal: 19.9 cpo vs. 23.5 cpo.
And if you buy 6 of them, you can save even more. Either way, the big box ends up being the worse value in this case. I’ve seen it where the small box was on sale but the large box was not, yet the large box was still a better deal, so don’t be drawn in by large colorful “SALE PRICE” signs – read the fine print.

Plus, shopping is so much nicer when they list the cents/ounce on the shelf tag.

Related to my Trip Booking Tips on credit cards: I thought I’d let you know my credit card strategy for life in general.

I have multiple credit cards. Not too many, but enough to spread the risk around. Or rather keep the damage limited if something does happen.

I have one credit card that I use for swiping at physical locations (grocery store, gas stations, etc.) The problem is reduced by the new chip cards, but there are still plenty of opportunities for skimmers to steal my information from swipe machines. Which means that I don’t use this card for other things, especially recurring charges.

I have another card I use for online transactions. This is the number I enter just about every time I buy something online, so I have it memorized and haven’t touched the actual card in months.

If I were doing it right, I would have a third card for recurring transactions. But I don’t want to juggle too many cards, so I put these on the online card.

And one more thing: if I know I’m going to be going to a restaurant, I take enough cash so I don’t have to use a credit card. I’m suspicious whenever someone takes my credit card away where I can’t see it. Plus, it makes leaving the restaurant easier – I don’t have to wait for the waitress to come back with my card. I just hand her the cash (bill plus tip, rounded up to the nearest dollar), tell her it’s all set, and then I can leave whenever I want.

Another thing I do is not trust telling someone my credit card information over the phone. Booking websites, yes. Most of those are automated and there’s no chance for a rogue employee at the establishment to walk away with my information. Losing information to hackers is a possibility, but that’s at another level. I can’t do anything about that.

My credit card was compromised a couple years ago. The CC company caught on and did not fulfill the fraudulent purchase, but I still had the hassle of cancelling that card and getting a new one. No, that wasn’t the hassle. The hassle was remembering all the places that used that card for recurring transactions and updating them with the new card info. The monthly transactions weren’t that bad – just a glance at the previous statement told me those. But there were some annual transactions that were trickier to find. And one I didn’t find until the company notified me that they were denied.

I have a pretty good idea of what happened to get into that mess. It happened shortly after I called a place to book a reservation. It was a smaller operation, one that did not handle reservations online. And it was a seasonal operation, meaning that a lot of the staff were college age, or maybe even high schoolers. My guess is that I happened to get one of the untrustworthy ones. He probably entered my information into their booking system and also wrote it down for himself to use later. Maybe he tried to use it himself. Maybe he was just a runner who got paid to gather information for someone else. Doesn’t really matter.

What does matter is that I now use a Virtual Account Number if I have to give a credit card number over the phone. Not every CC company has them (mine does but my wife’s does not. Yes, we have separate cards. For risk mitigation purposes).

When I see that a place says “Call for reservations” I go to my CC website and generate a VAN with a limit slightly over the expected cost and an expiration date just after the expected time. I tell the VAN to the suspect place, so if my CC is compromised, I can tell the CC company those are not real purchases and I don’t have to do any more damage control or scramble with giving a new CC# to companies that I do want to have it on file.

I received a medical bill. I recognized the name of the medical establishment, and I recognized the charge. And that’s good for them, because if I just read what they were asking, I would have thought it was a scam:

I’m going to assume it’s just a poor choice of words, or someone wanting to type as few words as possible, or something benign rather than an actual scam.

I do hope no one takes their words literally and mails in their credit card instead of their credit card information.

I received a bill from a medical facility. Along with the bill was this letter, which was trying to explain why the bill was sent about 3 months after the procedure:

Text of the letter:

Dear Laboratory Patient:

We apologize for the delay in the release of your bill. X installed new computer software. Due to circumstances beyond our control, there were delays in interfacing the new system with some insurers. This work is now complete and patient bills are being processed. Once again, we are sorry for the delay.

Should you have any questions please contact us at XXX-XXX-XXXX or email: x@x.com

Thank you for using X.

I thought about waiting 3 more months, then sending this response along with my payment.

Dear Laboratory:

I apologize for the delay in the release of your payment. I installed new computer software, as opposed to non-computer software. Due to circumstances beyond my control, there were delays in interfacing the new software with my bank account. This work is now complete and invoices are being processed. Once again, I am sorry for the delay.

Should you have any questions, too bad.

Thank you,

Patient

But I didn’t.

The last time we had a baby, he cost as much as a good used car. This time, 2 years later, the costs went up about 1 grand – still within the realm of a good used car (or cheap new car). I suppose you could say that the baby was free – it was all the other people who were costly.

One thing that has improved is the timing of the bills. Two years ago, it took months for the hospital and doctors to send me their bills. This time, it took them only weeks.

This post is for all of you who were wondering how much it costs to have a baby these days. And if you weren’t wondering, maybe you are now. And “have a baby” does not mean raise or care for a baby – it means “deliver in a hospital”. And this does not include C-section, which would cost significantly more.

This post also does not list how much I actually paid. I am listing here how much the hospital and doctors charged for the whole thing. They sent those bills to my insurance company, which in turn reminded the hospital and doctors that they had worked out a deal so they will be paying only so much. Of that amount, the insurance paid some and I paid some. And the part that I paid came out of the medical account, which is funded with pre-tax dollars.

Here is the breakdown of the bills:

Wife:
$8000 for the hospital stay
$3000 for the doctor’s services
$1100 for the anesthesiologist (epidural)
$750 for the anesthesia itself (epidural)

Baby:
$2400 for the hospital stay
$255 for the circumcision
$200 for a hearing and wellness check

Total: $15,705 (US dollars)

Having a new child: priceless

Just like last time, it cost $255 more to have a boy than a girl. But I’m still betting I’ll come out ahead (no pun intended) in the long run.