I was speaking about ways to save money with a coworker who mentioned that she wanted to buy a house soon. She was worried about the rate she would get because she knew her credit score was bad .

This person, I’ll call her S, said she had a lot of unpaid medical bills and phone bills from her past. There were also a few bills that had been late in the past but then she had settled with the company so she hoped that had already dropped off her credit report.

S told me she was thinking of hiring a credit repair company to clean up her credit report because she had heard they could take items off. This is the point where I had to stop her and put on my Personal Finance hat. In the short time that I have been blogging about my personal finances I think I have learned a few things that I could share with someone.

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I got LASIK surgery in December 2007 and was able to get a great deal to save money by not having any interest payments on the balance. I want to wear colored contact lenses again so I thought I would call up the eye doctor where I had my LASIK done and get a prescription.

Now the last time I went in for an exam they told me that I could just call in to get the prescription because the brand of contacts that I wanted was not one they were really familiar with. I called the doctor to get my stuff set up only to be met with a brick wall.

I was told that most people who got LASIK never wanted to see another contact lens for the rest of their life …so the doctors there did not write prescriptions any more.

What they would do is to order the lenses for the person who really wanted them and the person would collect the lenses from the office. They then proceeded to tell me that this brand of contact lens that I wanted was not one they were affiliated with so they would not be ordering it for me.

Now this is what I don’t understand. Even if they do not write prescriptions because they do not carry prescription pads in the office..they know what my prescription would be. The place that I order my contact lenses from would call the office to verify that this was indeed the correct prescription. The piece of paper is simply something that I can have in my hands if I decided to walk into a store or if I needed to get the contacts on a Sunday when the doctor’s office was closed.

The REAL prescription is what is noted in my file and since the contact lens place has to call and speak to the doctor, who has to check the file, I don’t really NEED to have a physical piece of paper in my hand. Case in point where I ‘forgot’ the prescription one time and the contact lens place said they did not need it..just hold on a minute while they called my eye doctor.

So now they are refusing to give me the prescription over the phone or even tell me what my eyes measured at because they do not ‘give out prescriptions’.

They are telling me that I need to go to another doctor…and pay more money to have another eye exam done in order to get a prescription.

What do you think of this situation?


Update : After spending a long time on the phone I finally got through to someone who told me the reason they do not write prescriptions is because the doctor does not recommend that people wear contacts. He believes that the use of contacts puts your eyes at risk for infection so once he does the surgery you need to go somewhere else to get contact lenses because the office does not want to be ‘responsible’ for if you get an infection.

Okay now I understand the concern here…but how is it their responsibility if I get an eye infection from wearing contacts? If I am not responsible enough to take care of my eyes then that is my business. Once they do the surgery and you are clear within the time period what happens after is not the doctor’s concern.

Once the other eye doctors write the prescription it is not their business if you choose to sleep in the contacts or clean them with water from a puddle in the middle of the road.

They did finally tell me that I had 20/20 vision in both eyes according to the last visit..but said I could not get a specific ‘prescription’ because of the policy of the center.

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Welcome to my daily tracking of income and expenses for the month at How I Save Money.

Income for the month to date: $salary + miscellaneous

Expenses for the month to date: $went over budget on gas and food

Net effect: $290.57

I left the income amount blank because I did not want to reveal my salary. I did have a few more expenses on the last day that took the income amount over what I last posted but the net effect this month was positive .

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I am very happy to announce the formation of The Wealth, Money & Life Network (WML-Net). How I Save Money is proud to be a charter member of this new personal finance network.

The members of the network realize that it is a tremendous task for anyone to manage his or her personal finances alone and we all need some help.

You may have thought that you had to think of everything finance related on your own but with the creation of the network you now have access to a support group. This is a group of people who can provide you with encouragement and share general information on personal finance matters based on our life experiences.

The WML-Net is made up of a diverse group of individuals who have a wealth of experience that comes from our experiences as individuals ranging in age from the 20s to the 40s. We are located in different parts of the U.S.; ranging from the east coast to the west coast, from the midwest to the southwest to the deep-south. Our backgrounds are varied and include careers, education, income streams and lifestyles.

Some of us have debt, while others do not. There are those who are married, with and without children, while others are single. Some of us have a college degree and there are those who do not.

We are excited about this opportunity to share with you what we have to offer. Since we realize that no one situation is alike, our diverse group will able to provide you with insights based on our own various personal finance experiences.

Each month we will present a topic and approach it based on our own unique experiences. The topic for May is Emergency Funds and I encourage you to visit each member site to get a look at Emergency Funds from different perspectives. I certainly look forward to hearing about each member’s approach to the topic of having an emergency fund. If you would like to share your posts about having an emergency fund , feel free to contact any of us to add it to the network post at The Wealth, Money & Life Network site.

You can also click here to submit your post to the Carnival of Wealth, Money & Life if you have a post that is not on Emergency Funds but deals with other aspects of personal finance. The carnival will be traveling to different member blogs so you can always send in a submission at any time.

Be sure to pay a visit to the other The Wealth, Money & Life Network member sites and subscribe to their feed, and my feed, if you haven’t done so already. The links below will get you there quickly!

Dividends4Life

Dollar Frugal

Her Every Cent Counts

How I Save Money

Living Off Dividends & Passive Income

Saving For A Home

The LocoMono Website

Also, be sure to bookmark The Wealth, Money & Life Network site so you can visit on a regular basis.

We look forward to sharing our financial and life experiences with you in the future!

Popularity: 14% [?]

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In my quest to save money and make more money to get rid of that debt, I decided to go on an interview. Actually I have been looking for another job for a while now since I am not where I truly want to be just yet.

I got a phone call from a company where I submitted my resume and went in for the initial interview. It was for a sales position but I went anyway because the company has had some rapid growth and looked promising. The first interview went well and I got a call back for a second interview.

The position was in sales to customers of a very large Fortune 500 company. The company provided the leads daily and the sales people were to contact the customers to get them to upgrade to a new package.

I was excited up until the point where I was told to wear flat shoes because I would be doing a lot of walking . That put me in a bit of a funk because I thought the sales were conducted over the telephone. I still decided to give it a try and then we started to talk about income.

The manager told me that the position paid commission only for the time that you worked in sales. Only the managers and other non-sales personnel were paid a salary. When I asked what the average sales person made the figure quoted was significantly less than what I had seen on Salary.com as a reasonable rate for that position. It was also less than what I currently make and given the amount of debt I still have I decided that it just was not worth it.

The commission was a flat rate for every package sold, which sounded to me like you needed to sell a lot of packages daily in order to get any money. The hiring manager told me that there was not a quota to be met daily, but you do get paid based on your performance. Now if I had been in a better financial situation I might have considered taking the position but it is not something that will work for me right now.

I am also not into the sales thing at all so I guess I made the right decision. Would you work for commission only or do you need a regular salary every month?

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Today is Earth Day and we should all focus on what we can do to save money and save the earth at the same time.

Turn off unnecessary appliances and lights.

Throw your trash in the bins provided.

Walk more and save on the gas.

Bring your lunch to work.

Recycle something today.

Open the windows and get some fresh air instead of running the air conditioning. (People in Texas I am talking to YOU!!!)

What are YOU doing today to help save our Earth?

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Welcome to my daily tracking of income and expenses for the month.

Income for the month to date: $213.46

Expenses for the month to date: $1870.01

Net effect: -$1656.55

I paid the cable and spent an additional $27.36 on food for the month, which includes snacks. I really need to cut down on the junk food because I bought a bag of cheesy poufs (yum yum) and a package of sugar cookies. Both of these, especially the sugar cookies, are really bad for my health.

Oh but they taste sooooooooooo good.

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If you are interested in Feng Shui you might want to check out this simple start to Feng Shui called Feng Shui: My Way over at My Beauty and Fashion . This is a new, up and coming blog that covers topics like Beauty, Makeup, Fashion, Feng Shui and Being a Diva.

A great site for all you girly, girls who love all things Pink and frilly and fluffy…at affordable prices.

Popularity: 19% [?]

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