old school emergency finance guide for the terminally online
I put this guide together for those who literally have no clue how to make payments if your debit or credit card gets frozen.
Before I begin, everything I'm going to say here is common sense to anybody born before 1995. And the reason I say that is because even if you were born in '95, you were 18 years old in 2013, which is right around the time when smartphones were beginning to take over everything. However, you were still taught (or at least should have been) how to pay for things without a phone nor internet.
For those born after '95, however... different story. There are loads of people in their teens and 20s that literally do not know how to address a letter for mailing, much less understand how to pay for anything without a computer. And yeah, that is part of this guide, so let's get to it.
The situation
A day comes when the normal online way you pay decides to stop working. It doesn't matter whether you pay from an app on your phone or a browser on a computer. There's a bill to pay, you can't pay it because the payment system you use decided to break, and now you're in a state of panic.
How do you prepare for a situation like this?
I'll tell you.
Step 1. Have cash on hand somewhere.
When I say "cash on hand", that means you have placed physical cash somewhere in your living space for emergency use. It doesn't matter where it is as long as you can get to it.
The absolute bare minimum of cash on hand should be $100 in small bills. If you're not familiar with that term, small bills usually refers to 20's. This is important because some places do not accept cash in denominations over $20. In other words, have five twenty dollar bills in an envelope somewhere in your living space.
Ideally, you should have $300 to $500 in cash on hand, again in small bills. That amount of physical money should be able to cover most small emergencies for when you need to pay a bill. But, given the state of things these days, asking a younger person to keep that much cash on hand is a big ask. This is why I say if you can get together $100 in cash in small bills, that's better than nothing.
Step 2. Find out the payment mailing address for every account you have.
To make a manual payment through the mail, you need the mailing address to mail it to.
Every credit card issuing bank in the United States has a payment address, and there are usually two. The first one is for normal payments, and it's ordinarily a PO box. The second is either for fast overnight payments and/or higher security when sending a very large payment that requires them to sign to receive it. The one you'll most likely use will be the PO box.
Get the address(es), write it down (yes, actually put pen to paper), and keep it with your physical cash on hand so you actually know where it is.
Step 3. Get the account number for every account you have.
When sending a payment by mail, the account number needs to be listed on your payment. I'll give more detail on this in a moment. An example of an account number would be the credit card number printed on the card. The expiration date and CVV is not necessary. Just the account number.
Step 4. Buy security envelopes and a book of stamps.
Regular envelopes and security envelopes look the same on the outside, but the inside of the security envelope has a printed pattern so you can't see what's inside when held up to a light bulb.
You'll notice on listings for security envelopes that the product photo actually shows the pattern on the inside, because that's the whole reason you buy them in the first place.
A book of "forever stamps" is available to purchase at your local post office and most grocery stores. You'll probably be going to the grocery store to get your stamps. You can't buy stamps off a shelf because that's not the way they are sold. Go to the customer service area or wherever they issue the money orders to get them.
And speaking of which...
Step 5. Learn how to purchase a money order.
If you don't have a checking account or the one you have becomes frozen for whatever reason, a money order is how you buy something that looks and acts like a check, but you buy them as one-time purchases. Money orders are not things you buy now and save for later, because they do expire if not used within a certain period of time, meaning you buy it when you need it. Also, money orders are not free, but not expensive either.
Generally speaking, there are three places to buy money orders. Any bank, any post office, and most grocery stores.
Chances are you'll probably be buying your stamps (which you can save for later) and your money orders all from the grocery store.
How do you buy the money order? With the cash you have on hand. Just remember the money order costs extra. It should be between $1.50 to $3 per money order, depending on where you go. Banks always charge the most, the post office usually charges the least, and the grocery store is usually mid-priced (although sometimes they beat the USPS in price, depending on store).
For example, if you need to send a payment of $20 and the cost of a money order is $1.50, you're going to spend $21.50.
Putting it all together
On the money order, you write down the name of the company you're sending the payment to, and your account number in the memo field, which is usually at lower left. After that, put the money order in the envelope.
On the envelope, you write down the full payment address in the middle of the envelope, write YOUR address at the top left of the envelope, and then place one stamp at the top right of the envelope. And when I say YOUR address at top left, make sure that address matches that of your account you're making a payment on.
After that, mail the letter. The three general ways to do this are:
Mailbox at a house. You put the letter in the mailbox and then turn the little plastic or metal flag on the side of the mailbox upward. An upward flag tells the postal worker who delivers the mail that there is a letter in there to be mailed out. He or she will take the letter the next time they come by and bring it back to the post office to be mailed out.
If it's a cluster of mailboxes at an apartment complex, there will be a slot somewhere on the cluster just for outgoing mail. That slot should be marked with a sticker that says "OUTGOING MAIL". If you can't find where it is, ask your apartment manager to show you.
At most post offices is the big blue box, which is literally a big blue metal box that sits outside. Some have a big slot you can put outgoing mail into, others have a pull-down flap, and some have both. Either one can be used for outgoing mail. Alternatively, if you go to the post office while it's open, you can walk inside, go to a clerk, hand them your letter and ask to add to their outgoing mail.
Postmarking, and why it's important
You have a bill due next Monday, but the only time you can mail your payment out is on Friday. Obviously, your mailed money order will not get to the company by Monday. Does that mean you will get a late fee?
No. Or rather, you shouldn't.
If you look at any regular letter you receive in the mail (meaning not a flyer), you'll see the outside of the envelope stamped with a date. That is a postmark, and that date is not when the letter was sent, but rather when the letter was received for processing by the post office.
That postmark is what companies go by for determining if a payment has arrived late or not. If you mail your payment on Friday, and your letter is picked up whether from a house mailbox, cluster mailbox or post office itself, it will be postmarked as that Friday date.
What this means is that if a bill is due next Monday, you mailed your payment on Friday, but the mailed letter isn't received by the company you mailed it to until next Wednesday, that's technically not a late payment because of the Friday postmark.
I said above that you shouldn't get a late fee for paying a bill this way. The reality is that it depends on whom your sending the payment to. Most companies will honor the postmark. But some other businesses (usually landlords) may get a bug up their backside where if a bill isn't physically received by the due date, you get socked with a late charge no matter what.
If this concerns you, call the company and ask if they honor postmarks for bill payments. They will know exactly what you mean when you inquire about it, and it's a fair question to ask anyway, because you're just trying to pay a bill on time.
Generally speaking, the best way to stay ahead of the curve with mailed payments is to always mail payments one full week in advance unless a major holiday is approaching. If a mailed payment is happening any time around Christmas Eve, Christmas Day or New Year's Day, increase your lead time to two weeks instead of just one.
Yes, you should make a test payment to try this out
For younger folk who have never mailed out a payment, it's scary stuff because there's a lot of physical involvement here. Get your envelopes, get your stamps, get your money order(s). Mail out the payment(s) and not know when it's actually going to get there (which is the scariest part). And even if the payment is received by the company and successfully processed, it's unlikely you'll be notified about it and you'll have to either go online and see if a payment was processed, or (gasp!) call the company and ask if they got the payment or not.
My personal take on this whole process
To me, one of the more amazing things is that money orders, even as ancient as they are, still exist and sell very well. There's more than a fair share of people to this day who pay most if not all their bills by mail using nothing but money orders.
Why? Several reasons, but there are two big ones.
First, most companies won't accept cash payments in the mail.
Officially, the USPS says it's legal to mail cash up to $500, and if over $500 it has to be sent via registered mail. But again, most companies won't accept a payment in the mail as cash, so it's not even worth the bother.
Second, some people just don't like banks.
Since companies won't accept cash payments in the mail, a mailed payment has to be in the form of a check (personal check, bank check, cashier's check, business check, certified check, traveler's check or whatever), or a money order.
Money orders do not require using a bank to get one. Yes, the bank obviously offers them, but most who use money orders will just go to the post office or grocery store whenever one is needed.
As electronically connected as we all like to think we are, every now and then you come across somebody who is as anti-connected as they come and pays for everything with cash and money orders. Yes, people like this spend an extra $1.50 to $3 every time they pay a bill, not including the cost of envelopes and stamps, but they're happy to pay bills that way.
Reasons vary wildly as to why some people are 100% cash-and-money-order types, but oh yes, they're out there.
Old school bill pay knowledge is good to know
I'm glad the money order still exists, if for no other reason than it's a guaranteed way to get out a payment that will absolutely work. A money order cannot be argued with because it has to be funded in advance for it even to exist.
Even if you are a Gen X like me, you really should take the time to gather the account number and payment address information for every active account you have. And you should have some cash on hand like I said above should you ever need to do the money order thing.
If you need to pay a bill, and your normal online way of paying goes on the fritz or a card stops working or whatever it is, yeah, that will suck. But you can still get out a payment the old school way with a check or money order just like you used to do and get on with life.
my totally disgusting phone case
My phone case looks nasty, but it's what happens when a phone case gets used because these things obviously don't last forever.
While the case would suggest otherwise, my phone is actually in very good condition. The screen only has a few minor scratches on it, the back and sides have no scratches, and I can still clean and polish up my phone to a mirror shine.
The case, however, is just one step away from giving up the ghost. Recently, the plastic finally started coming apart.
The only part of my phone that looks slightly bad is the charge port, mainly because fabric fluff gets in there (which I did clean out) from being in my pocket.
At the charge/data port is where the plastic broke, and on the side next to the bumper is a big ol' crack. On the case, not the phone.
With the case on, it makes the phone look dinged, pitted, rusted and all sorts of horrible. This is a kind of a neat illusion, because again, the phone is actually in very good shape.
Yes, I am one of those people that prefers transparent clear phone cases, and for the very specific reason that I can see what's going on better when the case gets old.
Yes, shockproof cases exist, and they do last longer. But I like the thinner clear cases.
In the way clear/transparent cases age, they start yellowing, then develop staining (just on the case), then fall apart.
This may sound bad, but to me it's not, because I can see the aging happening sooner when the case is clear.
Yes, I have ordered another clear case. Just a basic one. I could have spent more and bought one that's non-yellowing, but I just went with a basic clear since I'm not rough on my phone.
things i hate about fender stratocaster design
Recently, I traded out my Squier Affinity Stratocaster. My main guitar is now the Yamaha Pacifica PAC112VM.
A big reason I parted with the Strat is because there are three main things about Stratocaster design that really annoy me.
- The knobs. Plastic press-down knobs suck. Metal knurled knobs with a set screw are far better. Fortunately, these are inexpensive and easy to acquire, so it's an easy fix.
- Cleaning the pots properly is a ridiculously complicated process. To do this right, the strings have to come off, and all 11 pick guard screws must be removed. Only two Fender Strat models escape this nightmare, and I'll mention them in a moment.
- I'm always wishing for more "oomph" from the bridge side pickup. The solution for this is go HSS (which I did), or get a "Nashville" Stratocaster so you get the overwound Telecaster style bridge pickup. Fender currently does not have a Strat Nashville model, but Squier does with the Paranormal Custom Nashville Stratocaster. It's also nice the controls are on a Tele plate, meaning the pick guard does NOT have to come off to clean the pots.
In order to stay in Fender world and have a Strat where the pick guard doesn't need to be removed to clean the pots, the only two Fender Stratocaster models that exist which can accommodate this are the Fender Aerodyne Special Stratocaster and Fender Aerodyne Special Stratocaster HSS.
What's the secret? No pick guard, and the pots are accessible from the back.
Have I played one of these? Yes, I have.
Quite a nice guitar, and easy to maintain, and keeps the head-adjusted truss rod location (no need to remove the neck!), and it keeps the top-mounted output jack too!
I went through Fender's entire catalog of Strats, and this Aerodyne along with the HSS version are literally the only two Strats in Fender's entire lineup where you don't have to fight with a pick guard just to lubricate a scratchy pot.
Will I ever own an Aerodyne? Maybe. My current Pacifica has rear access to the pots, so it gets the job done.
As for the Squier Nashville Strat, I'll pass on that because a Nashville electronics setup is slightly "too Tele" due to that mini single-coil neck side pickup. Yeah, I get the overwound bridge side pickup, but also a weaker neck side pickup. I'd prefer if the guitar had middle and neck Strat pickups, but that's not the way Nashville electronics are, so I can't get it. Not in a production model, anyway.
I will admit however that the Squier Nashville Strat has some nice trick electronics to it. The tone knob is a push/pull that adds in the neck side pickup to positions 1 and 2, effectively giving it 7 different pickup selection options. The extra two options with it enabled are bridge+neck "Tele middle" and all 3 pickups on all at once.
I might be done with Squier
The only reason I'm not done with Fender is specifically because of that Aerodyne Strat. However, that guitar is firmly in the "maybe" category because the HSS does not split to single-coil, and with the SSS, I don't know if the guitar has an output that would agree with me.
Aerodyne as far as I know has always been a Fender Japan thing, still is, and there's nothing wrong with that since it's a solidly built guitar. But it would be nice if there were a Mexico Player version, if for no other reason than to have other Fender color choices without the color matched headstock.
Of the 11 colors Fender has for the Player II, White Blonde, Birch Green, and Aquatone Blue would take to the Aerodyne style very well, even with the existing Player II neck attached. It would work.
As for the body binding, I don't know if Fender Mexico could keep that with an Aerodyne shape, but I'm certain they could craft everything else that is an Aerodyne Strat.
On the Squier end of things, I may be done with that brand. I have my two '89 Squier II Strats, they work, and nothing is coming out of Squier these days that really excites me.
This is not to say Squier isn't trying, as the Nashville Strat they have is a good example of that. And the Affinity Telecaster Thinline is a genuinely nice offering. Getting a semihollow Tele for a lower price is a good thing, and you get it with that guitar.
I'm good with what I have. Maybe I'll have a go with a Fender Aerodyne Strat at some point, but that's later.
outlook classic 2019 saved a yahoo mail account
If I wasn't such a nerd when it comes to email, a bunch of email would probably have been lost forever.
In an ultra rare instance where I actually helped somebody out with a computer problem thing, I successfully moved about 13.5 gigs of email off a Yahoo Mail account so it could become usable again. Yes, this was saving a Yahoo mail account for somebody else since I moved off all web-based email a long time ago.
For years, Yahoo had a 1TB storage limit for email. Recently, Yahoo said there will be no more free 1TB of storage and now the free limit is 20GB. Yahoo also of course says sure, you can get your 1TB back if you want, but now you have to pay for it.
The goal was to not pay that toll, so it was time to figure out how to download a mail backup and then free up space on the Yahoo mail account so it could continue to be usable.
I'm sitting in front of this person's computer, which had a standard Windows 11 installation. Right. Now I have to figure out how to download the mail and back it up locally. Right. Now I'm thinking okay, Windows must come with some kind of email client. I look around and I see two Outlooks. One that's some "new" web-based thing, and another, Outlook Classic from 2019. Outlook Classic appears to support local accounts, which is what I wanted. Sounds good to me, I'll use this.
This is where things temporarily got bad.
In order to download mail from a Yahoo account to a mail client, an "app password" must be generated on the Yahoo side. I go to do this, but I'm getting all sorts of warnings and that phone authentication is required. The person who had this Yahoo account was nearby, I told them to get their phone so I can get that stupid separate app password set up. After some juggling around between the computer and the phone, the app password is generated. Okay, good.
I'm successfully able to get the Yahoo mail account working in Outlook 2019, but hold on there, cowboy, we're not done yet. Not even close.
Now I have to figure out a way to set up a local way to store email so I can actually, y'know, back it up.
This is where the real nightmare happened, because wow, what a process. In order to actually set up a local place to store mail, it required setting up a local PST. That in itself wasn't a big deal, but finding where to do it was where the actual nightmare was. Teeny tiny menu options spread all over Outlook Classic. It was not that different from how mail used to be set up a quarter century ago. Remember Windows 2000? Remember Office 2000? That was the experience, and I'm not exaggerating. It was like I was dealing with email in the early 2000s all over again, except with a modernist Windows UI. Weird. I plodded on.
Okay, I finally get a local PST set up. One file, and I plop it right on the desktop so I know where it is.
Done yet? Nope.
Turns out this person's PC was low on space, and I'm about to synchronize many gigs of email from Yahoo locally. I ask the person I'm doing this backup for if they have an external drive or USB stick I can move files to. They have one. I move a bunch of stuff off the computer, reclaimed the space, and now there's about 55GB free of local space to use. Good.
But we're STILL NOT DONE.
Outlook Classic is now downloading/synchronizing all the email off that Yahoo mail account, and that's not fast even with the fastest of internet connections. I said okay, just leave this computer on overnight and hopefully all the mail will be synchronized tomorrow.
Tomorrow comes.
I go to the computer, check Outlook Classic vs. Yahoo mail to make sure the number of emails match up, which was also a minor nightmare because getting the total number count of emails is annoying to acquire for both Yahoo and Outlook Classic. After hunting and pecking around, I figured out how to get those numbers, because if they match, then the sync was successful. The numbers matched. Good. All the email is synchronized.
Now I have a giant PST of all that Yahoo mail. I do a few tests of connecting/disconnecting it to Outlook Classic to make sure it works. It does. Good.
After that comes documentation time. Documenting what? How to "attach" a PST to Outlook 2019. I screenshot the whole process, screen for screen, with little additional notes and all, and give that to the person the Yahoo account belongs to. I then step them through that whole process to make sure they know how to do it. They do so, make some additional little notes of their own, done. Now they know how to access the backed up email if they ever have to. Good.
After that - because WE'RE STILL NOT DONE YET - copy that entire big honkin' PST file twice. Once to an external drive, once to a USB stick since this person had both. Done. If one PST corrupts/fails/whatever, a backup is ready.
Then FINALLY comes the point where email can be safely deleted out of the Yahoo mail account. I ask the owner of the account if it's okay to only keep email from 2025 and delete everything else. User agrees. I head on in there and mass delete everything older than 2025.
Done yet? Almost. I had to wait for that Yahoo mail to catch up and reindex. It did so a little while later.
DONE. Finally. The Yahoo mail account is safely well within the storage limit and can be used normally once again.
Why does anybody use a Yahoo mail account?
Answer: It's the only email account the user has and it's used to authenticate to everything they have.
At the time I write this, there are Yahoo mail accounts OVER 25 YEARS OLD. Yahoo mail itself is almost 28 years old. Yahoo mail isn't just old enough to drink, but also old enough to rent a car!
I doubt there are many young people signing up for Yahoo mail accounts these days. But as for old accounts, there has to be many millions of them.
Having over 20GB of email sounds insane to most people. But if you were using a free email service that touted 1TB of storage for free, wouldn't you take advantage of that? A bunch of Yahoo mail users did.
Now imagine if all your stuff, that being your banking, social media, forum accounts, EVERYTHING... was all connected to that Yahoo mail account to authenticate with, and oopsie, that 1TB is now 20GB and you need to free up space to fix your busted email account.
When I say busted, I mean truly busted. A Yahoo mail account over the storage limit is effectively locked. You can login to it, but cannot send nor receive any mail AT ALL until storage space within the account is freed back up.
What do you do? Abandoning the email account for another is an option, but for many, that isn't an option at all. That Yahoo mail account has to work because so much stuff is connected to it. Deleting email? Also an option, but for many that's also no-go territory.
If you figured out how to download and back up your Yahoo mail, good for you. Seriously, I mean that.
You might be somebody that uses a Yahoo mail for a lot of stuff, so you figured out how to download/backup your email to keep the account functioning correctly. Very good. Give yourself several pats on the back for that one, because you just saved a bunch of money.
However, I'm sure there will be more than a few Yahoo users who will pay Yahoo to get their 1TB of storage back until they can figure out a way to download/backup everything.
Backing up a Yahoo mail account for free is doable using Outlook Classic 2019, provided you have the space for the backup, and somewhere to put the backup when finished. Easy? Not at all. But doable.
just drive
There's a word that comes to mind when navigation gets so complicated that it becomes ridiculous...
...and that word is convoluted.
Since I'm a navigation nerd, I do sometimes read user reviews of both Garmin navigators like the DriveSmart 66 and popular navigation smartphone apps like Google Maps and Waze. Call it a guilty pleasure, but I do get a laugh reading about the absolutely unreasonable and totally ridiculous feature requests users make.
One of the top complaints has always been routing, which is something that's been going on even before smartphone navigation even existed. Back in the early 2010s when a Garmin nuvi 50LM was what most people used for GPS navigation (or a nuvi 3590 if you were a fancy-pants), oh yeah, people yapped about the routing.
Was the routing bad back then? No. What happened is that if the navigation device didn't calculate a route exactly the way the user wanted, TO THE USER REVIEWS he or she went to give it a 1-star rating.
On the Garmin side of things, there is and has been a way for years to set up routes absolutely exactly the way you want with extremely fine detail, and that's making a route using Garmin BaseCamp software.
You thought you could get ridiculously detailed with routing using Google Maps? You can get even more ridiculous with BaseCamp.
If I wanted to, I could put together a ridiculously long 1,000+ mile route avoiding every tollway, every roundabout, every highway and interstate, every U-turn, use nothing but residential roads, and use no roads exceeding 45mph.
Yeah, I can do that, but won't, because that's convoluted.
Here's an example of something that turned convoluted on me:
There's a specific place I go to once every few months where along the way there's a particularly nasty intersection that always gets jammed up with traffic. Figuring I'd be smart and craft a route around that intersection, I sat down at my computer and created one. Every road seemed to check out, and I was certain the route I made would not only go around that nasty intersection, but also get me to where I wanted to go quicker.
The day comes that I have to drive to that place, I'm ready with my custom route, and off I go. Things are going great, then I get to the part where I go around the intersection, go up a few side roads, and...
...there's an elementary school that I didn't notice when I made my route. And I happened to be going through there exactly at the time school was letting out. Parents in cars everywhere, crossing guards stopping cars, and all the rest of the standard stuff that happens when a school lets out. Traffic is crawling, and there's not a thing I can do except deal with it.
Not only did I not save any time at all, but wasted more time crawling through there at 10 to 15mph along with stops until I finally passed the school. I would have been better off just dealing with that other intersection that gets jacked up with cars.
This isn't to say that creating custom routes is worthless, but it doesn't account for several things, including but not limited to:
- A town deciding to close off Main Street for a parade that you had no idea was going to happen.
- A landscaper's truck blocking an alley that can happen any time during daylight hours.
- A long gravel truck driving exactly where he's not supposed to be and manages to block lanes on both sides of the road where everybody has to wait for 5 to 10 minutes so he can straighten out without hitting a utility pole.
- Road construction that was not reported in advance by anybody and doesn't show up in your navigation system either.
- Random hyper-local weather events like flash flooding, a tree being knocked down, or even something as simple as wind gusts that blow trash/recycle bins directly in the middle of the road.
You get the idea.
How do you accommodate for it all? You don't, because that's impossible. Regardless of how good you are with crafting a custom route, you'll never be able to account for it all.
Intuition is the solution
Custom routes in my experience do not save time because it lacks something. No matter how good technology gets, it doesn't have intuition. Technology thinks rationally, but a lot of human intuition, i.e. a gut feeling, is irrational.
Developing a good intuition requires knowing the map and taking risks.
What kind of risks? I'll give a small example.
There's a town I sometimes drive through where more or less everything there is on Main Street. As such, this street does get clogged up with cars often. And it's one of those towns where it's easy to get in but difficult to get out.
I was in that town to get some stuff done, did so, and when I started to drive out I saw that Main Street was all clogged up as usual. This is when I tapped the Garmin DriveSmart screen to get a 2D map view, like a paper map. I was driving east, and saw a little side street heading south that appeared to connect with a larger boulevard that also headed east. I took it.
Would that side street actually connect to that boulevard or lead me to a dead end? I had no idea, but turned on to it anyway. It was a risk I was willing to take. Fortunately, that street did connect to that boulevard, and I was able to skip all the Main Street traffic entirely.
No navigation system, be it Garmin or phone app, would have tried that. Doing what I did was an irrational go-by-the-gut maneuver that the computer simply will not do.
Sometimes taking risks like that works, sometimes not.
Crafting convoluted custom routes doesn't work to save time, but a good sense of what's around you along with some reasonable risk taking does.
In other words, I just drive and figure things out.
Those seeking a navigation system that always gets routes correct every time is in for some serious disappointment, because that doesn't exist. This was true years ago, it's still true now, and I doubt that will ever change.