I’m going to enjoy this last day of summer by hitting an art fair today. Found this cartoon on the web and found it funny to be wondering: do we have anything made in the U.S.A. anymore? I’m sure the art fair I’ll be visiting today will be all-American! 
Hope your day is great!
Sometimes, there are certain things that hold us up: tasks pile up, challenges seem to get harder as we “graduate” from previous ones, and as we hit bigger goals, some of the smaller nitty-gritty items (i.e. bills, taxes, etc.) go by the wayside.
There are some things and tasks in life that we really should do but end up procrastinating on; not because these are any less important, but because they are tedious to work on, or they seem to be so routine, boring and blah, that it’s easy to keep putting them off for the next day. Or the next week. Or the next month. Or the next year. Or, never.
Like taxes. Most people find working on their taxes annoying and bothersome that they’d rather hire other people to work on them. But in this age of financial instability and the need for prudent spending in every area of life, working on dirty jobs like tax preparation on your own could let you save a few hundred dollars more. A few hundred dollars that you could tuck away for future savings or your child’s college education.
Thus, we’ve prepared a few resources on organizing, to make working on the nitty gritty items easier, possibly even fun. And yes, let’s start with the taxes, shall we?
While I love growing carrots in my garden, I’ve also been tending to other vegetables in the same fashion. Last year I thought I’d have a go at self sufficiency because I enjoy organic food and healthy food ideas. So I attempted to grow my own tomatoes from seed. I started them off on the windowsill and planted about 36 seeds. I started off with a large batch because after all, you always get some that don’t quite make it to the next stage, right?
Well these were hardy things. They all sprouted, they all grew, they all got transferred to the garden and they all carried on growing. I got troughs to put the plants in, sticks to hold them up with, and gray hairs from worrying about constantly keeping up with taking care of them.
In short we were overrun with tomatoes last year. Now bear in mind that this was my first attempt at growing them. I didn’t expect to be so successful. But I was, and we ended up with three different types of tomatoes altogether.
The good thing was that they kept ripening at different times so at least we didn’t get hundreds all ready at the same time. But there was still the problem of what to do with them all.
I got very good at sneaking tomatoes into virtually every meal. I grew cherry tomatoes which are great for throwing into a tossed salad just as they are, or having on the side with a sandwich. Then I’d use the normal size tomatoes, slice them, and add them in sandwiches and on toast with things like sardines. And the big beefsteak tomatoes –- yes even they managed to grow to a decent size -– were sensational as well. We’d have them grilled with gammon and I even had a go at making my own tomato sauce.
PerkStreet Financial offers a free online checking account with a Visa debit card and “perks”. You can earn from 1% to 5% cash back, coffee or music incentives when you use your PerkStreet Financial debit card to pay for purchases. From what I’ve seen, I feel that they offer something beyond your traditional checking account.
The PerkStreet Financial debit card is issued by the Bancorp Bank. Like with other bank accounts, your deposits are FDIC insured up to $250,000. There is also fraud protection through the Visa Zero Liability policy. I did notice that there were exceptions under that policy. They include ATM transactions, PIN transactions that are not processed by Visa and certain commercial card transactions.
PerkStreet Financial states that they have the nation’s largest surcharge-free ATM network through STARfs. They promise that they are likely to have more local ATMs than any other bank, with a total of 37,000. If you use an ATM outside the network, it will cost you $2.
Ever since I was a little girl, my mother always told me that I could depend on no one but myself in this world. Of course, she was a recently divorced, newly single mother of two kids after spending the last 18 years of her life as a happily married housewife. But, as I grew up and started experiencing life, I started to realize that maybe there was some truth to her mantra after all.
I got my first job at 14 and worked during the summer until I was 16 and could legally work after school and on weekends. I signed up for the co-op program at school that allowed me to leave an hour early and earn educational credit for the work I was performing after school. After I turned 18, I enrolled in college and through some creative financing arrangements (a combination of student loan programs, grants and good old sweat equity) I was able to obtain my Bachelor’s degree debt free and land a pretty decent job as an entry level call center agent at the ripe old age of 23.
Now, I said all of this because I wanted to bring you to a certain point, so if you’ve come this far, maybe you’ll be willing to read on a little farther. I never once depended on anyone to help me get what I wanted. During this time I also managed a rent payment, utilities, groceries, a car payment and a few other incidentals along the way. But, I also had a few boyfriends who seemed to think that my generosity was something to be taken advantage of. Here’s what I mean.
Okay so do YOU pay yourself? Your employer certainly does, and if that person is you because you are self employed, then you are in charge of your own pay. But this isn’t the kind of payment we’re talking about.
What we’re talking about here is the act of rewarding yourself every time you get paid. And by “reward” we mean tucking some money away for the future. After all, how many months do you find yourself promising to put some cash away, and then getting to the end of the month and discovering you’ve got none left to pass to your top discount brokerage?
It’s easy to do isn’t it? So if you want to stop operating that way and pay yourself first instead, here are some good reasons for doing just that.
1. It is an easier way to build savings. If you always consider your savings goals as a last priority, then you’ll never reach them. It’s human nature to enjoy spending and to ignore saving — at least for most of us. If you’ve got twenty dollars left, there’s a strong tendency to spend twenty dollars. If you’ve got forty dollars left, you’ll spend that too. So why not save twenty to start with and then spend the rest?
Do you ever take a look at your bank and online savings accounts? I mean really look at them and consider whether they are still working for you?
Here are some well known bank and savings accounts that are yielding above the national average:
| Online Bank |
Savings Product |
Interest Rate |
Min. Balance |
| EverBank | Yield Pledge Money Market Account | 2.25% | $1,500 |
| EverBank | FreeNet Checking Account | 1.02% to 1.46% | $1,500 |
| EverBank | Yield Pledge CD | 0.75% to 3.39% | $1,500 |
| FNBO Direct | Online BillPay | 1.10% | $1 |
| FNBO Direct | Online Savings Account | 1.10% | $1 |
| Sallie Mae | High Yield Savings Account | 1.40% | $0 |
| Ally Bank | Online Savings Account | 1.29% | $0 |
| Ally Bank | Classic High Yield CD | .74% to 2.95% | $0 |
| Ally Bank | No Penalty CD | 1.35% | $0 |
| Ally Bank | Interest Checking | 0.50% to 1.05% | $0 |
| HSBC Advance | Online Savings Account | 1.10% | $1 |
| HSBC Advance | Online Payment Account | 0.85% | $1 |
| HSBC Advance | Online CD | .10% to 1.70% | $10 |
| ING Direct | Orange Savings Account | 1.10% | $1 |
| ING Direct | Electric Orange Checking Account | .25% to 1.25% | $1 |
| ING Direct | Business Savings Account | 0.95% | $0 |
| ING Direct | Orange CD | 0.75% to 1.25% | $0 |
| WT Direct | Savings Account | 1.21% | $1 |
When you open a new account, you’ve probably done a lot of research to find the best savings account for you that pays the best rate of interest at the moment. But then you tend to forget about it, and hey presto in a year from now that great account could have turned into a lemon. And there are many reasons why this could happen. This is a cautionary article on why you should keep your eye on your bank accounts and not forget about them completely (even though it’s easy to do).
Credit card companies do a lot of wooing when it comes to getting the business of people who:
A) Have really good credit AND
B) Want to use their credit cards
And wooing travelers is no exception.
If you’re going to travel, why not put what you’re spending to good use? Traveling can cost quite a bit of money and you want to take all the help you can get to make those expenses easier to swallow. The good news is that with careful planning and use of the right kinds of credit cards, you can take a chunk out of your traveling expenses.
Fans of rewards credit cards may know that one of the most beneficial cards to carry if you are a worldwide traveler, is a credit card that offers you air miles for each dollar you spend on airline tickets. What you’ll find below is a discussion on the different travel credit cards that are available today.
