Save on cables, etc

Cables have an enormous markup in retail stores. I thought I would plug monoprice.com, who I have had nothing but success buying cables and other small equipment from. A $30 USB cable at a retail store is about $2 from Monoprice (plus shipping of course).

I have purchased various things from them with satisfaction, KVM switches, mounts, component cables, USB cables, fiber optic audio cables, and much more.

Don't pay ridiculous prices for cables!

(note: monoprice did not contact me about plugging their company, but I believe in spreading the word about good companies that I am happy with)

QuickCert is a telemarketing nightmare

QuickCert is a company that offers information on various computer certifications. I was at one point considering getting an A+ Certification - just for my amusement. The cost turned me away, but not before I had signed up to receive their newsletter. I usually don't sign up for things online, but I figured it wouldn't hurt.

Well, after getting bombarded with emails, I unsubscribed. That didn't stop them, and they just kept sending more. So I had to blacklist them as SPAM, but they keep sending advertisements from different email addresses.

I can deal with spam, but now they've started to call me. A few times a month I come home to a message on my machine from them. The only problem is that I never gave them my phone number. They must have looked me up!

QuickCert is creepy.

Being rich doesn't mean you aren't failing

Although I would hope that the 3 families that Money Magazine featured are extremities in the typical middle class neighborhood, I am quite certain that their attitudes are all too pervasive.

Read the entire article for the sad state of their affairs. Here are some excerpts that you might want to take note of:

Robert Frank, an economist at Cornell University and author of Falling Behind, calls the desire to match what the neighbors spend, remodeling project for remodeling project, lavish party for lavish party, "luxury fever."

Not only can it prompt you to spend beyond your means, but it can also lead you to a false sense of how you are doing financially.

Nice to know a real economist agrees with me.

The Steins

In reality, moving to Wallingford hasn't improved the Stein's finances. In fact, despite a seemingly comfortable combined income of $132,000, their cash flow is a little bit worse than before because they have a bigger mortgage and higher property taxes.

All told, their house payments now run $32,000 a year, up from $22,000 in Wayne. Their other big expenditure: $26,000 a year for a full-time nanny for their three children, Eva, 3, and twins Neve and Lila, 2. Then there are all the myriad costs of a young and growing family, from diapers ($70 a month) to groceries ($800).

They now owe nearly $39,000 on five different cards, including nearly $1,200 on an American Express account with an interest rate of 30.21 percent. The minimums alone run the family $700 a month.

The result is that the Steins live mostly from paycheck to paycheck, saving very little.

Yet, they feel they can afford a full time nanny and pay him/her $26k a year.

Still, Marni's plan to solve her family's financial problems is not to cut spending and pay down the debt. Her idea involves going further into debt so that she and her husband can get additional training to help boost their income.

And that is why she will fail.

Marni is working on a Ph.D. that will add $18,000 in student loans to the Steins' balance sheet by the time she finishes next year. Stuart plans to take a $5,000 management course. "I don't think watching our expenses will be enough," says Marni. "The only way we really could be better off is if we make more money."

It won't matter if you make a million a year if you are spending a million and a half. After they get professional advice on how to get their finances on track, here is what they plan to do:

They plan to apply for a $42,000 home-equity loan - that's 40 percent more than the planners suggested - to wipe out their remaining credit card balances and to pay for Stuart's career training and a new fence around their yard.

And this is why they will never be financially secure. They will never make enough money.

The Mendells

Dave, 39, teaches fourth grade in Wallingford's elementary school. Emily, 38, is vice president of strategic affairs for the National Venture Capital Association. Together their annual income is $250,000.

what really diverts cash from their savings kitty is the cool stuff they like to buy...recently bought an $800 custom-made, handcrafted board. He has three guitars, plus a fourth...they bought a trampoline and a swing set for the backyard. Emily, nearly a black belt, spends about $3,400 a year on karate lessons for herself and the boys. Dave prefers yoga classes ($1,200 a year).

The Mendells would also like to finish their basement ($30,000), and Emily wants to trade in the family's minivan for a Mercedes M-Class ($40,000). Then there were the separate vacations Dave and Emily took to Costa Rica over the past year and the family trip to the Grand Canyon (total for travel: nearly $8,500).

This spend-thrift attitude is going to make broke debtors out of their kids, too, with their lack of parenting:

Emily, who says she has a problem saying no to her kids, admits some of it is spent on impulse purchases for the boys, who regularly return from trips to Target with a new toy. "When we're at the mall and they ask me to buy something, what do I say? 'We can't afford it'?" asks Emily. "We can."

Yet they don't think they spoil them.

Should we be enjoying our life more?

Yes, so long as you are okay with working for the rest of your natural life. So after their advising session what will they do?

The Mendells have pledged to boost their retirement savings. "I thought we were on the right path," says Emily. "But we've got a lot more saving to do than I thought." They say that they are also committed to cutting back on their spending but haven't decided how. Meanwhile, Emily is still shopping for a Mercedes.

They are failing themselves, and their children. They recognize the problem but refuse to do anything about it. They must have that Mercedes. They do not see the long term consequences of their actions. Their children will learn good money management by watching their wealthy parent's utter failures. Bankruptcy, foreclosure, repossession is in their future. Their $250k income will not last forever, and when they stumble, they will fall off a sheer cliff.

The Wrights

Read about them in the article, they are the only ones with some sense.

UPDATE! Collecting unclaimed property

On September 12 I reported that I had located $300 in unclaimed money with the state comptroller. Any time a company owes an individual money, they have to turn it over to the state for safekeeping.

You can search online with just your name to find out if you have any unclaimed property by going to http://unclaimed.org/ or http://missingmoney.com/. I did a search myself and discovered a $300 paycheck from an old employer that we had, for whatever reason, not received.

In fact, this turned out to be an old paycheck that was never delivered. We found our information, printed out a form and filled it out, and mailed it in with the appropriate requested identification (copies). On Sept 28 we got a check from the state! A small 1% fee was subtracted, not at all bad considering there were expenses involved in collecting, holding, and mailing the money (although they could also have earned money on it -via interest-, but it is also possible that they are legally prohibited from doing so).

We told a family member about this and they reported having almost $3,000 in unclaimed money!

With the ridiculous state of corporations these days, this does not at all surprise me. Companies can't even communicate with other departments in their own building, yet alone perform complex tasks like locating a customer and calling them on the telephone. Check with your local state comptroller to see if you have any unclaimed money.

Perpetuating the lie to college students

I had high hopes for "Nanny Diaries" after about 20 minutes into the film. The story is this: a young woman graduates college with no idea what she wants to do as a career (shocking), bombs out at an interview, and by chance lands a job as a nanny for a rich family. This is a comedy so naturally the mommy is the typical white wealthy woman who lives off her workaholic husband while shopping and chatting with her friends all day.

But there were some hints of some real interesting social commentary that I had hoped would make this movie a real diamond in the rough. Sadly, I was disappointed.

We start off with the young woman lying to her mother about her new job, because as we all know if you don't get a high paying job right out of college you must be a failure, right?

So she becomes this nanny, and ends up having a pretty good time except for the stuck up mom she has to deal with. She also meets a guy in the building, and during all this we get bombarded with the idea that people who work hard in the service industry are good people that deserve respect, and that being rich isn't necessarily a good thing.

That all falls apart about half way through the film. After the scene of the "guy" always dressed casually and taking the stairs in the building (or going into a side workroom) and hanging out with buddies and taking her to a pizza joint, I assumed he was the building super. A normal guy with a normal job. And a normal girl with a normal job. Perfect match, right? Not in Hollywood. He of course turns out to be a rich trust-fund baby. And by the end of the movie, even after the woman's mom accepting her job as a nanny, uniting the kid and his mom after a divorce from her cheating husband, and falling in love with the rich trust fund boy, she naturally abandons her normal job to enter, for no apparent reason, law school.

So the entire movie degenerates into the tired message for young people: college will grant you entry into a high powered career, and if it doesn't, you are a failure. Also, the guy of your dreams will be rich. I had hoped for an ounce of reality from this movie. When you graduate college you will more than likely end up in a low paying job at the bottom of the ladder. You only climb up through hard work and determination. This is more of the "have it now" mentality. And with baby boomers delaying or even forgoing retirement, your corporate climb is going to be even slower. That's reality.

Oh, and law school? Lawyers are a dime a dozen. It is not a guaranteed path to a great job (and that is what the movie implies, because there was nothing in it that indicated she had any interest in becoming a lawyer - they just tacked on at the end "oh, by the way I'm not in a lousy job anymore I'm going to be successful!").

At what point should magazines be paying us?

I have decided not to renew my subscription to Parenting Magazine. Though we do not have any kids, I thought it would be a good idea to subscribe for various reasons, one being that we wanted some magazines for weekend morning reading material. Money Magazine was among my initial purchase, but that also will not be renewed. The articles in it are fairly fluffy and although sometimes entertaining, there is far more useful information elsewhere.

Anyway, the reason that I will not be renewing Parenting is that it not only contains very few real parenting tips, but it is almost entirely a mechanism of product advertisement. All magazines have ads, but even the articles in Parenting are usually little more than cleverly disguised product placements. Nearly every "solution" in any article involves the purchase of some commercial product. Even the recipes, which should be fairly inoculous, suspiciously include brand names or processed/frozen goods.

I can ignore the blatant disregard for the male role in parenting in this magazine, and the frequently useless (and rare) male-focused article and the general tone of the entire publication that men do little to nothing in the way of child rearing, making way for "super mom" because as my wife says they are just embracing the stereotype.

I can ignore it because the entire magazine is insulting. When they are not hawking merchandise and "must have" lists that are overflowing with junk that no practical parent could ever possibly need they are filling pages with reader-contributed materials and common-sense tips. Apart from actually putting all the material together, I am at a loss to figure out what content the editors actually produce. I feel violated that I have essentially paid to be advertised to while trying to trick me into believing they are delivering original and useful information.

This magazine, and others like it, should just be made available on the free rack.

Collecting unclaimed property

States hold onto unclaimed properties on behalf of the owner. Such property includes life insurance policies, tangible goods, and unclaimed employment paychecks.

You can search online with just your name to find out if you have any unclaimed property by going to http://unclaimed.org/ or http://missingmoney.com/. I did a search myself and discovered a $300 paycheck from an old employer that we had, for whatever reason, not received. Though we have not yet gone through the process, we are going to file a claim tonight and I will post a review.

Be very wary of scams, however, as this information is public and various firms may try to charge you to claim your money. The state comptroller will charge you a small fee (my state charges 1% for up to $5,000 and 1.5% above, zero for less than $100). Some however will try to get up to 10% out of you, or charge you to do the search. Don't fall for it - the information is free and filing your own claim is easy and cheap (so far as I can tell, it can all be done online).

Acting in the best interest of consumers, each state has enacted an unclaimed property statute that protects your funds from reverting back to the company if you have lost contact with them. These laws instruct companies to turn forgotten funds over to a state official who will then make a diligent effort to find you or your heirs. Most states hold lost funds until you are found, returning them to you at no cost or for a nominal handling fee upon filing a claim form and verification of your identity.

If in doubt, call your state comptroller or visit your state's official website and search it for "unclaimed property".

Mortgage accelerator program?

I was a bit skeptical when I read this article about high speed mortgage payoffs. What would they recommend to pay off your mortgage, I wondered?

Apparently, it's some ADB reduction plan on a daily compounded HELOC. A huge red flag went off when it said:

get a variable-rate, home equity line of credit (HELOC) instead of a fixed-rate loan for their first mortgage

Woah, wait a minute. I should get a variable rate revolving loan instead of a traditional mortgage? How is that better?

So I read on, and the process sounds pretty simple, if it weren't ridiculously complex. You put all your paychecks into this loan, basically as a payment. Then you pay your bills with the loan. Well, that makes sense if you stick to a budget and make sure that you put more in than you take out. This part got me thinking:

When the account holder deposits a check, the debt immediately falls for a lower balance used to calculate interest. If the paycheck arrives on the first of the month, and the mortgage isn't due until the 28th, the balance falls by the size of the paycheck for all the days between.

Well, that would work if my paychecks came in 2 times a week and all my bills are due at the end of the month. They aren't. They come throughout the month, so my paychecks mostly vanish as soon as they are cashed. My "average daily balance" in the loan, therefore (which is what they are talking about) really doesn't change all that much. As soon as the money goes in, it comes out for a bill. However I do see on large ticket items, like a mortgage that I need to set aside a little bit each week for, that this concept would work.

Then, I remember that this is a variable rate revolving loan. That alone kills the deal for me.

Here's the best part:

The loan is suitable only for borrowers who generally have more money coming in than going out, according to Kern Lewis, a marketing director for CMG Mortgage. Borrowers with negative cash flow would just keep adding to their debt.

But why would I go out and sign up for this complex plan? Couldn't I just save my own money and pay extra towards my low fixed rate mortgage principle? Sounds a heck of a lot easier, and safer than messing with an enormous variable rate revolving loan.

Well, complex programs aside, they give an example of how this thing can help you, so I decided to compare it with just paying down your regular loan.

According to a CMG calculator, a borrower with a $200,000 mortgage, who takes home $2,000 every two weeks and saves 20 percent of net pay could be mortgage-free in 12 years using the accelerator compared with a conventional 30-year fixed rate loan. The interest would also drop by $125,000.

Not enough info here, but okay. Basically you've got a $200k mortgage and you are putting 20% of a $4k monthly income to pay down the principle early.

On an ordinary 30 fixed at 6.5% you'd be looking at paying $225,000 in interest. So according to this article we can save $125k of that interest by paying it early with the rapid-accelerator plan. But if I took that 20%, which is $800 of that particular monthly income, and just apply it to the principle of my fixed every month, I end up only paying $84k in interest, so I'm saving $170k in interest.

We don't have a lot of numbers to work with, but $170k ballpark looks a lot better than $125k. And it doesn't involve taking out more loans or playing games with paychecks and bill payments. What this boils down to is saving 20% of your income and throwing it at your mortgage principle, which you don't need a fancy program to accomplish. So really, I have to ask, what's the point?

Both CMG and Macquarie said their businesses are increasing rapidly. But Gumbinger doubts they'll win a wide clientele. "Other mortgage products have come and died on these shores," he said. "Americans like the old, fixed-rate loans. Oh, we'll take an ARM if we have to but that's not what we prefer. High-end, sophisticated borrowers who are intent on quick amortization will probably support these mortgage accelerator products."

Or maybe Americans can do math? Then again, if they make $4k a month and bought a $200k house, maybe they can't do math!

ING checking

Having used a brick & mortar bank and their online bill pay for so long, here's what I like (and don't like) about ING's direct online checking (primarily their bill pay service).

:) - 4% interest. I haven't found a local brick & mortar checking account that earns you interest (thanks to Wendy in the comments for this link!).
:) - Verifies its bill pay addresses with large companies. This isn't obvious at first, but if you go back to edit them they will say "we have verified..." and does allow direct electronic payments.
:) - Seamless with individual checks. I don't like physically writing a check, but I'll mail one to you, and ING's bill pay works seamlessly with its ability to send individuals checks.
:( - No memo lines on the checks
:) - Simple transaction layout. Unlike my other banking site, ING puts all my transactions, pending bill pays and deposits right there on one page.
:( - The "spending power" balance. ING lets you have a line of credit as an overdraft protection feature. This is good since there are no fees, but you do pay 12% interest on the balance overdrafted. I selected the minimum amount of overdraft; why have a 4% checking account and then overdraft a thousand bucks at a 12% loss (APY)? Be sure to eye your "available balance" and ignore the "spending power" column.
:) - Check cashing verification! Click on a paper check you sent and it tells you whether it's been cashed (but you aren't waiting around for it to be cashed to come out of your account).
:) - The bill pay is free. I was paying $7 before this.
:) - Simple pin sign-on. Once I registered my computer with the site, all I need to do is enter my pin. Easy access.

Why work? Con your way to success!

I usually enjoy Money's articles, if only for entertainment value, but the July 2007 issue made me want to cancel my subscription.

The article was entitled "How to Marry a Billionaire" and filled 7 full pages of absolute garbage. Apparently Money magazine, along with tips on how to diversify your portfolio, stay away from crooked financial advisers, and encouraging you to safely start your own business, feels that one honorable path to wealth is for gold digging women to marry someone for their money and leach off another person's success. I thought Money magazine was supposed to be for people who actually put effort into gaining their fortunes. The cover page exclaims "Getting Rich in America", which obviously includes becoming a lazy worthless bum.

Well, I suppose it does take effort to land a billionaire, with such helpful tips as moving closer to where billionaires live, pay for a "Be a Successful Gold Digger" seminar, and "fake" your status. That's right, the key to marrying a billionaire is to fake a personality and pretend to be something (or someone) you are not. This has "wedding bliss" just written all over it.

Thankfully there is a little survey at the end to help you if you're still wondering if you're moocher material, which asks questions like "what are your goals?" and "what's your ideal pet".

The "correct" answer to the first question? You want to strive for marriage, because "big money lies in marriage" according to divorce lawyers.

So, they key to success is thus: hang around rich people, trick them into liking you, get married, get divorced and rake in the big bucks. Thanks, Money magazine. Marlys Harris, Cosmo magazine is calling; you're the perfect writer for them.

ps: no doubt the article was written tongue-in-cheek, as was this review of it

Debt paydown adviser from Bankrate.com

I just tried out this debt paydown adviser from Bankrate. It's a great little tool that figures out how to "snowball" your debts to get them paid off. It appears to do it by the highest interest rates first. This is a great place for someone to start out when tackling paying off debt.

Media Cart - as if food wasn't expensive enough

Here's a novel idea from Media Cart, Inc. Its a scanner and screen attached to the cart that allows you to scan your items as you shop. I like the idea, but what will it cost to implement? Sure I save time at the checkout lane, but is that really worth spending more on the food products I buy to equip the hundreds of carts at each grocery store with a scanner and LCD screen?

Unfortunately the idea is taken a little too far. The 'screen' on the cart also includes a GPS-like store navigator. If grocery stores were really concerned about their customers getting lost, they'd stop rearranging their shelves every few months! I just don't need a navigation system to tell me where the milk is.

Another problem is that it will embed advertising. Worse if you use your "store card" (which they force you to by hiking up the prices if you don't use it) the system will track your purchases and begin displaying "relevant ads". Meaning if I buy lots of bags of rice, my cart is going to start suggesting I buy certain brands.


This cart starts off with a good concept, but ruins it by basically becoming a platform for manipulating customers into purchasing higher priced name-brand goods.

This is a start, but its a bit misleading for the company to say it is designed to save us (consumers) time and money. If that were the case, they'd have some useful tools, such as the ability to scan different brands (and sizes) of products and tell you which one gives you the most for the least amount of money. Alas, such a tool is absent from the Media Cart, but I bet it will tell you just how delicious "Cheerios" are.

I'll stick to the plain metal carts, unless a grocery store releases product designed to help me make better purchasing decisions, not just help me spend more.

Walmart's prepaid VISA fees revealed

A little while ago I wrote about Walmart announcing its prepaid VISA card. One question I was left with from the original article was; what kind of fees would there be? There was a vague reference to fees, but nothing concrete.

Finally, here it is: the Walmart Prepaid Card official website. The card has a Walmart logo, but like many card services it is actually operated by a company called Greendot. The cardholder agreement gives you a rundown of their fees. Here they are in plain english.

Monthly fee: $4.95 (just for having the card)
Load fee: $4.95 (to put money on the card - ie, activation)
Reload fee: $4.95 (for putting more money on the card)
ATM withdrawal fee: $1.95 (for getting my money back - my first transaction and I've already paid $11.85 in fees)
Cash advance fee: $4.00 (I'm sure what this is, since its a prepaid card but it involves a teller or non-ATM cash withdrawal, maybe it just means any cash withdrawal from the card that is not done at the ATM?)
ATM Balance inquiry: $0.50
ATM Declined withdrawal fee: $0.50 (in other words, you pay $.50 if you check your balance or you pay $.50 if you try to get $20 when your balance is less than $20)
Stolen card replacement fee: $10.00 (thats right, if your card is stolen, you get to pay a fee)
Customer service fee: $3.50
Statement fee (by request): $2.00
Minimum deposit amount: $20
Maximum daily purchase limit: $2,500 (of course this is the balance limit anyway)
Automated phone system charge: $0.75 (a flat fee for calling the number and pressing buttons)
Phone operator charge: $.41 per minute, up to $1.00 (I suspect the operators rarely take less than 3 minutes for each call)

So you pay a fee to get the card, a fee to put money on the card, a fee to get your cash from the card, a fee to figure out how much money is on your card, a fee to interact with any employees or automated systems that issued the card, and a monthly service fee if you have the card longer than a month. Sign me up!

Statements are done electronically, and access is available online (because so many people without checking accounts have regular Internet access). They also readily admit to selling your information to other financial institutions and marketers.

I wonder how upfront Walmart will be about all these fees? I feel like I'm going to get charged a fee just for walking by the card kiosk. Admittedly, Walmarts fees are a little better priced than Greendots direct fees, but not by much. I still have no idea what the bill pay fees will be, as I didn't see them in the fee schedule. But the customer service fee is $3.50, and unless I have internet access I am going to have to interact with someone to initiate a bill pay. Walmarts card site has now become a mess of runtime errors, so please post these fees if you can find them.

They do have online access, but most of their pages were broken with errors when I was just trying to read the cardholder agreement. How many of those who have no checking account - usually because they are "undocumented" - have Internet access to avoid some of these fees?

My original suspicion was correct: paying $3.00 to cash a check is a great deal compared to this prepaid VISA.

Maxed Out - A Review

I recently viewed Maxed Out, a documentary about the credit card debt in the US. The film focuses on consumer credit card debt, and vaguely touches on the US government's debt to other nations. It shows us some stats on how much money has been borrowed from social security, which certainly makes you think about the problems we are having with it now. I've read elsewhere that social security would not be in trouble if we hadn't borrowed from it to spend the money elsewhere. Possibly true. But otherwise it focuses on individuals in debt.

Expect loud music, a little cursing, and some really tragic stories. This isn't a movie to watch with little kids.

A few of their stories looked at mortgage lending. A woman in a shambled house that refinanced, a mentally handicapped man refinancing into a loan he couldn't afford (that one got to me) and didn't understand, a widow who is losing her house because of her choice of a bad mortgage. Tragic stories, but I'm a bit critical of the film here. We listen to their story of how they can't afford their mortgage, why they refinanced, and what they are going through now that foreclosure is drawing near. But what the film misses on, which I feel is a really critical point, is all the backstory. If someone refinanced into a bad mortgage to pay off credit card debt, why? What got them into the financial problem in the first place?

Did their health insurance stick them with a huge medical bill (love those exclusions)? Did they lose a job? Or did they just take too many vacations to Tahiti and put all their income into financing a big SUV?

We don't get to hear about any of that. Nor do we get to hear the specifics of their mortgages, or how the mortgage process was introduced to them. All we know is that they are wallowing in debt, can't pay their bills, and the bank is coming to take their house.

One practice that I recognized and never really considered until now was the college campus credit cards. Universities are bought off to allow card companies to set up booths on campuses to entice young students without jobs to sign up for credit cards. Fine, they are 18, and their parents or themselves should have been responsible for teaching them about credit card use. Right? We say they are legally adults at 18, so why don't we accept the consequences of not properly preparing them for it?

And that's what made me angry. The university is supposed to be a safe haven for young adults trying to enter the world. Its a sanctuary of education, yet universities allow companies to prey on the students without offering any financial education courses. Where can you learn about credit cards in college? I certainly never saw such a course. As near as I can tell, you either enter college with the knowledge beforehand (likely from mom and dad) or you end up learning the hard way.

It is a reasonably good documentary that will keep you interested to the end. Expect a lot of tear jerker stories and the gloomy consequences of debt that is out of control. What I missed from this movie, and what I think it lacks, is any hint of a resolution, or any information on how good mortgages work or how you handle credit card debt wisely. One woman refinanced into a bad mortgage. Well, why is it a bad mortgage? Why did she sign up for a mortgage with an adjustable rate; did she know what it would be costing her when it adjusted?

Watch the movie and expect to come out of it angry, but certainly not any more educated or aware than you were going in.

Review of FNBO Direct

FNBO Direct is an online division of the First National Bank of Omaha. Thanks to a recent post on the Money Blog Network, I learned that this bank was offering a teaser 6.0% APY rate for their online savings account. This is a fully electronic bank, no paperwork or forms. Even their terms and agreements you need to print out (and you should do so).

With my measly 4.5% rate at ING, I was looking for an online savings account that would offer me more. One of the first questions I had was what the FNBO rate would be after the teaser period, which ends in September of this year. Unfortunately, it does not say, and will likely be tied to the market after Sept. Fortunately they do provide their previous rate of 5.25%. This is very competitive with other online savings accounts, so I am confident that it will be okay. As always, check after the period ends to see what rate you are getting.

You have to sign up online through their website. They are fairly new, I learned, so there were some minor glitches. For one, I couldn't seem to return to my application after submitting a secondary user. It kept telling me that my session had timed out. I also learned that the site is not entirely compatible with Firefox. Indeed, I did run into some problems while using Firefox during the application process (however my specific problem was no better in IE7 either) but for regular access and transactions, Firefox has given me no issues. Fortunately I called FNBO and they were able to help me finish my application over the phone. I ended up calling a few times, as I went through the application, and their customer service reps were friendly and very helpful.

Through some of the sign-up process, you will have to wait until you receive confirmation emails (acct #s, etc) before continuing, so don't expect to finish the application in one sitting. In my experience the e-mails were quite prompt, arriving in a day or less.

My first transaction went smoothly and the funds were taken within a couple of days. Setting up direct transfers was easy and there was no 'test deposits' necessary, as there was with ING. It withdrew my initial funding, a dollar, and after that I set up my checking account for direct transfer within minutes. There is a period of 2-3 days when your transfer does not earn interest. Then it appears in your account. This is somewhat of an indirect 'transfer fee' that you need to be aware of. There is a third party that handles their website and transfers.

Outright fees apply to wire and foreign transfers, so if you use those you may want to shop around more.

The site itself is simple and easy to use, with no distracting junk. Read their membership agreement and privacy policy. They do admit to selling your information (and even your transaction behavior) to affiliated parties. If this concerns you, look elsewhere. So far I have not received any solicitations, but certainly if I did they would be lost in the sea of junk mail and credit card offers I get daily anyway.

Overall, I am satisfied with FNBO. It is FDIC insured and the bank has been around for over a hundred years. Hopefully the post-teaser rate will still be good.

FREE Practical Money Skills educational materials

Want to teach your kids about money but don't know where to begin? Go to http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/english/resources/about/classroom.php and click "Classroom Resources" and "Download 2 CD-Rom set (75 mb.zip)" to download and burn to a CD (cd burning software required - usually comes with a home computer), or just load right on your computer.

Some of it is repeated material. For example, the "Practical Money Skills for Life CD-ROM" is the same as Disc 2 of the classroom resources. There is also a pamphlet series, but it has only general info and I consider it more of an introduction to the more detailed lesson plans.

Disc 1 is where the good stuff is. It contains lesson plans for kids in 5 groups, preschool-2nd grade, grade 3-6, 7-12, graduates and college students, and a special needs section (the addition of this last section scored big points with me). The Macromedia Flash interface they give you is a bit clunky. Basically all the material is in html, pdf, and powerpoint files. You might find it easier to just browse the files in the directories themselves, print the pdfs and htmls, and load the powerpoints manually (I couldn't get the Flash interface to launch the powerpoint presentations). Disc 2 has some practical but basic info for financial situations you might encounter at home, all in html format. There are also some games that kids might enjoy, but the only one I tried at length was the Quiz.

It wasn't very good, and some of the information wasn't quite correct. The credit card section also didn't quiz on the most important aspects of credit cards - reading and understanding the terms. It was also very flashy and loud, and not in a good way. I would stick with disc 1.

Also, its very disorganized and difficult to find the referenced materials. Although you can download the lesson plans to a CDROM, it doesn't contain just about all of the actual materials needed to learn anything. For that you apparently need to download them individually from here . There also did not appear to be any way to take the quizzes without being online.

Even so, the lesson plans are a useful guide, but expect to do most of the actually learning materials on your own. If anyone has had any experience with this program, please share it. For the conspiratorial among us, this program was created by VISA.

Also available is the Jump$tart Coalition, an education program for children who recently issued tests of financial literacy. It is sponsored by Citibank. If there are any consumer financial awareness/education programs out there that are not created by credit card companies, please let me know.

Maxed Out - a documentary film

On June 5, 2007 a documentary film called "Maxed Out" will be released. You can visit their official website to view the trailer and some small clips. I am hoping that Blockbuster and/or Hollywood Video will offer this movie, but Netflix users can already add it to their queue. Even if you disagree with some of the assumptions in this film, it should be an eye opening experience. I have yet to see it myself of course, but I believe it will be in the same style as "Who Killed the Electric Car?", a story about GM's EV1 in the late 90s.

Maxed Out interviews a variety of people involved in the industry, including banks, debt collectors, legal representatives and those individuals whose lives have been destroyed by debt.

It also speaks of the predatory solicitations of credit card companies, focusing their advertising on people who seem less likely to be able to pay or handle the card responsibly. A scene with an undercover investigator talking to a card salesman at a college campus should be worth watching.

If you go to a vocational school or if you have a job, they [the credit card companies] don't want you. Maybe it's because they think you know the value of a dollar. It's the college students who get the cards.

Expect some hard teary moments, including a woman selling her belongings to pay off her debt and stories of suicide. What factors lead to these situations? Is it entirely a lack of personal responsibility, financial education, predatory lending or out of control terms and rates? Hopefully this film will offer an objective look at this industry. We'll find out on June 5.

The film also features Dave Ramsey.