Early January, 2008

When you start really thinking about your finances again, you come up with things to say, I guess...

1) I started looking for better deals for my credit card balances. I've got $5000 on a card with a 0% APR rate (for 8 more months), and $7900 on another with a 6.9% rate for the life of the balance. That's the best I've been able to come up with, short of opening another account--which I really don't want to do. TBH once suggested Prosper, which I've looked at a few times, but haven't yet taken the plunge--the lack of anonymity always gets me in the end.

2) I pulled together funds from my online banks, etc., to come up with an "extra" $400 or so to pay down my debt. I even cashed out the I-Bond I'd purchased a few years ago. I would have liked not to do that, but I'd like to pay down the debt even more.

3) I made it onto the exclusive Pinecone Research Panel! I got an email last Friday informing me that I got in and that my first survey would occur within a couple of weeks. I'll only be paid $3, but maybe it's the start of something more.

4) It has been painful to look at my retirement account balances lately. I went from a high of just over $52,000 in October, to a low in the $47,000s a few days ago. I shouldn't look. I really shouldn't.

5) I have a waxed cotton umbrella that I love--it keeps its shape in strong winds, and the water droplets roll right off the surface. Recently, though, one of the spokes became detached from the frame, and I started looking around for a repair shop. There really are none! Umbrellas have become disposable, it seems. I did find one source, a man in Brooklyn who has earned the nickname "the last umbrella man." (Here's another story about him, from the New York Times.) Now all I have to do is ship him my umbrella. For those of you who might have loved but broken umbrellas languishing in your hall closet, I post his information here:

Gilbert Center
154 East 8th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11218
GILCENTER@aol.com
(c) 917-692-2078

I also bought a tin of wax cotton dressing, because the umbrella also needs to be reproofed. Admittedly, in the end I'll likely have spent more than it would cost to get a new functioning umbrella--but I don't WANT a crappy nylon umbrella that will break in a year.

6) I'll end with a link to a nice story about a retired factory worker who, despite having only an 8th grade education and never making more than $11/hour, managed to save enough to give $1,000,000 to a New Jersey college.