Debt, Credit Card & Consolidation Current News Digest

Every month, my wife and I track how much time and money we spend growing food. This is the report for October 2009. (Here are the results for 2008.)

As those of you who follow me on Twitter already know, it’s been a l-o-n-g Saturday filled with all sorts of misadventures. Murphy’s Law has been in full effect this Halloween. I’d meant to post this month-end garden summary around noon, but now will have to do. In fact, there wouldn’t be a summary at all except that my wife sat down and wrote it for me. Here’s what Kris has to say about the month of October…

October arrived with the typical cold and damp, bringing Portland’s garden season to a close. During the fall and winter we’ll enjoy the hearty foods we’ve packed away from this year’s crops, until by early spring we’re ready to begin anew. We’ve been eating fresh fruit and vegetables from our garden patches since May’s first strawberries. Not bad!

The last of the tomatoes
We harvested the last of the garden produce this month. Rain and wind don’t mix well with ripening tomatoes, so I picked 15 pounds of semi-ripened tomatoes to take inside. Stored in a cool place between layers of newspaper, some of these will turn out to be fairly delicious. The rest will rot.

The cucumber plants coughed up enough for another month’s worth of salads, and the beets were ready for roasting. (In fact, I’m roasting some in the oven even as I write this.) In addition, I tore out the jalapeno plants and dried the peppers in slices in the dehydrator. Some went to our neighbor who loves spicy foods; the rest will go into winter cornbread and soups. 

Usually I collect the fallen English walnuts in our front yard, but the squirrels have been especially voracious this year! And my volunteer vine turned out to be a birdhouse gourd that gave me two mature gourds for fall decorating.

The fruits of autumn
I spent time in the mud ripping out cucumber and squash vines, then the beans and tomato plants, and tidying up the apple trees.  We also dug out the beleaguered gooseberry plants and three poorly-producing 25-year-old blueberries. We invested $84 in five new blueberry bushes of various types and sizes. (We’re trying to stagger the berry harvest so it lasts as long as possible.) As we rake leaves in our yard, we’ll spread them onto the garden bed to mulch the asparagus and keep down the weeds over the winter.

In the waning hours of sunshine, early October in our neighborhood smells of Concord grapes. We wait until the scent tells us they’re ready, then head over to the generous neighbor’s yard to pick all we can use. Our own young vines produced a good crop as well. This year, J.D. gathered about 30 gallons of mixed purple and green Concords. I made juice (22 quarts) and grape jelly. It’s a long day but so worth it every time we open a jar. We also made another batch of applesauce from twenty pounds of fruit brought back from an orchard by a friend and fellow canner.

This summer’s total for canned food: 140 quarts of assorted pickles, apple/pear sauce, juices, jams & jellies, salsa and fruit. My pantry is full to bursting! I love being able to eat this local bounty during our winter, rather than buying produce that’s been shipped from far away. 

In addition to the canned food, the freezer is stacked with berries and assorted sauces, and dried fruits and herbs are stored in a dark and dry place. All this “free food” keeps my grocery spending in check even when we’re not eating directly from the garden. (It’s like a savings account for food!)

Monthly totals
The fall is when I tally the herbs for the year. Our herb garden provides me with sprigs and snips all year. The annual herbs are finished (basil, stevia, cilantro) and others die back until spring (lemon balm, oregano, mint, lavender) but the perennials will keep going for our winter kitchen use (rosemary, chives, bay leaf, sage & thyme). Throughout the summer, I’ve dried lavender flowers, mint and lemon balm, stevia and raspberry leaves for making tea infusions.  Altogether, I estimate that the herb garden has produced at least $50 of harvest.

Here’s the tally for October’s harvest:

• 56 jalapeno peppers @ $0.29 = $16.24
• 18 cucumbers @ $1.29/pound (about 5 cukes)  = $4.64
• 5 bunches mixed beets @$2.99/bunch = $14.95
• ~9.64 pounds of tomatoes @$1.99/pound = $19.18
• 8 pounds grapes from our vines @$3/pound = $24.00
• Assorted herbs, all season $50.00
• Costs: 5 blueberry bushes ($84)

Yearly Totals

Here are this year’s totals through the end of October:

Final word
This garden project is not a formal experiment. Kris and I are long-time hobby gardeners, and we have set ways that we do things. This year, we’re trying to incorporate some new ideas from GRS readers, but most of the time we’ll do things the way we have for nearly 15 years.

We’re not trying to be 100% organic (though we are mostly organic through our normal practices). Nor are we trying to be 100% frugal. Instead, we’re trying to see just what our garden costs and produces based on our normal habits. We hope the results of this experiment will help us find new ways to economize and to improve our crops.

You can read about my goals for this series in The year-long GRS project: How much does a garden really save?

p.s. Happy Halloween!

—
Related Articles at Get Rich Slowly:

• The Year-Long GRS Project: How Much Does a Garden Really Save?
• The GRS Garden Project: June 2009 Update
• The GRS Garden Project: September 2009 Update
• The GRS Garden Project: November Update
• The GRS Garden Project: July 2009 Update

Malaysia Star

Malaysian government's edict irks credit cards agents viploan.co.uk Is the new generation of Malaysia getting averse to the trend of making use of credit cards? If not, what can be the reasons behind this strange development … Drop the tax on credit cardsMalaysia Star all 10 news articles »

OptionsHouse is offering 100 commission free trades for new accounts with promotion code FREE100. You must deposit at least $3,000 within 45 days and the 100 free trades expire after 60 days of funding. This offer expires December 31st, 2009.

Trades at OptionsHouse cost $2.95 so in theory this offer is worth $295 if you use all hundred trades (you will not receive cash compensation for unused trades). While this looks like a hot offer, it’s not uncommon in for a discount stock broker. E*Trade also offers 100 free trades and TradeKing is offering $50 cash to new accounts that deposit $2,500 within thirty days and make a trade within the first six months.

From a stock trade commission fee perspective, OptionsHouse is one of the cheapest with a $2.95 fee. TradeKing charges $4.95 and E*Trade will charge you as much as $12.99 a trade. They are backed by PEAK6 Investments, which is one of the largest options trading firms in the U.S. and they are one of the few that offer a $9.95 flat rate options fee (others will charge you per contract).

For my more of thoughts on OptionsHouse, take a look at my OptionsHouse review.

OptionsHouse Free Stock Trades Promotion from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

This gave me the giggles, especially since this dance style seems so utterly familiar (I know too many people who move this way…. ). The music used in the video was playing non-stop at my kids’ school yesterday, where I spent a lot of the afternoon, attending their Halloween party. So now it’s engraved in my head (arrrgh).

Have a great Halloween! I’m going to be manning the house today, handing out the treats while the rest of the family goes on the prowl with the rest of the neighborhood.

 
By the way, it’s too late for this year, but I’m getting this bubble fogger machine for next year’s occasion. It’s easily the most awesome Halloween item (toy?) I’ve seen in action in a while. It works like a bubble machine, except when the opaque bubbles burst, they release a mist.

Happy Halloween! This Pumpkin Dance Is Classic

Should you refinance your home mortgage? With 30-year fixed rates hovering right above the 5 percent mark right now, it’s a question that a lot of homeowners are pondering.

CBA hard selling loans and credit cards Sky News Australia Its been revealed the Commonwealth Bank of Australia is making its staff push customers into having more credit cards and loans. Australia's biggest bank … and more »

When peer to peer lending first started, the biggest name in the market was Prosper. I was skeptical about the whole business of peer to peer lending and it showed in my review of Prosper, which was more about peer to peer lending than it was about Prosper itself. Since then, with the arrival of SEC oversight and other competing businesses like Lending Club, I have a little more faith in peer to peer lending networks.

$50 New Account Promotion

Prosper fell behind LendingClub because both had to enter a quiet period as the SEC reviewed their filings, LC just came out first. The “notes” were considered securities and subject to SEC oversight. Now that Prosper has started accepting new borrowers and lenders/investors, they’ve decided to really push it hard by offering a $50 bonus for new lenders who bid on two loans.

The only requirement is that the $50 sign up bonus cannot be immediately withdrawn and must be invested by bidding on loan listings before December 31st, 2009. If you don’t invest it, it expires.

Prosper is also running a cash rebate for investors. If you invest $1,000 – $4,999 then you’ll receive 1% cash rebate back into your account. Invest $5,000 or more and get a 2% cash rebate back into your account. The Cash Rebate Fall Promotion for Lenders program expires November 15th and the rebate is deposited by December 4th.

Do you have experience with Prosper that you’d like to share? A lot has changed in the last two or three years in the social lending world and I’ve been unable to participate because residents of Maryland can’t invest!

Prosper $50 New Account Promotion Offer from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

I originally published this post in July 2005 but recently updated all the links to the correct state Unclaimed Property division website.

If you’ve ever rented an apartment, you’ve left a deposit… but did you get that back before you left? They said they’d mail it… but did you actually get it? How about the utility company, did you get your deposit back from them? What about those six months you lived in another state, were you entitled to a state income tax refund? Did you actually get it? Unclaimed or abandoned property departments exist in every state and through free online searches you can find a ton of money you may have inadvertently left behind. I haven’t lived in enough places to have left behind any hard earned cash (I looked, no luck though) but you might have.

Below is a comprehensive list of every state’s (even D.C. and Puerto Rico) website that has a search for unclaimed property. Take a few minutes and see if you’ve discovered any cash and leave a comment if you do! I didn’t find any but perhaps you can find a nice fat check somewhere with your name on it.

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawai’i Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas

Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hamphire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina

North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Puerto Rico Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Don’t pay for a service that finds unclaimed property, the information they use is publicly and freely available!

(Photo: amagill )

Searching For Your Unclaimed Money & Property from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

What should you do when your credit card company raises your interest rate? Here are some thoughts on credit card reform from our contributing writer, Jacques Sprenger.

I thought I had the best credit card around. But then getting a sudden rate hike on your credit card for no reason whatsoever is like an icy shower when you expected warm water. My issuer just hit me with such a raise which didn’t improve my mood in spite of their friendly accompanying letter: “Your history as a preferred customer has nothing to do with the interest hike which was caused by the economy’s present circumstances. You may reject the raise by paying off your credit card balance.” Right, like we have $4,000 lying around just for that purpose. The average American family owes more than $10,000 on credit cards which used to be given in cereal boxes (a little hyperbole!). Now you have to show that you make as much as Bill Gates to be approved (yes, another hyperbole).

The Government Intervenes With New Credit Card Rules

Check out the following image by Make Them Accountable. Left panel says — “before strict new credit card rules”. Right panel says — “After: Warning. Largest unsecured piano”.

President Obama would get a lot of kudos if he can convince the credit card companies to play fair: it’s actually good to see some inroads made on this matter, where the credit card industry has been made to face the “new rules of the road”. The President is apparently very much committed to leveling the playing field: “The days of any time, any reason rate hikes and late fee traps have to end,” Obama said. Chris Dodd, a long time senator who has been embroiled in lobbying controversies, is trying to burnish his image by going after the credit card companies full blast; you may have seen him make the news a lot recently. Sen. Dodd wants the new credit card rules enforced immediately and has demanded a freeze on interest rates on all existing credit cards debts. In fact, he’s introduced a bill on this recently.

What About a Credit Card Bail Out For Families?

What we also need is a plan to help those families who face a financial crisis because of illness or lay-offs. Why should we bail out all these banks, many of which own the credit card companies, if all they can think of is to lower your credit limits and raise your payments? For the life of me I can’t figure out how punishing people is going to allow them to pay their debts. And yet, banks routinely smack us with humongous interest rates because we are late ONE day. While the Fed has lowered rates to almost zero, predator credit card companies charge up to 39% for making a late payment. They should talk to some insurance companies which offer first accident forgiveness. Being late on one payment happens to all of us due to oversight or simply a slow post office. Forget the deadbeats and irresponsible people who max out their credit cards knowing they will never pay them. We are talking about upstanding people who have been paying religiously for 10 years and who’ve made these companies (and CEOs) rich.

Should You Opt Out of Interest Rate Increases?

Some people have felt the pinch: here’s someone who tells us his own story about paying 8.9% on his credit card bill, and he’s never missed a payment. He mentions how his interest rate “.. would change to a variable rate of 14.65% annually.” His card issuer is BofA — “the fine folks at Bank of America, who’ve spent the last few years buying up failed institutions like Countrywide and Merrill Lynch and taking some $163 billion in taxpayer bailout pledges..” So while BofA has screwed up and received billions of bail out money, they’re not exactly giving their customers much leeway. Here’s what this customer tells us:

The credit card interest rate hike is an offer I’m allowed to refuse. I can reject the increase and pay off the balance at the current terms, but that means I would no longer be able to use the card. If I reject the increase, it also means my credit line on that account would effectively shrink to the current balance, which could hurt my credit score.

Whether or not you decide to opt out of your interest rate hikes, you may be up the creek either way. But then again, we shouldn’t forget that using credit cards is simply a privilege. I’m crossing my fingers that existing 0% APR credit cards and balance transfer cards avoid going the way of the Dodo bird.

What Are Your Options?

Is there something we can do? My opinion here is that unless you have no choice (the new card terms and conditions are unacceptable), then keep the card, pay the least amount possible above the minimum and DO NOT use your card again. It will preserve your credit and will allow you to sign up for a new low interest rate credit card… as soon as you can find one. If you have to pay off the card, make sure you don’t close your account; simply stop using your card, again to keep your credit rating intact.

New Credit Card Rules, Opting Out of Interest Rate Increases

Business Wire (press release)

New Study: Credit Unions Offer the Best Credit Cards Credit Card Guide News If you have given up on the idea of finding a credit card deal with reasonable terms, take heart. According to a new study by Pew … Citibank (NYSE: C) Unannounced Account Closing Highlights Necessity for …American Banking News Stop increases on credit cards before new law takes effectSacramento Bee Crackdown over credit cards: But will it do any good?Daily Gazette all 119 news articles »

« Previous entries