Credit Card Offers

We took our second delivery today from One Straw Farm, the farm supplying the produce in our CSA (or however you describe that relationship), and this one consisted entirely of green stuff.

This weeks haul:

Last week, we had a little box of strawberries to break up the green-ness of our loot. This week, its all green, all the time and itll result in a lot of salads.

On the recommendation of a lot of people (thanks!), we decided to take last weeks scapes and turn it into pesto. The recipe is pretty simple (we modified this recipe, replacing some ingredients):

We havent used it yet, we plan on putting it on some salmon and roasting it to fine deliciousness.

Last week, there were three things Id never had before garlic scapes and the two chards.

Read full post…

How many memberships do you have? How many of those do you use often enough to justify the fees? When was the last time you sat down and took a long look at what you were paying and whether it was still worth it? If its been a while, nows a pretty good time to do it.

The classic unused membership is, of course, the gym membership. For the month or so after New Years Day, our gym is absolutely packed with people looking to achieve their resolutions. The influx of new people only lasts about a month or two before it goes back to its pre-NY resolution levels. While the people may no longer be going, their money continues to go to the gym since gyms know about this behavior.

Read full post…

Not too long ago, President Obama and the First Lady disclosed their financial assets publicly. Their balance sheet showed no liabilities the First Family is debt-free. Additionally, the financial disclosure includes money made on book royalties, as well as information about where the Obamas are investing some of their cash. When you look at the numbers, provided by CBS Moneywatch, it becomes evident that you can learn a few things from the Obamas.

Some things that Obamas are doing, like investing in a low-cost index fund, make sense. Other items the Obama family are doing, though, like parking a large chunk of capital in a bank account that yields very little interest, arent the best ways to maximize your money.

Read full post…

What do you think of Ron Pauls proposal to stop taxing tips? I think servers everyone would love it but it might have some unintended consequences if it were to pass (which it probably wont). If we were to stop taxing tips, the minimum wage laws would probably have to be adjusted to account for this law and tips would likely go down in the long run (since tips were suppose to supplement a much lower minimum wage).

Ive personally never liked the idea of tipping because things are so inconsistent and subject to interpretation.

Read full post…

The news broke yesterday that Capital One would be the happy recipient of the keys to a brand new ING Direct. Everyone knew that ING Direct was up for sale, the ING Groep was required to sell it, but no one was sure who would be the happy new owner. The acquisition puts Capital One in the lead as the largest online bank, mostly because ING Direct was absolutely enormous. The final price? Around $9 billion, in a mix of $6.2 billion cash and $2.8 billion stock.

We speculated as to what would happen when someone purchased ING Direct, though we were using Ally Bank as the acquirer (those were the rumors at the time). Since it was a friendly acquisition, rather than an FDIC chaperoned affair, mostly nothing would happen.

Read full post…

Having just passed the thirty mark a short time ago, I usually dont follow too much about that end of retirement on Bargaineering. I try to keep up to date on it, since Id like to know how likely it is Ill be collecting Social Security in thirty years, and so this latest news that the AARP is dropping its opposition to Social Security cuts is pretty big news. As we all know, lobbying (and money in general) equals influence in Washington and this opens the door for a restructuring of Social Security.

Read full post…