Name:Jason Country:United States State:California Gender:Male
Interests:Chilling with friends, swing dance, karaoke, games, reading, cooking, growing in Christ with a community. Expertise:Meeting peoples medical and spiritual needs Occupation:Medical Industry:Medical
Looks like Intuit, makers of Quicken and successful challenger to Microsoft, has purchased Mint.com. I hope the quality of Mint doesn't decline. Quicken lost me as a loyal customer to Mint when Intuit promised, but failed to produce a decent Mac version.
I came across a website a few days ago that I thought was rather funny. Great for those who enjoy musicals, parodies and the internet. Other videos on this site may be offensive.
Other things that have kept me busy lately. I had a few friends over celebrating September birthdays. As many of you know, my birthday falls on a not-so-pleasant day to remember and it's more fun celebrating with friends. Party was much smaller than my gatherings when I was single, but still fun. Didn't break out the boardgames and no karaoke this time. Instead we just shared pictures and travels online, and fun youtube videos of things we thought were cool...like people "spontaneously" breaking out into song or dance in unusual public venues.
I picked up Metroid Zero Mission a couple of weeks ago. Nice part is that it has the classic NES Metroid game built in once you pass the game. Had a lot of fun with it and will probably go back to the used game store I picked it up in. I'm feeling pretty nostalgic about these old style games. We purchased a Nintendo DS Lite a little bit before EV was born. I have Final Fantasy I through V (not too much changes in the style of play). Playing on an emulated Game Boy on our flight to Taiwan encouraged me to get one. There's nothing like remembering all those old tricks on the original Super Mario Brothers. (I wasn't able to beat it on the flight, though I could easily do so on the NES. Slight variations on the Game Boy color version made a difference). I think not having a dedicated gaming system (does not include PC or Macs) for such a long time (between the original NES and the Nintendo DS Lite just a few years ago) I can enjoy retro games that are brand new to me. Like the other Final Fantasy games, or the newer Mario Brothers games.
Catching up on InuYasha on Hulu. About 6 seasons are available online and I'm not sure if there is an ending to the series. I've enjoyed Rumiko Takahashi's other series, Maison Ikkoku and Ranma 1/2 (I have all the graphic novels).
We'll be heading to NorCal late October-early November for a wedding on Halloween. Yes, we'll be in costume. We're going as the Alice, the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts. A shout out to friends/relatives there that want to meet up with us on our trip.
After BSF let out this summer, I've been hanging out with one of my groomsmen to get into a weekly exercise program of walking. It allows me to do something after picking EV up from daycare instead of bringing her straight home and getting into trouble.
We picked up a grill at Home Depot, a Brinkmann, which is listed as a best buy on Consumer Reports. Strangely enough the model number on Consumer Reports doesn't match the model number in the store. Either that or they set up the displays incorrectly in my store. We've been grilling kalbi beef ribs, Rib Eye steaks, asparagus, corn, salmon filets, eggplant, zucchini, sausages and hamburgers. Getting some good use out of it, but I'm wondering if I should get a large plastic tub so I can wash the parts regularly outside. The grates, heat diffusers and bottom grease tray should be cleaned regularly, but currently I'm only scrapping down the grates and oiling them up before using.
We got back from our Alaskan cruise/Seattle trip last week. EV did well. We also traveled with my mom and Wilkako. Already looking forward to our next cruise.
An update on some money saving tips:
If you purchase an iwireless phone card from your local Kroger banner store, the $10 cards only extend your minutes for 30 days while the $20 cards will extend the expiration date by 90 days. I was hoping that the $10 cards would extend it for 90 days, and was surprised when I got the text message that my minutes were expiring soon. Also if you enroll your rewards shopping card with iwireless, when you spend $100 in groceries, you'll get 20 free minutes. So I did a few grocery trips since coming home, restocking the fridge after our vacation and picking up some phone cards. Don't forget to use your $5 Ralphs coupons in the Entertainment book! Purchasing 2 phone cards already gets you $40 towards the $75 minimum purchase needed for the coupon.
The interest rates on savings accounts have plummeted during this recession and it's getting hard to find a decent return. I had bounced around between ING direct, FNBOdirect, Wamu's online savings, back to FNBOdirect and recently found a bank on mint.com's blog called smartypig that's currently paying 2.75%. That's better than ally bank and more than a percentage point better than FNBO. Smartypig's interface is much different than a typical online savings account. You have to set up savings goals and make monthly auto-contributions from your checking account to this savings account. I set up a really long term savings goal (many years in the future) with the amount of $100,000 (the old FDIC limit). That way it sets up a really low monthly contribution. I can still make lump sum contributions towards this goal and edit the goal, but I can't pull money out until I reach the goal. Interest is posted quarterly instead of monthly. So yeah, a pretty weird interface, but at least I don't have to jump through hoops of setting up billpay or direct deposit. Of course rates are always subject to change and I always seem to get the account set up just before they lower their rates, but I figure a whole percentage point is worth the jump.
The more I think about it, the more it gets me upset. I read articles and pour over the business and finance news. I read blogs about personal finance and also the macroeconomic picture.
It seems like we're pouring trillions of dollars into these financial institutions to show us and the world that our financial system is sound. It seems like congress, the Fed, the Treasury Secretary and the President won't be happy until the banks start to lend again.
But what if all this stimulus is actually hurting us more than helping us? Put it in another way. As a consumer, I'm not going to tie up my money for a long time in CD that bears a pitiful 2 to 3 percent interest. The Fed, Congress and the Treasury Secretary all seem to be pushing for lower interest rates for home mortgages, even below 4.5%. But since we've pumped so much money into the system, I'm expecting and I'm sure banks and lending institutions are expecting as well, a period of high inflation. Since there is so much money in the system, the each dollar is worth less. If a bank or other lending institution makes a fixed rate loan at say 4.5% and inflation rises to 5% or higher the lender loses, which hurts even more on a long term loan.
Granted, that some of the inflationary pressure may be taken off money is "lost" in bankruptcy or devaluing of assets, but these trillions of dollars that we're talking about has to end up somewhere. Any business/finance people want to comment?
I just established an account with mint.com after having a few frustrations with Quickenonline.com. So far, I like it a lot. It was faster setting up my accounts than with Quickenonline.com. I set everything up in about 20 minutes. Mint was able to handle the accounts that Quickenonline was not able to figure out including:
529 plans (I'm with Ohio's plan, CollegeAdvantage) Stock Options (Fidelity NetBenefits) Restricted Stock Awards (Fidelity NetBenefits) 401k plans (Managed by Merrill Lynch, which I guess is Bank of America now) The last 3 are specific for my company's benefits
I even e-mailed quickenonline's support who said that I must have entered my passwords wrong. Well, where Quicken got it wrong, Mint got it right! It also seems that Quickenonline's tech support has been outsourced to India.
With a little bit of extra data like address and vehicles, it was able to calculate our net worth. Of course it does charting and graphing to show spending, can set up a budget as well. Both mint and quickenonline offer e-mail and text messenging alerts should you chose to set them up. Mint's tracking of investments seems more impressive than quickenonline's.
While Quicken works well with TurboTax, Mint was on an ad with TaxAct. I e-filed my taxes off yesterday. TaxActonline was pretty easy and very similar to TurboTax.
Both Quickenonline and Mint.com are free. Mint's business model seems to be from advertising from financial institutions. It may recommend different banks that have higher savings accounts, better checking accounts, brokerage accounts or credit cards....somewhat like bankrate.com. Mint also seems to have pulled some of Intuit's talent as well.
So while Quicken's disk and CD-Rom based software has been moving more and more towards syncing with financial institutions and trying to set up a one-step update, Quickenonline and Mint have gone one step further and automated the entire process, syncing daily and directly.
