Day In The Life of Baz

Ok, now I know what most of you are thinking. “He’s a High Yields Savings account whore!”. But that’s not it I swear, it’s just how things happened to come about. I’ve had ING Direct for some time now. They were kind of falling off on raising their interest rates, so I hoped on over to Capital One, which had a slightly higher rate. Then I heard about Emigrant and HSBCDirect, with higher rates still. So what’s a guy trying to save some money to do? Now there have been many, many different reviews of ING Direct, Emigrant, and HSBC Direct. I did a lot of research and finally I’ve decided what I’m going to do.

I was about to cancel my ING Direct account, when they came out with the Electric Orange online checking account. This account gives an interest rate of 3% on the balance. So I figured, even though the their interest rate is lower than most, the checking account is amazing. They have a Bill Pay service and a “send a check” service. The only reason it’s different from a normal checking account is that you can’t have a normal check book. Hey, I don’t use that thing anyway. Everything I do is automatically deducted. So I’m keeping the ING Savings account and the Electric Orange account.

Now Lava over at Save Money might not like this much, but hey. I’ve been checking my gas mileage on and off lately, since some environmental issues have changed. I used to average about 24 MPG in the city and 29 MPG on the highway. That’s not that bad for a 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer. So I guess I shouldn’t complain much. Since I’ve moved down to Plano TX, I’ve decided to start tracking it again since so much has changed. First of all, my route now involves traffic, which I didn’t have to deal with before. Also, for my musical entertainment, I’ve added two 12″ speakers enclosed in a speaker box, which of course is dead weight. These two things should have crippled my mileage, but in reality the average is about the same. When you think about it, that makes a lot of sense, since the reduction due to the speakers and the traffic would be offset by the fact that I’m driving solo these days. Yep, since Lava’s not here with me, I’m 100+ lbs lighter (I think I can safely say that she’s over 100 lbs without getting into too much trouble). So all in all, things have averaged about the same.

A Lot time ago I had got into the online high yield savings account. It’s been a couple years now since I’ve had an ING Direct savings account. A regular savings account at a bank gives me a whopping 0.5% interest. I used to have one as Wells Fargo until I sat back one day and wondered what the point was. ING has been really good to me so far.

The problem is that I’m an APY whore. Last I remember ING had an APY of 4.50%. I stumbled upon Capital One’s savings account had an APY of 4.80%, so obviously I hoped onto that one. Now my dilemma is that I’ve been reading about HSBC Direct and EmigrantDirect, both of which have have an APY of 5.05%. Since I just started a new job I’ve been looking for somewhere to shell away my earnings so that they can earn a little bit of interest while I leave them for a rainy day.

Now I’m sure that all you guys have heard bout the Peanut butter scare that we’ve had down south recently. This was about tree (3) weeks ago. Stores are still understocked, except for the expensive Jiff brand. There is no more of my favorite brand, Great Value

From what I understand, the factory that makes these has stopped production due to the salmonella scare. I guess I’m gonna have to bite the bullet and shell out for the good stuff.

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All I can say is wow. Back on tuesday I bought gas at a higher price than I was comfortable with. But now, I’m sure that I made the right decision. Comining home from work yesterday, I noticed the prices an all three (3) of the cheap gas stations at $2.29!!

Is this ever going to end?

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