2009-10-05

Little of interest

Interest rates are at an all-time low. According to the little dancing ads that surround my Hotmail account, they are so low that President Obama is begging me to refinance my home mortgage. (He's also begging me to get an education loan to go back to school, and to lose weight by OBEYING ONE RULE.)

I actually find this annoying. I've already refinanced my home, so it's about as low as it's going to get for a fixed-rate mortgage. My vehicles are paid off (one, I paid cash for; the other was financed at 0% and was paid off last year). I am currently not in a position where I am borrowing money, but trying to save it. In addition to money withheld from my paycheck for my IRA, I have money automatically transferred each paycheck to savings accounts for myself (short- and long-term), and one for each of my kids.

Each of those savings accounts earn less than 1%.

I do have a brokerage account, but I try not to do too much with it, because any time I fiddle with it, I end up losing more money.

It is extremely frustrating when I'm trying to be financially responsible and saving money, yet the interest rates are so low, it's not worth saving any money. I might as well line my mattress with the cash.

Except, here's the funny part. As I'm going through my mail, I notice letters from my credit card providers, saying that they are raising my interest rates. These rates, that are allegedly tied to the federal prime interest rate, are already over 20%, and they're the only interest rates going up.

I suppose it's a good thing that I don't carry a balance and therefore don't pay interest (except for those rare occasions when they don't let me pay my bill and penalize me for "my" failure).

Maybe what I need to do is start my own credit card. Then I can earn interest that's actually worth something.

2009-10-04

Bandwidth for September


Received: 44.60 GB
Transmitted: 6.16 GB
Total: 50.76 GB

Not quite as high as August, but September puts on a decent show. The spike on the 27th — the second-highest day on record so far — comes from keeping two kids with fevers home from church and trying to keep them entertained.

Still, a back-of-the-napkin calculation shows that I'd still be (barely) under my bandwidth cap for the month if that day was every day for a month.