I'm going to be a smarty pig!

I don't blog about pf (personal finance) stuff here very often because I feel a little conflicted about sharing $ information in such a public forum.

Which is funny--since in person I'm more than happy to chat away about anything and everything to do with savings, loan, paychecks etc.

Maybe it's because I'm the product of 2 attorneys--but the idea of putting some things in writing just makes me uncomfortable. At least, if the writing can be traced back! 

Anyway, I'm breaking my own unwritten (punny!) rule because..well..I'm excited!

Although I don't keep a pf blog, I do follow a few written by  others.
One of the sites included a post very recently about Smarty Pig.


I thought it was a cute name, so I visited the site.
I now think both the name and icon are cute. 
See:

I also think it's a great concept.


You create short-term saving goals and the site helps you determine how much you need to transfer each month into their (relatively) high yield savings plan to reach the total amount. You get to set the time limit and keep track of your progress.


You can also accept donations from friends/family/others using a variety of privacy setting (or just save on your own), and receive smarty pig cards as gifts. 


When you've reached your goal you can have the $ transferred directly back to you bank account, or receive the amount as a gift certificate. If  you choose the gift certificate option you get a bonus amount added too. 


If you use smarty pig you clearly have to be really comfortable with online banking, and the idea of providing personal/financial information to secondary site. 


Since I also use Mint.com I'm not that concerned, and they (seem) to have good security protocols in place. 
I'm going to do a little more digging and then I'll probably set up an account.


Perhaps B and I could add Smarty Pig gift certificates to our registry..whenever we get around to making one of those!

Well, Chase gets knocked off the list..

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I just finished ranting about BOA and then boom, a friend tells me that Chase has forced her to close her credit card.

And not just her..seems that Chase is dumping thousands of former WaMu credit card holders.

No warning or explanation.
They just got a letter saying that their credit card was done.

They have to finish paying off any balances but they can’t make any more charges.

This would only be mildly irritating, except for the fact that having a credit card closed can impact your credit card rating.

For people like C (the friend referenced above), it also means the loss of the credit card with the highest limit. So if she needs to make a large purchase anytime soon, she’s just SOL.

I may be a little bit afraid of over using my credit card, but I haven’t yet hit Duggar territory yet (you know, 18 kids and counting..they don’t use credit of any kind..!).

I like having a credit card for large purchases, or at the very least for emergencies.

It’s SO FRUSTRATING that we have given so much power to these large corporations.
We need more oversight ASAP.

No one should be able to go in and mess around with your money (talking to you BOA), or impact your credit rating and financial stability by arbitrarily shutting down credit cards (Chase).
It makes me really distrustful of all of our financial institutions.

I think I’m still leaning towards opening a new account @ Citi, but I’m starting to wish I could just go off the grid and ignore the entire mess!

Gift Giving Quandry

It's getting to be that time of year again. I just updated my amazon wishlist, and I've already sneakily reminded quite a few people that anything and everything I want is easy found online.

I just gave my boyfriend an awesome present (he passed the bar! woohoo!), and am semi-relieved that I'm now off the hook for a Chanukah present. I'll probably bake some yummy things, but I don't think I'll be buying anything! That still leaves quite a few people on my list for the holidays. I have a cute little sister expecting a pile, a broke college student brother, plus a few friends scattered across the country.

Since I'm a little type A, I've already started making present lists..but it has also made me think a little about why I give gifts.

I really like giving people presents. Sometimes I can afford big gifts, and sometimes I have to resort to the kindergarten method (Look! I made you something!). I know some gift giving is kind of a consumerist culture induced reaction, but I hope that at least some of my enjoyment is because I'm nice and like when others are happy! I hope!

Anyway, being a poor graduate student has made me re-evaluate my gift giving a little. Maybe I do get too much enjoyment out of picking out things that cost money, just for the sake of giving a present. Instead of finding something unique or perfect, sometimes I give in and just get a DVD. If I'm going to spend so much of my time (school, work) etc. feeling proud of myself for helping others, maybe I need to take a little bit more time to figure out if I'm giving out presents to look nice, or doing it because I am nice.

Hmm.