Sunday, January 27, 2008

New Washer and Dryer

My new Washer and Dryer arrived today.

It is so amazingly quiet...no more sound of a freight train driving through the building, guess I won't need to only run it during the day when I'm not at home anymore. No more running the washer while I run errands and then hear before I get to my door that I've gotten home too soon.

It does take a longer, perhaps more so because I watched it run the first wash load.

Now, I think I need to buy more clothes so that I can run full loads....though its more about not having enough whites to last two weeks.... ;P

Wonder if I'll try washing my comforter today.
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Thursday, January 17, 2008

TD Ameritrade & External Account Verification

The other day, I was thinking I needed to tap the cash in my TD Ameritrade brokerage account...but I couldn't find a current check book for the account. Turned out that I never ordered one for the account after I moved here to Manhattan. Guess I had figured I would save the expense for until I had the need to write a check. Which has been rare....

But, while looking at my cash management options, there seemed to be the indication that I could do electronic (ACH) transfers out of my TD Ameritrade account. In the past, I could only transfer in...and it was a hassle if I wanted to create a recurring one (though I don't have the excess of cash these days to do that, now that the IRA contribution limit is much higher, I'm making less and now that cost of living is higher and growing faster than my pay).

And, since moving to Manhattan, KS, I have gone from doing all my banking at one bank to 3 banks now. I still have my primary accounts at First Internet Bank of Indiana. But, I added a local bank....mainly so I now have somewhere to convert the piles of coins (though not so much now that it is so easy to pay with a credit card now)....into more usable forms of currency. And, the high interest savings account.... So, I went and linked these new accounts with my TD Ameritrade account.

Normally, this process works where they send two small deposits to the account to link with, and you verify that you got these deposits to complete the linking. And, that's it....

But, I got a surprise this morning when checking my accounts. After I verified the trial deposits, TD Ameritrade then withdrew the trial deposits.

Kind of surprised that they were that petty about the small amount of cash.... 0.97 cents between the two accounts I linked. And, the fact that I wasn't told that they were going to do this....especially since none of the other institutions that I done this with in the past have done anything like this (IE: Capital One, E*Trade, PayPal, TD Waterhouse)....

Perhaps, I should've added the TD Ameritrade account as an external account to my Capital One account. But, someday I plan to be in the position to put cash into the TD Ameritrade account for investing again...and it seemed to make sense that I should be able to easily pull money from my other accounts into it.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

My Mastercard got jacked!

Today was Wingsday.

It was a glorious Wingsday....6 free traditional wings (Asian Zing), 6 boneless wings (Caribbean Jerk), wedges with cheese (though it isn't the approved cheese...), and some blue cheese dressing to dip. And, we were served by Leslie.

But, when it was time to pay...I decided to use my Mastercard, instead of Discover (the 5% cash back bonus for restaurants was for October, November, December)....to which I was informed that it was denied. >:(

So, I had to use my Discover card to pay....

Later I called Chase customer service....after entering my information, it then asked me to verify four of my recent transactions. I didn't recognize the first 3 transactions...only the 4th was the denied authorization attempt by Buffalo Wild Wings was recognized.

Guess it was good that they were blocking transactions on my card. Somebody was trying to buy $1600 in computer equipment and services with it.

I pressed the button to speak to somebody about things, went over the details of the transactions and they decided to cancel my card. So now I have to wait for a new credit card to come again.

This is the second time this has happened to this particular Mastercard. None of my other cards have experienced this sort of thing....yet.

It did cross my mind that maybe I look for a different brand of Mastercard, though the work of finding a new reward card, etc. I don't know if I want that. Guess the Perfectcard is just too perfect....

It seemed interesting that after I used my Mastercard to make a purchase at a certain local business....another customer mentioned to me that now if I start seeing strange, large purchase on my card that it might be too much of a coincidence....which is why that person only spends cash at that business, even though he prefers to use his credit card as much as possible for its rewards.

Never crossed my mind at the time, but I would've probably still used it...since I was tapped for cash during the holidays....waiting for the surcharge free ATM in the K-State Student Union to become accessible again....(though I did make a withdrawal at an ATM that hit me with a $2 surcharge, because the no-surcharge ATM was out of order and I couldn't put it off anymore...)

Looking forward to Chipotday, tomorrow.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Uncle Sam Starts Handing Out Digital TV Coupons

With the start of the new year, you can now request your (up to 2 per household) $40 off coupon on digital-to-analog TV converter boxes.

Word is that places like Best Buy will have the boxes in February for around $60. The analog TV ends on February 17th, 2009.

Wonder if the stations will fix it so that I can get digital over the air around here. Can get analog now, but the only digital station that I can get is WIBW-DT.....its the problem with digital...you get nice clean picture, etc...but its pretty much all or nothing.