Have y'all heard of this website called Design Seeds? I discovered it because the Amateur Librarian kept "pinning" all these BEAUTIFUL color palettes on Pinterest, and when I followed the links Design Seeds is where it took me! Here's one I'm loving right now...but I feel like I could scroll through these all day. It makes me want some rooms to paint!
Thanks for the inspiration, Design Seeds!
The organization where I work is having a fundraiser the first weekend of November. It’s a silent auction fundraiser with somewhat of a Christmas theme. I’l be working it, but we’re still supposed to dress the part, i.e. cocktail attire. I’ll be honest, I have NO idea what to wear. I feel like I have a couple of dresses that would suffice if it were a summer evening event, but my thought is it will probably be a bit chilly and I’d like to have sleeves, or at least the option of putting on a sweater. I’ve gotten the sense that the staff wears a wide variety of things, from one person who said she’s wearing a gown to another who said she always wears pants. I think one across-the-board attire item is flats, since we’ll be running around all night, but other than that it’s all up in the air. I’m game to buy myself a new, reasonably priced dress, but I don’t even know where to start! I’d rather err on the side of boring so as to blend in than wear something too unique and stick out like a sore thumb…but I’m also afraid of being too casual. I have a strapless black dress that might work okay, but I’m bad at matching it with a long-sleeved layer. Basically, this is the time when being in my college dorm would be a tremendous boon….but instead I’m turning to y’all in the internet! So…
Help! What would you wear? Where would you shop for clothes for an occasion like this? Pictures and links welcome in the comments!
A. and I have been thwarted on two expeditions of late. Let me start by telling you that earlier this year, when we knew we were moving to Atlanta but before we actually moved, I ordered an Atlanta Entertainment coupon book on sale for $21. I thought it would be a good way to get us out exploring Atlanta and maybe trying some new places. Well, after about a month, the book had not appeared, even though its USPS tracking number said it had long since been delivered. A. called customer service, who immediately and apologetically shipped us another one, which arrived 2 or 3 days later….along with the original book, which had apparently been sitting mis-boxed at our post office. Oops. So, for the price of $21, we received not one but TWO Entertainment coupon books.
We found out after we moved that a) many of the places in the book are chains, which we don’t eat at too often anymore (since we are surrounded by incredible local restaurants) and b) many of them were far enough away from our neighborhood that our savings wouldn’t really be worth the time it took to get there. But we’ve definitely used some of them when it’s been convenient, and the BOGO admission to several museums has been nice. I stopped keeping mental track awhile ago, but I’d say I think we paid ourselves back, though perhaps not by much. (We’ve found that we save a lot more money with the free Scoutmob app, because it tends to have restaurants in more of the quirky neighborhoods around us. Consider that a bonus hint.)
The main way we’ve used the coupon book is by combining using a coupon with some already planned outing. But in the past two weeks, we’ve had TWO planned frugal dinners out THWARTED by the unadvertised closing of our intended restaurant!
I wrote a post last week about the movie Courageous. Well, the original plan for seeing the movie was to make a day of it at Atlantic Station, an outdoor mall-type place in Midtown Atlanta. We were going to have lunch at Doc Green’s using a BOGO entree coupon from the book, wander around Ikea, and then go see a matinee at the Regal, using 2 $2 off one adult movie ticket coupons from the book. The first roadblock was that Courageous was not playing at that theater; in fact, it was only playing at a single theater inside the perimeter (i.e. anywhere near us). So, we regrouped. The theater was not far from where I work, so we made plans for A. to come meet me at work one afternoon and drive together from there, eating at Johnny Rockets in the same plaza as the theater using a BOGO coupon. The movie tickets were much more expensive, but that was okay.
On the drive to the mall with the theater I offhandedly pointed out a Johnny Rockets. I thought, “That’s interesting. Two Johnny Rockets locations within a mile of each other. I guess there’s just enough other business in the mall to make it worthwhile.” We got to the mall and went in. It was one of the fanciest malls I had seen in awhile. We found the theater for reference and then set out to find Johnny Rockets. I asked at the Customer Service desk and they said, “Oh, we don’t have a Johnny Rockets anymore.” DARN. The only other places around were “real” restaurants (read: expensive and long wait)…so we ended up eating at the Cafe Bistro Nordstrom. Yes, a bistro in Nordstrom. It was surprisingly tasty, but much more expensive than our Johnny Rockets would have been! Perhaps the most ironic moment of all was when we walked out of the theater and notice immediately outside of it a boarded up storefront that said, “Coming Soon: Johnny Rockets.” Sigh.
Yesterday, we finally set out for our long anticipated wander around Ikea/eat at Doc Green’s date. We didn’t have the movie motivation anymore, but we figured it would be fun anyway. We made our way around Ikea and then walked over to Doc Green’s. I was pretty sure I knew where it was, but when we got there….it wasn’t. So we made a block and eventually found a directory, which had it listed at the location I had thought. So we checked again. No dice. Empty store front. NOTHING on the internet or any of our “check-in” apps told us this. Google Maps lied, as it did with Johnny Rockets. Doc Green’s is GONE. So once again, we ate elsewhere, without a coupon. It’s not a huge deal in the scheme of things, but I can’t believe this has happened to us twice now! Has it ever happened to you?
We do not have cable. I mean, literally. I don’t mean we have the most basic package our cable company offers. I mean that we do not have cable. We have rabbit ears. But lemme tell ya, those antennae have come a long way from the old stereotype. These guys we have are large and in charge and even pick up HD channels. Yeah, you heard right. HD. Our TV is connected to a media center PC, so it has easy and immediate access to Hulu, YouTube, and our Netflix streaming account. But even so, I find that I watch a lot less TV this way than I might want to.
I don’t feel like I grew up watching a whole lot of TV. I had my certain shows I watched religiously, and certain nights on which the TV was “mine” to control. A. and I still have our shows we watch every week (always recorded, so we can fast-forward through the commercials), and I have a few shows that I watch on my own. But I tend to want to veg on the couch watching TV a lot more than A. does. That urge strikes me especially when I’m alone in the evenings. I’ll get lonely, and then I’ll get bored, and somehow that combination makes it so that all I feel like doing is staring at a screen.
That’s a lot easier said than done, though, when you have to decide what you want to watch and find it on some online venue! It’s much easier to mindlessly scroll through channels, or watch some miscellaneous show just because it’s on. I have found myself watching Grey’s Anatomy numerous times, even though it’s one of the shows I make the most fun of, because I happened upon it on the TV guide. But if I have to find a show on Hulu, I often draw a blank. Or tonight, I was going to surf our small selection of channels….but the computer was recording Jeopardy, so I couldn’t change the channel. Such is life. So instead I rallied myself and emptied the dishwasher, washed and bagged up grapes, and cut up carrots for our lunches. Much more productive.
When I’m bored, though, I lose all desire to be productive or social, even though those are the very things that would stop me from being bored. It’s so stupid. I feel like I’ve always been this way. One of my most hated things as a child was when I would whine, “I’m boooo-red,” and my mom would retort back with a list of all the things I could be doing. I would usually end up storming off to my room to read a book. Now that I’m an adult, I can and do make those lists for myself. But why is even a good book often less appealing than the mindlessness of the television? I am inexplicable to myself sometimes.
I feel like such a child even admitting that I get bored. I feel like as a reasonable, mature person I should be beyond boredom. I live a full life. I have interests. But when I’m bored, sometimes even my interests don’t interest me. Am I alone in this? How do you deal with boredom? How do you snap out of a random funk and convince yourself to do the fun things you’ve been wanting to do when you didn’t have the time? I ought to go check out my Pinterest boards and see if anything catches my fancy….but I might just read instead.
Today's post comes from my husband, Andy! He writes his own blog on technical stuff and posts often in the blog his company keeps up. Those posts usually don't make much sense to me...but this one does! Read on...
Though many saw it coming, Bank of America's introduction of a $5/month fee for debit card usage has caused much outrage. It is likely that more banks will follow suit, so why is this happening and is there anything to do about it?
Banks have always collected fees from debit card use, but they were previously hidden from cardholders. Retailers bore the brunt of them until the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (whew!) passed in 2010. That Act allows the Federal Reserve to cap the fees retailers pay, and the Fed used that power to implement new rules earlier this year.
Under the new rules, banks with assets greater than $10 billion may only charge 21 cents + 0.05% for any single debit card transaction. On the average debit card transaction of $38, larger banks can collect roughly 24 cents from retailers.
Previously, banks charged somewhere between 1 and 2%. On $38, that is 38-72 cents.
So it's not very difficult to understand why banks are tacking fees onto cardholders to make up the difference. But just because these fees were introduced for a reason, should you pay them? I don't necessarily think so.
While this fee is only equivalent to one Starbucks coffee per month, there are alternatives worth considering that could save hundreds over time. For instance, Laura and I pay no fees for basic banking services by using a combination of a local credit union and online banks.
Local credit unions typically offer similar services to banks, but underneath they are structured differently: credit unions report to the people who have money deposited; alternatively, banks report to shareholders who own stock in the bank. In my experience, credit unions are overall more member-friendly.
For Laura and me, a local credit union serves as a way to keep teller service, which we occasionally need for mundane things like getting quarters for our laundry machines. As long as we keep $50 in a savings account at our current credit union, we stay members and incur no fees. The National Credit Union Administration website lists credit unions by state.
The majority of our finances, though, use online banks. Because online banks do not have to staff numerous brick-and-mortar locations, they are often able to pass these savings along in the form of no-fee accounts and excellent services.
Choosing to do finances online may seem like a scary undertaking, but as I'll explain, it is at least as safe as a brick-and-mortar bank ... and often times, more convenient.
Here are some things to consider when looking at online banks:
Now, for the recommendations. All these banks offer free checking and savings accounts--including debit card--and have strong features in my list of guidelines above. If you know of others, feel free to leave comments.
| Bank | Notable Fees | ATM Access |
|---|---|---|
| Ally Bank | Monthly Maintenance: Free Debit Card: Free Minimum Balance: $0.00 Physical Checks: Free |
Reimbursement of fees charged by any ATM |
| USAA | Monthly Maintenance: Free Debit Card: Free Minimum Balance: $0.00 Physical Checks: Free |
Reimbursement of fees charged by any ATM. Depositing checks via a scanner or phone is restricted to members who have and/or are eligible for USAA credit cards or insurance products. |
| ING Direct | Monthly Maintenance: Free Debit Card: Free Minimum Balance: $0.00 Physical Checks: $5.00/50 checks |
Free at over 35,000 locations; make sure one is nearby you via their website or mobile app. |
Do you bank online, or would you consider it more strongly now as more and more physical banks are beginning to charge fees? Even I (Laura), often the last to be convinced of adopting a modern technology (i.e. e-books...gasp!) am all about the online banks. I'm finally convinced there's nothing to be scared of....and as Andy just explained, there's probably much to like!
