Here’s a story that has little to do with personal finance but plenty on being a gluttonous cheapskate.

So once upon a time, I was watching a DVD in front of my computer, while wolfing down those Costco Kirkland Signature™ Chocolate Chip Cookies.

If you shop at Costco, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, I have this habit of splitting my cookies in half before I throw them in my mouth, and I did so with each of the cookies I came across.

As the numbers of cookies diminish down to the last few, I commit to my routine of: pick up, split in half, throw ‘em in mouth, and chomp away.  Imagine my surprise when one of the cookie wouldn’t detach, after I’ve already split it in half.

Hmm, what the.

Since the room was quite dim, I held the cookie up to the brightly lit screen.

Nice.

The split cookies were connected by a single strand of long, thin, human hair.

At least, I hope it’s human hair.

The first thought that came into my mind was, “Man, that’s some strong hair.” The second thought was, “How many cookies do I have left?”

After doing some basic arithmetic in my head, I counted three cookies.

So what did I do?

Naturally, I ate around the strand of hair.

Moral of the story?

Next time, take a picture and complain to Costco, so you can get another box of cookies for free. Better yet, bring it to them and show it to them.

Finally. What I’ve been waiting for. Extra security for my Bank of America online account access. Yay. *sarcasm off*

Actually it’s not so bad if you only log into your account from one computer, but if you use different computers, expect more security questions.

SiteKey basically helps you identify Bank of America’s real login site from the fake ones. When you setup your SiteKey Image, each time you attempt to log on, Bank of America will display that specific Image you’ve choose. If you don’t see the same image, you’re not at a real Bank of America website. If you’re using another computer, you’ll have another set of questions to answer before you can log into your account.

Here’s what it sorta looks like:

You can find more information about it on Bank of America’s website.

Despite my hate for extra security, this one’s actually a pretty good idea – the implementation isn’t so bad at all. I was worried that there will be an extra set of security key, but looks like that won’t happen anytime soon.

Everyone and their mom is giving away an iPod shuffle as a promotion. I guess it’s not such a bad thing though.

NetBank is doing a limited time offer (till 12/31), in which you get an iPod Shuffle if you open a 1 year CD or a money market account – with a $1,000 deposit.

The Certificate of Deposit’s current 1 year yield is at 4.65%, and the money market is at a not-so-hot 3.36%

There is an early account closing fee of (must be open for 6 months) $25, and a closing fee of $7.50. So the money market is definitely not that great of a choice.

These fees don’t apply to the CD, it just ends at a 1 year term and you’ll have 10 days to request them not to renew it. So for some people the CD isn’t such a bad deal. According to Fatwallet’s forum, a few people have received it already, so this might be a pretty hot deal for some people. You should refer to the Fatwallet discussion for more information.

Oh yeah, NetBank doesn’t exactly have the greatest reputation, so your results may vary. I’ll definitely suggest against the money market though.

seems to be a frequent promotion from American Express, although I’m surprise I’ve never heard about it till recently (saw the notice in my statement).

The concept is fairly simple. Basically at certain time frame within the promotional period, American Express will offer products for sale on that site, at below retail bargain price. The products are of course at a limited quantity.

If you’re lucky, when you click on the “I want it” button, you’ll be allow to purchase the product at bargain price – if it is still in stock. You will need to pay for the purchase with your American Express card, so this is a card member only offer.

Example on the front page include XBOX 360 for $150 (Retail $200-$300), or a Range Rover Sport for $5,000 (Retail $56,000+). The quantity on the Range Rover will most likely be only one. heh.

They will also be giving away free gift certificates to Amazon.com, etc. So those are always cool to try to get. But remember that everything is at a limited quantity, so you’ll be competing with millions of people refreshing their web browser every second.

You can read more about this at the My Wishlist FAQ page, or an FAQ from Fatwallet.com‘s forum

Here’s a list of some possible products and prizes for this promotion period.

Be warn though, it can get pretty easy to spend money on something you never need – don’t grab it just because its some great deal!

Stop Buying Crap #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7 | #8 | #9 | #10 | #11 | #12

Once again it’s been awhile, but its time to live up to the blog’s name.

Computer Games

There. I admit it. I play computer games. Although not at any addicting level, it has certainly cost me some grade point average, social life points, and financial resources. All of the sake of “entertainment.” Sigh.

Computer games run for $50-$60 brand new. Let’s not forget those games that have a monthly subscription fee ($10-15) after you paid the initial $50. Yikes!

Why computer games specifically and not ALL video games? Well one of the main reason is because if you’re a computer gamer, you generally will have to have a computer. (Dur?) But, not just any computers! Depending on what you play, you will either need the latest hardware, or at least something more than what the average computer contains. So this means more $$$. Although I don’t go crazy and upgrade my computer all the time, I have certainly bought parts for the sole purpose of running computer games faster. (e.g. graphics card). Anyhow, I’ll save the computer ranting for another edition.

These are some of the boxes I found around my room. I have bought plenty more games than this. (Although not an insane amount). Most of these I bought used for at a cheaper price, but still could have just not spend the money at all.

The super stupid part here is the Half Life 2 game I bought for $40 (I waited a bit for the price to drop from $50-60). It’s quite possibly one of the best modern computer game today, but the problem is I’ve only played it for a few hours. I bought it because I thought I’ll spend lots of time on it. But for whatever reason, I never got around to really play it.

So now it sits there and collects dust. I leave it around as a reminder. Hey, haven’t bought a game since!

Wasted Money? Maybe a few hundreds.

It’s too bad Freetrade.com went the way of dinosaurs (that have been bought out by bigger dinosaurs). It’s replacement, iZone from Ameritrade, looks okay but isn’t as good as Freetrade.

I’ve been scourging through the numerous online brokers lately, and it seems none are really solid. I guess you can’t expect great service for cheap commission rates. It seems the customer satisfaction rate for brokers are similar to the customer satisfaction rate from car dealership. Yikes!

Brownco seemed pretty good, but unfortunately it got bought out by another dinosaur too (E*Trade).

Interactive Broker looks to be okay, but I don’t think I’ll trade enough to make it worth while.

The ones I’m actually considering are Firsttrade and Scottrade. Low commission rate, no account maintenance fees, no inactivity fees, and other related fees are fairly low too. It’s a tough call still because I can’t find that many user opinions on Firsttrade, and the ones I do find for Scottrade are love ‘em or hate ‘em types.

Anyway, I think I should take some more time to establish what my needs actually are before I start throwing money away to wacky fees.

Got an interesting letter in the mail today.

Apparently EmigrantDirect has opened a new state-of-the-art Customer Service Center located in Westchester, New York. According to the letter, ED now has over 150,000 customers with over $4.5 Billions in deposits. Their customer service number continues to be: 1-800-836-1997. The new address will be:

EmigrantDirect
13 Croton Avenue
Ossining, New York 10562

Hopefully with the new center, customer service will be much better. IMO, too many brick-and-mortar banks that are going for the Internet savings account often have trouble separating or integrating the additional operation. So this could be move for Emigrant Savings Bank to provide better dedicated care to its specific customer of EmigrantDirect.