It doesn't exist if I can't see it.
Pending my increase in income, I've finally opened an account with a credit union. My main accounts are still with BofA, because face it, my manager was right, when you have Bill Pay, online banking and multiple accounts at one place, it is damn hard to divorce that bank. Ever since I had to close the first account I've ever had at Wamu/Chase, I've been searching for another financial institution. Makes me antsy having accounts only at one place. That's probably because of my working for financial institutions. It's really hard to say fuck you to a bank only to go to another place and find my checks are going to be held for 7/9 fucking business days because it's a new account. Not that I get that many personal checks that could be held anyway, but that's not the point! The point is that I wanted an account where a small part of my direct deposit will go to so I don't see it. And voila! A few months later, I will have money I didn't know existed. It's all about the mind tricks.
Anyway, I chose USE Credit Union because I knew I wanted something that was part of the Shared Branch Network. So San Diego County CU along with a few other large CUs in SD are out. How am I suppose to access my money when I go on a trip? USE also have a pretty exciting Finance Works that's supposed to help with breaking down and keeping track of your finances. Plus, they have offices open on Saturdays till 4pm. I went in to open my account and to my dismay, they use XP as well for their financial platform. Dismayed because that was a major reason why I didn't want to open an account at Metropolitan. The system is incredibly primitive. And looking at the schedule of fees, there's a $2 fee for SBA cash withdrawals. Really? So what's the point of shared branching then? For now, I'll try them out and see how they work out. I can always move it and find some other place right? Also, apparently they had a branch right on-campus at UCSD. I was there for four years, I have absolute no impression of it. In banking terms, opportunity?
Luis then convinced me to get new tires while we were at Discount Tires. I had a pretty good idea what the price should be and I'm pretty sure it was lower than Costco. Actually, now that I thought about it, I should have asked for a comparison for the same product and then decide...I blame Luis. (Actually he checked ratings for me and they are pretty good.)
Economic stimulation!
Speaking of, now that I have a bit extra money, it's time to donate to charities. Someone has to offset the donations to churches. One member I helped donated about half of his state and federal taxes to his church. And here I was thinking tithes were a Medieval/Mormon concept. Really, I mean capital "M," for both. And yes I know tithes mean 10% or thereabouts. These are my churches:
1. Abortion rights/women's health-Planned Parenthood Federation of America. I've used their multiple services. I love that they are affordable, accessible, an incredibly professional. I see it as my paying them back for all the free services/products I got when I had no insurance. The only thing that irks me is the monthly mailings I receive for their fund raising efforts. What a waste of paper and postage. OTOH, I guess it helps keep post offices open. However, I much prefer that they don't send out letters to me. I'll donate when I have the money, especially since they are at the top of my list.
2. Public radio-KPBS. KPBS sucks for the fact that after 7, instead of broadcasting news loop like up in LA, we have classical music. Blah. I would even prefer some variety in classical music, like opera. Opera counts right? Otherwise, a few of my favorite podcasts come from public radio. I know they are not from KBPS, but I'll still go local first.
3. Animal rights-?. All thanks to Butters. I haven't decided which charity to donate to for that one yet since I have never donated anything to that cause, so I'll need to do my research.
4. Education-?. I don't want to suffer in this democracy because the majority of the voting population doesn't have critical thinking skills. No death/suffering by stupidity. I don't mind differences in opinion/values. However, when those who espouses these values are hypocritical or allow cognitive dissonance to rule their lives and actions, they lose my respect, which I wouldn't mind so much except they affect my life negatively, i.e. not having health insurance and threatening to defund public radio as well as PPFA. Choosedonors.org seems to be a good candidate right now.
I'm sure much later, I'd like to add some kind of legal counsel organization to the list.
Did you know happiness is a much better indicator of likelihood to donate than wealth?
And my blood type in Asian population occurs 27% of the time. Yay! I'm not that special...Cool bit of statistic though. Luis is B+, but we don't know if he's phenotypically homozygous for the B allele. I teased him that he should have some kids so we can test it. It's for a good cause, solving a medical mystery.
With that, I have cruised into daylight savings time or the end of, I can never keep track. Yay for earlier hours! I love daylight. Makes me depressed when I don't get enough of it, which means I'll just have to make sure that I don't live close to the poles. Relatively easily accomplished. Happiness for mission accomplished! And not in the ironic way that we now use the phrase post-Bush on aircraft carrier circa 2003.
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