The Writers Coin

I’ve whined about not dedicating enough time to my fiction or to other writing pursuits before. Mostly it’s because of the time it takes me to write daily posts for this blog.

Now, let’s be honest, posting on a daily schedule can be a great idea or a terrible idea. I think, for me, it’s not the best thing. I’ve gotten hooked on posting something—anything—every day and I wind up neglecting the other ideas I have in my head. Believe it or not, one of those other ideas is another blog, but it’s totally unrelated to money and it feels good to split my time between that and personal finance.

Once I have more of a footing (and more posts) I’ll let everyone know what the new site is about, but it’ll be about my “other” passion: baseball.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and the model I’m going after is Ramit of IWillTeachYoutobeRich fame. He doesn’t post on a fixed schedule (that I can tell), only when he has something really worthwhile to say.

So if you see a new post from me, it means I think it’s really, really, really good.

That’s right: three reallys.

Instead of forcing myself to post something, anything, I’m going to hoard these ideas and only publish the very best ones. The idea is to make the content better and to give me time to write for the other blog.

As for my fiction….you may have to keep hearing me complain about it. Oh and one more thing: if you have any recommendations for a great novel to read, please pass it along. I’ve been struggling to find something I’m really into lately.

My latest post on Wisebread, Getting Ahead at Work: Are You a Swiss-Army Knife or a Hammer, has been selected for the Carnival of Top Personal Finance Posts.

Here’s what that means: five other posts have also been chosen but the winner is picked by you, the readers! So head on over there and check out the other five posts and then you won’t have a dirty conscience about voting for my post!

Or vote right here:

I was nominated once before and ended up in last place. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen again!

Thank you!

May isn’t over yet but it’s already been brutal for our budget. M and I typically save a fixed amount of our paychecks every month but this month has definitely not gone as planned. Here are some of the unexpected things we had to pony up for that have thrown our financial house into disrepair:

• Bikes: We both got bicycles and I ended up going way over budget on my end. Oops.
• Anniversary: Yesterday was our one-year anniversary and I wanted to do something special. Which we did. It was awesome and I wouldn’t take it back for anything. But it wasn’t cheap. Oh and to everyone that’s curious: yes, it was a surprise.
• Random: This is the scariest part of missing our budget this month—I couldn’t even tell you what else we spent on that put us over the top.

Some Thoughts on a Bad Month: I know that trying to explain away such a bad month (which is still bad even with the extra paycheck that comes with a five-Friday month) is probably bad form, but I’m going to do it anyway. The purpose of money is supposed to be to enjoy our lives. We’ve already gotten a great return on our bike purchase (it’s fun, it’s exercise, and it gets us outside) and our anniversary trip was a blast. When we have kids we won’t be able to just pick up and go like we did this weekend. The more I thought about it, the more I felt we should just go and have fun—budget be damned.

We did not dip into our down-payment fund and we didn’t go into debt to do it. That’s good enough for me.

I hate it when people make assumptions about things without thinking them through. I’m the type of person that spends a lot of time (maybe too much time) thinking before talking or acting.

So I like to attack those assumptions and prove them wrong—which is why I wanted to write a post about how ING Direct isn’t really everything it’s cracked up to be. Even though I’m a loyal customer and ardent supporter. Why? Cause I’m infantile and rebellious like that, that’s why.

Why ING?

Personal-finance writers all over the web all love ING Direct because it’s such a great place to keep savings and the customer service is soooo fantastic and blah blah blah—enough already with the lovey-dovey praise. It’s just a bank people! And right now, banks are not our friends.

Although this particular bank will actually pay you to start an account, which is becoming sort of common (get your free $25 right here).

Now, with all the crazy stuff happening in the economy, I was curious what would happen if ING suddenly went out of business, as so many other banks have. I wanted to write a post that would make everyone think about this. I wanted to play the role of super-villain, but in a good way.

I mean, I have money in the bank too, so it’s not like I want to lose it just for the sake of proving a point (this would be a whole ‘nother post and would probably involve therapy).

How would that affect all the people that are being so responsible with their money? Well, most of them would probably freak out, but the other half wouldn’t. Why?

The FDIC.

FDIC Insurance

Everyone throws this term around as if we understand exactly what it means and how it works, but few of us do. FDIC insurance means your money is backed “by the full faith and credit” of the US government.

So if you have money in an FDIC-insured account, your money should be totally safe. At least up to $250,000 (it used to be $100,000 before the rug was pulled out from under us).

But is it really as safe as everyone makes it out to be?

How the Process Works

One of two things happen when an FDIC-insured bank fails: the FDIC gets the funds transferred over to a healthy bank, which keeps your money and essentially replaces the old bank (this bank probably won’t pay you $25 for the switch, unfortunately). The other option, if no other healthy bank is around, is for the FDIC to pay you directly.

How long does that take? Probably months and months, right? A bank is still a bureaucracy, after all.

But the law says it should be “as soon as possible.” Kind of vague, isn’t it? How’s this?

It is the FDIC’s goal to make deposit insurance payments within two business days of the failure of the insured institution.

Two days? Jeez, umm….well that’s not half bad. But things get a little more complicated in cases like trusts and things like that, and you can read more about that here. But otherwise, it looks like it’s a pretty straightforward process.

Dang.

ING and FDIC: Recap

FDIC insurance turns out to be everything it’s cracked up to be—just make sure you stay under the limits $250,000 per person). If you have more money than the current limit (lucky you), then open several accounts—each one will be protected by the FDIC up to the limit, so all your money will be safe.

And you might even get the money that isn’t FDIC insured once the failed bank gets sold off, but that is way more complicated than the FDIC route.

So I guess I was wrong about this particular case—it looks like ING (and all of the other FDIC-insured banks) have all their bases covered. I just did a whole lot of thinking to find out what I thought I already knew.

ING is a great place to save your money—now just go and make sure all of it is FDIC insured so you won’t have any surprises if the unthinkable happens.

Oh and keep your fingers crossed for the rates to go back up…right now they are brutal.

Photo by Jim Linwood