Okay, so I was browsing the Costco services page and found some more cool stuff. You can get a CapitalOne Money Market Account through Costco that pays a really handsome 5.01% APY (as of 11/28) with NO FEES. That is right, I read through the literature and they don't charge you anything extra for doing lots of transactions and you earn interest as long as your balance is above $100.

Compare that to our credit union which only pays the high rate if you keep over $10,000 in your money market account and makes you pay fees if you make more than 6 outgoing transactions on your savings account per month.

This Costco-CapitalOne account sounds like a real winner. Even if you daily average balance in your account over the year is only $1,000 - you would earn $50 in interest! Compare that with the $10 or $20 you might earn in a savings account. VERY COOL.

I've got to look at this a bit more but I think we might go for this one.

Did you know you can buy home and auto insurance through Costco? I kept seeing the posters at the store and thinking I should check this out but kept putting it off.

At last I got a quote from Ameriprise (Costco's Insurance partner) and it was very competitive. I currently have Geico and the quote has an annual cost $100 lower for auto and $130 lower for home owners. That is a combine savings of 14.5%

This is awesome. I plan to get some quotes from other companies but this is a very good start considering Geico is supposed to be a pretty low cost insurer.

Darren mentioned to me a while back about forming a LLC (with more friends interested) and buying a beach house somewhere on the Oregon coast between Corvallis and Portland. I checked a map, and someplace form Tillamook to Newport seems like a good stretch, eh?

So I've spend the afternoon looking at property on the internet in Tillamook and Lincoln counties. There is a lot there, but hard to really get a feel from the pics. Might be good to find a quality local agent to pound pavement for us for a while.

With real estate markets correcting, I think it's time to be a buyer over the next calendar year or two -- might be time to start getting commits from people now.

Also, what about buying land? Besides being able to camp/fish/film porn on it while we wait/save... we can build what we want. (psst: and there is some kick-ass pre-fabulous homes out recently that are just going to get more affordable. This approx $340/sq-ft beauty, including fees just got LEED-platinum certified in August -- first home in the nation to do so. I joined their mailing list and asked about how it might fare in the Oregon coast weather).

Wow, Qwest is awesome! Did you ever think you would ever hear someone say something like that about Qworst?

Why would I say this? Because right now they have a GREAT deal on highspeed DSL internet. The deal is only $26.99 per month (when bundled with a qualifying home phone package; $31.99 a month without). Oh, and that $31.99 is only without a phone "bundle" so if you have no phone service at all, it is $36.99 per month.... Plus $5 per month for a modem.

Okay, so Qwest sucks! $42 per month plus taxes is a rip off. But when I got my Cable internet bill this month, I found out the 12 month deal I had before had expired and my total internet bill had exploded from $32 per month up to $54.

So what did I do? I decided that if necessary I would switch to Qwest and pay $42 + taxes and still probably do better than $54 per month. But then I thought, hey, the cable company doesn't know if I have a home phone with Qwest or if it is a phone "bundle"... So I called up the cable company and said, "Hey, my bill went back up to $54 a month and I am thinking I should switch to Qwest where they have a deal for $27 a month. I would consider staying with you guys if I can get that $29.99 deal that you gave me before. Do you have any deals like that right now?" And she said, oh we can give you that deal again for another 6 months. SWEET!!!

I don't even have to pay for one month at the $54 rate, they said to just pay the same price I paid the previous month. That's $132 that stays in my pocket for the next 6 months. I'm lovin it.

I guess shows like this explain why people are buying more and more free-range or organic type food. Yikes.... There is just too much to explain here. You have to watch for yourselves. Makes me want to join a CSA (community supported agriculture) coop. Oh, one thing to note, 30 years ago most chickens were much more lean than red meat. Now days, the ones they tested on this show were 17% fat which is similar to what I've seen in CHEAP ground beef. Yikes indeed.

Part 1


I've not watched it yet, but here is Part 2