Mini App O’Rama Update September 15
It’s only Thursday night, but I am so looking forward to the weekend. I have got to head up to Plano tomorrow for a 2 hour compliance meeting. Yuck! I have got a ton to do at work tomorrow so hopefully I can get of there and enjoy the last of the summer hours at work. I have got a crazy weekend ahead of me this weekend.
On a financial front, I got a check from Citibank for my first balance transfer today. I will deposit this tomorrow morning along with a cash advance check from Randolph-Brook, and my Chase Rewards Plus rebate check. The cash advance check will be quickly balance transferred to the new Discover card. These checks give me a total $15,350. The balance transfers have zero-percent interest till Sept of ’07. The proceeds will be split between the HELOC and my money market fund at Fidelity. The current balance on the HELOC is $5,172. I will be making my normal “payments” on the HELOC to the money market fund so I will be earning interesting on the $15,350 over the year plus the money that I would have been paying towards the HELOC. I will have to run the numbers, but I should have approximately $22,000 built up from this exercise if interest rates stay the same. I’ll have more if they go up and less if they go down. At the end of the year, I will either balance transfer off the two credit card balances which should down to $14,500, or I can pay off the balance from the $22,000. We will see what these offers are like next year.
Speaking of finances, I read on cnn.com yesterday I read the savings rate in the US has reach -.8%. That is right, the savings rate is negative. The article listed some the besting saving cities which to my surprise listed San Jose as being one of the top five. San Jose surprised me since the real estate is so expensive there. I wish I would have saved the link to the article. Houston was listed, but they were way down on the list. I wonder where Dallas fell. I am sure it has to be bad since Uptown is going crazy these days with these million-dollar plus high-rise condos. I have always wondered where everyone was coming from to afford them. It is not like there is one tower. There are two or three that have been finished and another four or so that are under construction. At some point the US will have to pay the piper for all of the deficit spending that is going on. I am glad I spend less than what I earn, but I probably following into the negative savings-rate statistic with the balance-transfer game I am playing.