Exactly one week after ordering checks through Sam’s Club, they arrived in our mailbox exactly as promised. I just double-checked the information on the checks and it’s all good. Needless to say, I’m pretty happy with this transaction, and I would recommend Sam’s Club to anyone looking for checks. The same presumably goes for Wal-Mart (they seem to use the same printer) although their prices are a bit higher. Also note that Gary of the Money & Investing Dogberry Patch left a comment regarding Costco and the fact that they charge just $20.30 for four boxes of duplicate checks with free shipping. That beats Sam’s Club by a bit under three bucks, so it’s definitely worth checking out if you’re a Costco member.

I just ran across an interesting article on Bloomberg by Kevin Hassett that looks at Halloween through the eyes of an economist. In it, the author argued (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) that:

Economists haven’t … applied numbers to their laws, but if they did, the first law of economics would be that lump-sum transfers are more economically efficient than in-kind transfers. If you are going to give a gift to somebody, you should just give them the money. They will be a better judge of the best way to spend it.

If instead, you give them a specific good, then you make them worse off, unless you somehow miraculously anticipate what the recipient would purchase if he received the money instead.

So what can we do to improve things? [more]

Since tomorrow is Halloween, I thought I’d dig a couple of related posts out of the archive. Here they are:

- Halloween Treat Ideas (or Not)

- Halloween Safety Tips

Enjoy!

I just saw a plug for a new real estate show on HGTV, but this one’s a bit different… It’s called “Buy Me.” The tagline used in the ad was “They’re running out of time, money, and patience.” Here’s the description from the website:

Determined real estate agents, disenchanted homeowners and a pressing deadline. How far will they go to close the deal on a home?

Coming out of a period during which shows like “Flip This House” or “Flip That House” dominated the airwaves, it seems that television is finally catching up with real market forces.

The way things are currently going, it might not be long before we see shows along the lines of “Foreclosure 101” or perhaps “Repossess My House.”

Here’s a quick look at some of my favorite posts from a year ago this past week:

• Big Box Mart - An amusing commentary on our consumer culture by the folks at Jib-Jab.

• Improved Security for Online Banking - Ever wonder why we have all these new, more complex logins for online banking? Turns out it’s the law.

• How Not to Win the Lottery - Karma’s a bitch.

Here’s a quick look at some of the posts that caught my eye over the past week… [more]

Unless you live in Arizona or Hawaii or parts of Indiana you need to set your clocks back by one hour tonight. However, due to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, this is the last time that you’ll be doing so in October. That’s right, from next year on, the date for ‘falling back’ will be the first Sunday in November instead of the last Sunday in October. Daylight Savings Time will also kick in earlier in the spring (2nd Sunday in March), effectively extending Daylight Savings Time by several weeks. The main reason for the change is that Daylight Savings Time reduces energy usage nationally by around 1% per day. Interestingly, the change has pushed Canada to follow suit because they want to stay on the same page with their largest trading partner (us).

FiveCentNickel participated in five carnivals this week. Here they are with links to my articles that were included in each.

The Carnival of Personal Finance included “Withdrawing Funds From Upromise.” Also included was “Teaching Kids the Value of a Dollar” from raising4boys.com.

The Carnival of Investing included “Opening a Vanguard SEP-IRA and Executing a Direct Rollover.”

The Best of Me Symphony included “Spending Money to Save Money.” Also included was “Fun With Dry Ice” from raising4boys.com.

The Carnival of the Capitalists included “Plastic Bags for Fifty Cents at Airport Security.”

The Festival of Frugality included “Save on Medical Care, Part IV.”

According to a recent AP news report, Americans are burning nearly 1 billion more gallons of gas each year than we did in 1960 due to our expanding waistlines… Based on recent prices in the range of $2.20/gallon, this translates into an additional $2.2 billion spent on gas each year. When you think about it, this makes perfect sense. After all, one of the most common gas saving tips is to remove excess items from your trunk to reduce weight. So adding a bunch of weight in the form of fat should have the exact opposite effect, shouldn’t it? Truth be told, this is a pretty minor effect on an individual basis, but when you add it up across the country, you start talking about a non-trivial amount of gas.

[Source: Washington Post]

Ouch. Home sales have now fallen for six straight months, and prices experienced a year-over-year decline of 2.2% in September. The median home price now stands at $220,000, down form $225,000 in September 2005. The only bright spot was that the number of homes on the market declined by 2.4% in September, meaning that there is now a 7.3 month supply of homes on the market nationwide. The South was the only region nationwide to report an increase in existing home sales from last month.

[Source: CNN/Money]