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

Earlier this week I talked about jumping ship from Netflix to Blockbuster Total Access. Then yesterday I received an e-mail that may have driven the final nail into Netflix’s coffin…

While we have a Netflix shipping center just 50 miles from our house, their e-mail specified that our next movie (Wild America; it’s for the kids) would be coming from a center four states away. Their excuse? The movie wasn’t in stock.

What’s strange is that, in the past, their policy has been to simply move to the next movie in your queue when something isn’t in stock. The problem here is that, instead of getting the movie overnight (as per usual), it’s going to take an extra day or two to get here. And since movies typically ship in and out of the same shipping center, it’s going to take an extra day or two to get back. The end result? Fewer rentals. Good for them and bad for us.

Oh well, this makes our decision to switch to Blockbuster Total Access even easier.

Have any of you run into similar problems?

FiveCentNickel participated in four carnivals this week. Here they are along with links to my posts that were included in each.

The Carnival of Personal Finance included “How to Decide When to Refinance Your Mortgage.” Also included was “Allowance Insights” from Raising4Boys.

The Best of Me Symphony included “Free Bonus Miles for Applying for Frequent Flyer Credit Cards.” Also included was “Tips for Avoiding Obesity in Kids” from Raising4Boys.

The Carnival of Debt Reduction included “More Thoughts About Refinancing Our Mortgage.”

The Carnival of Credit Cards included “My Favorite Reward Credit Card.”

We’ve been happy customers of NetFlix for quite some time, but have been recently considering Blockbuster Total Access. We actually tried Blockbuster’s online movie service a couple of years ago and, to be totally honest, we weren’t crazy about their service. At the time, we found it to be slower than Netflix, in part because the DVDs shipped from about 1,000 miles away. But we’ve since moved, and their shipping network has apparently expanded. On top of that, their Total Access plan makes it far more convenient to swap movies. Here’s how it works:

(1) Join Total Access (Free trial!)
(2) Receive movies in the mail
(3) Return movies by mail or to the store
     (a) Return by mail: another movie ships once it’s received
     (b) Return to store: next movie ships immediately and you get a free in-store rental
(4) You also get one free in-store rental coupon/month

The free in-store rentals are in addition to the number of DVDs that you can have out via your online plan, so you can really crank through the movies. While I’ve grown to love the convenience of Netflix, I really like the idea of combining movies-by-mail with the flexibility to pop into a local store.

We’re gonna give it a shot. Have any of you tried them out since they introduced Total Access?

This week Georgia lawmakers narrowly rejected a bid to repeal a state law banning payday loans. Supporters of House Bill 163 have argued that the state went too far in banning payday lending back in May 2004, and they want to bring the industry back, albeit with new regulations.

According to an article on Georgia.gov:

Usury laws limit the interest rate amount a lender can charge. In Georgia, an unlicensed lender cannot charge more than eight percent interest on a loan of $3,000 or less.

They go on to state that:

The Industrial Loan Act of 1955 essentially made payday lending illegal, by requiring state licensing and registration and by imposing strict usury limits on small loans. In 2004, the Georgia General Assembly passed some new provisions to increase the fines and criminal penalties for people making small loans at illegal rates of interest. The law went into effect in May 2004, and though it is under review in the federal courts, it is currently in effect. Referred to as the Payday Lending Act of 2004, this law authorizes felony and racketeering charges against violators, as well as fines of up to $25,000 per violation and a possible jail sentence of 25 years.

The new bill would’ve authorized payday lenders to charge a service fee of $15 per $100 loaned for each “deferred presentment services transaction.” In other words, every time someone needs to extend their loan, a lender could charge 15% of the balance. Unfortunately, when you compound this out, it becomes a pretty serious annual interest rate.

I’ve written in the past about how to protect yourself when writing checks (see also “Checkbook Security“), but I haven’t talked much about “check washing.” Check washing refers to the chemical removal of ink from a check that you’ve written such that fraudsters can change the amount and make it payable to themselves. Apparently check washing results in losses totalling $815 million annually in the United States. [more]

The Final Four came down to the wire but, in the end, two of my posts were left standing. FiveCentNickel narrowly (very narrowly) edged out NoCreditNeeded for one of the spots, and Raising4Boys defeated MyFinancialJourney for the other spot. These were the matchups:

Ten Simple Ways to Cover Your Ass(ets)
(barely) defeated
Avoid 10 Common Debt Reduction Mistakes

Teaching Kids the Value of a Dollar
defeated
The True Cost of Owning a Home

I’d like to thank everyone for their votes and support, and I’d also like to encourage you to drop by the Championship and cast your vote. Here’s the final matchup:

Ten Simple Ways to Cover Your Ass(ets) vs. Teaching Kids the Value of a Dollar

Go here to vote.

Late last week I received an interesting e-mail from a reader — it seems that the juicy $150 signup bonus for the Amex Business Gold Rewards might not be dead. (And yes, anyone can apply for business cards - just use your SSN instead of an EIN and use your name as the business name.)

Hi! I learned about your site thru the February New York Times article. Then I read your tip on applying for the Amex business card. I just received my new card and, when I activated it by phone, learned that it takes 8 - 12 weeks for the $100 credit to appear on your account. It’s not immediate! Just thought you and your readers might like to know about the timing on this.

So… While her point was that it’ll take a bit of time to get the $100 statement credit, the bigger point here is that it sounds like the $100 statement credit might still be alive. And don’t forget about the 5000 reward points (= $50) when you make your first purchase (this pops up when you click to “Learn More”).

The caveat here is that the signup page no longer lists the $100 credit (although the 5000 extra reward points are still definitely active). However, the offer supposedly expired back in mid-January, so if people were able to apply in mid-February and still get in on the deal, it’s possible that it’s still alive. The worst case scenario is that you get the $50 bonus, and you might get the whole enchilada.

As I’ve mentioned previously, there’s a $125 annual fee, but it’s waived for the first year. If you’re interested in giving it a shot, here’s the signup link.

Full disclosure: Yes, I’ll get a referral fee if you sign up - it helps me keep this site running.

Given the recent uptick in our income due to my new job and our growing self-employment income, I’ve recently been thinking of ways to reduce our 2007 tax liability. The first step, of course, is to contribute to my employer’s basic retirement plan, which is held at Fidelity. But… I want to do way more than that. [more]

Here are some of my favorite FiveCentNickel (subscribe) posts from a year ago:

» Safe Deposit Box: A Confession

» Ten Real Estate Mistakes, Part 1 (and Part 2)

» Storing our Stuff

» Staging Your Home for Sale

And this is what was happening over at Raising4Boys (subscribe) over the same period:

» Taking a Header out Back

» Braces for an Eight Year Old, Update

» An Excess of Personality