I recently ran across an interesting article by Ric Edelman in Bottom Line/Personal (no link, sorry). In it, he ran down a list of the biggest lies that you’ll hear from a financial adviser, and how they could cost you money. What follows is a synopsis of that article, along with some thoughts of my own. While it may be a stretch to call some of these things “lies,” they certainly can be misleading. [more]

How’s this for awesome customer service? We were settling in late last Saturday morning to watch some college football when my wife and I decided that we wanted to get some takeout from our local burger joint. While they offer counter service and a drive-through, their motto is “We don’t serve fast food. We serve good food.” Thus, it takes a bit longer than a plain old fast food restaurant. Thus, I wanted to call ahead and place our order so it would be ready to pick up when we got there.

Unfortunately, they were in the midst of the lunch rush and were unable to answer the phone. Instead, I got an answering machine. This is actually understandable, as it’s a pretty small family operation and they often get swamped. Since I don’t like talking to answering machines, I hung up without leaving a message and returned to the pre-game show.

About 30 minutes later, the phone rang. I jokingly told my wife that it was the restaurant calling back. Guess what? It was! Even though I hadn’t left a message, they checked their caller ID and rang us up to see what we needed. Needless to say, we were favorably impressed. We’re already loyal customers, but this just cemented the relationship. Mega-corporations like Dish Network needs to take a page from their book.

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

The Carnival of Personal Finance included “Beware the Siren Song of Gift Cards.”

The Carnival of Money Stories included “Changing Our Reward Credit Card Strategy.” Also included was “What’s the Right Age to Start an Allowance?” from raising4boys.com.

The Best of Me Symphony included “Q&A: Debt Reduction Strategy.” Also included was “How to Build a Double (or Single) Desk on the Cheap” from raising4boys.com.

A little over a week ago we converted two of our reward credit cards to, well… More rewarding versions. This included a switch from the Chase Perfect card to the Chase Freedom card, and a change from our old (old, old, old) Amex Optima card to an Amex Blue Cash card. [more]

As I noted the other day, we’re changing our reward credit card strategy, in part due to perceived inflexibility on Citi’s part when it comes to making automated payments. It turns out that I may have been wrong about what you can and cannot do, so I just hopped on over to the Citi website to request the enrollment kit for the Autopay service. While I was there, I ran across the following message:

Please note: Customers using comment or blog tracking services on their computers run the risk that information submitted here could be displayed on those websites. Please disable your comment and blog tracking service before using the Citi Cards Message Center.

I’m assuming that they’re talking here about services like coComment, which allows you to track your conversations (primarily weblog comments) across websites. I’ve never used any of these services, but it seems like this could be a relatively major security hole if using them does indeed result in things like supposedly secure conversations with your bank being slurped up and deposited on a third-party site.

As an aside, there’s no need to use these sorts of services to keep track of conversations here at FiveCentNickel… Rather, simply check the box labeled:

“Notify me of followup comments via e-mail”

before submitting your comment and you’re good to go (and you can cancel these notifications at any time).

Just a quick note to say that we’ve drained our flexible spending account (FSA) for 2007. Given that we set aside $1200 pre-tax dollars, we saved somewhere in the neighborhood of $475 this year (33% federal tax bracket + 6.5% state tax bracket). While going through our open enrollment paperwork, I decided to bump our FSA contributions up to $1500 for next year. Given how things have gone this year, we should easily hit that mark. Nonetheless, I’m reticent to push things too far given the use-it-or-lose-it nature of flexible spending accounts.

A few random notes… First off, we’re going to get an FSA debit card this year, which means we won’t have to file paperwork to get reimbursed (as long as we remember to actually use the card). Also, I should point out that we actually closed out our FSA at a profit last year since I switched jobs mid-year. Oddly enough, this is exactly how FSAs are supposed to work. If you don’t spend your money, your employer keeps the difference. If you spend it faster than you put it in and then quit your job, you keep the difference.

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

» Standard Mileage Rate Increases for 2007
» Flexible Spending Closed out at a Profit
» Putting Together an Estate Plan

And here’s what was going on two years ago:

» Money Moves for 2006, Part 3: Your Job
» Money Moves for 2006, Part 4: Your Health
» On Dental Insurance, Appeals, and Pulling Teeth

Finally, this is what was happening over at Raising4Boys (subscribe) last year:

» Dookie, Dookie, Dookie
» Dealing With a Finicky Four Year Old Eater
» Kid Jokes: More Thanksgiving Jokes

My son is fond of saying that I have two recipes: chili and meatloaf. While this is a bit of an oversimplification, I must admit that these are two of my favorites. I bring this up because I spent part of yesterday afternoon making chili with our leftover Thanksgiving turkey — try as I might, I just couldn’t imagine a turkey meatloaf…

Anyway, it turned out great, and we now have a ton of turkey chili in the refrigerator - we’ll eat what we can and freeze the rest. If you’ve got extra turkey kicking around, I highly recommend this recipe.

And speaking of things that I recommend, why not check out the following articles? [more]

I’m a bit late with this, but here goes…

October was another great month at FiveCentNickel, thanks in large part to contributions from readers such as yourself. I just wanted to take a moment to thank those of you who stop by and comment. If you like what you see here, keep in mind that you can have the full-text of everything that I write delivered to you via RSS or e-mail (details). Here are my favorite posts from the month of October:

» Our Home Renovations: The Beginning
» Updated List of Free Credit Card Mile Promotions
» Zecco Modifies Commission Structure
» Ten Tips for Dealing With a Lost Wallet
» 2008 IRA Contribution Limits
» Credit Bureaus to Offer Credit Freezes to Customers Nationwide
» All About the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA)
» Making Sense of Tax Efficient Money Funds
» The Benefits of Switching to Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs
» The Accidental Deadbeat
» Upselling at the Airport
» Look Before You Leap: Roth IRA Conversions in 2010
» Another Reason to Value Your Credit Score
» Yet Another Reason to Value Your Credit Score
» Busy Schedules: Money Saver or Money Waster
» 401(k), 403(b) and 457(b) Contribution Limits for 2008

And here are our favorites from Raising4Boys (subscribe):

» Hot Holiday Toys: “TMX Friends” Ernie and Cookie Monster Top the List
» Instilling Values in Your Child: Teach by Doing
» Mission: Accomplished… Ten Year Old Spy Birthday Party
» The Preschool Transition
» Favorite Sitcoms
» Creative Kids: The Solution to the World’s Problems?
» The Five Year Old Vandal
» Keeping Track of Toy Recalls via RSS and E-Mail
» On Kids, Butts, and Google Image Search

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

The Carnival of Personal Finance included “How Does Zecco Make Money?” Also included was “What’s the Right Age to Start an Allowance?” from raising4boys.com.

The Festival of Frugality included “To Gift or Not to Gift: Frugal Gift-Giving Strategies.”