I was reading at some financial blog (I can't remember where, otherwise I'd link to it) recently that you should always double-check all of your bank accounts to be sure that they're insured by FDIC. Some accounts are not, and that info is buried in the small print. With the conditions of banks and Wall Street right now, it's not a bad thing to look into.

My PayPal account has gone down from 4-something to 2.75%, which sucks until I look at our actual brick-and-mortar bank, which has a fixed interest rate of something like 0.5%.

That is AWESOME news of awesomeness, MM.

Gack. Hec just had an interview for a long-term temp job this morning; it should be done by now. I need to check in with him.

I really want to go all Hulk smash on the portion of Disney responsible for getting me my fucking payments. I have done the work. It had now been 32 days on my Net 30 invoice and no one will even answer an email or pick up their phone. It seems to take way too much effort to just get them to pay their bills.

Totally. I try to pretend my HSBC account isn't even there.

I do so well at this with my ING account that I panicked over money for several days when I was moving before remembering I had a thousand in there.

I really want to go all Hulk smash on the portion of Disney responsible for getting me my fucking payments

Mickey Mouse--really, he's just a little rat.

I keep thinking I should keep MORE in my ING account, but...I've never taken any money OUT of it, and I'm not actually sure how. I can't imagine I would need my entire savings-account-that's-linked-to-checking at once, but I'm easily panicked when it comes to money and the possibility of not having it.

Two more helpdesk calls today. One to the whole "OK, each step has new issues" people.

Guy: "Oh, that's easy, we deal with this issue a lot--go to blahblah.com, and click here, and download that. Then it should totally work!"
Me: "Um, yeahhhhh....can I call you back when it doesn't work? Cause so far, none of this has"
Guy: "Sure, but it should work"

ten minutes later...
Me: "It didn't work"
Guy: "Uh, that's weird...send me a screen shot?"
Me: [blah blah email address etc]
Guy: "Oh. Um...I have to forward this call on to someone else. They'll call you Monday, since it's already 3pm here"
Me: "Someday, someday I will have access to everything I need, right?"
Guy: "It took six weeks for me, and I'm here in the office and in IT"
Me: [thunk]

It seems to take way too much effort to just get them to pay their bills.

ND - I would be happy to call from the legal department of Diablo Sound and tell them that their bill is in arrears.

it used to work really well with a big company that makes tools.

yay MM!!

Susan - here are some of the things I'd think about -- Do I want to be in cities - will I need a car? What kinds of places do I wnat to stay? ( 3 star 4 star 2star? ) Do you want to stick to a food budget? or any budget? once the family goes home are you going to need to stay in a safer place? will you need a babysitter? If you couldn't do your dream of 6 weeks - what # sounds good? I think I'd start somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000.00 a week. As you get closer to the time you can adjust.

I forgot ....pppbbbtthhh to the big mouse. Pay your bills!

I've got most of my savings in a citibank e-savings account, which was getting a pretty good interest rate for a while, but that's dropped lately. It's still giving me around $13 a month on about $6,400, though, so that's something. (I am way too lazy right now to calculate what that actual rate would be.)

I just went to a seminar on finding math academic jobs. It was terrifying.