Recently I took advantage of HSBC’s Direct Online Savings for a temporary 6% APY interest rate(reverts to 5.05% beginning May). This is a simple savings account that comes with an ATM card to be used at any of their branches for deposits and withdrawals.
Currently I have my checking account with Chase. But now that Chase wants to charge me $10 for dipping below my minimum on my Better Banking account, I’m looking for something new. Particularly, I’m searching for a bank that will give me real interest on my checking account (why not?), no minimums, free checks & checking, easy deposits/withdrawals, no outrageous fees, etc.
I considered Washington Mutual’s new 5% APY savings account that is automatically linked to their free checking account. It sounds great for somebody who needs a traditional checking account with actual checks, but the checking account itself accrues no interest, and so to optimize your interest rate, you’d have to constantly be moving money back and forth from the savings account.
Since I already have a savings account (HSBC), I thought I’d find something else. I want high interest directly in my checking account. I found a couple interesting options:

• ING Direct’s Electric Orange - completely electronic checking account which would give me 4% APY (in my money bracket, goes up to 5.3%). Go online to write checks - if it must be paper, they can send it to whomever. Use card to withdraw money free from Allpoint ATM’s, or just get extra cash back on purchases. Deposits work with direct deposit, transfers from other accounts, or mailing it in. Check out their FAQ for more info.
• Everbank’s FreeNet Checking - interest rates up to 6.01%!!! (my bracket is only 3.40% though). This one is a little easier to deposit money since they have made some affiliations with other banks to allow deposits from their ATM’s. Check their online ATM locator for exact locations.
• BankRate’s Online Comparison Chart - great to see every option possible.

I ended up choosing ING’s Electric Orange and am in the process of transferring completely out of Chase. I think I can handle going paperless, and will make it work. Although I’ve always stuck to manually mailing in stamped bills in the past, I think that I’m ready to make the switch, and so is technology. Everbank’s offer sounds promising, especially for those with bigger accounts, but the lower rates in my bracket as well as ING’s no-extra-fee policy tipped me over in ING Direct’s direction. I’m looking forward to my 4% APY!

For those who are still shopping for a high-rate interest saving account, I did find some more options that sounded very appealing. (besides HSBC’s Internet Banking, and Wamu’s new 5% online savings account). Check out IGoBanking. They offer 5.30% APY without fees or minimums! (actually I checked and the minimum is $500. That’s not “no” minimum, but it is close…) Also there’s the traditional ING Direct’s Savings account, Emigrant Direct, etc. Check out BankRate’s Money Market & Saving’s account comparison chart for even more options…

by the Department of Health & Mental Hygiene! EEKS!!
I went by there(midtown West) yesterday to pick up a couple ‘baozi’ - you know, bun-like chinese snacks - and the door was locked with the bright yellow notice posted in plain view.
It must have just happened - the workers were still standing there, but with no food in sight. It looked like they were in the process of closing shop.
But what? I was still in shock, bewildered that I had frequented a spot that was found to be completely filthy. Who knows what I was eating! Blechhh!!!
Well, their snacks were good, and at 40 cents a pop, the cheapest around. Almost as cheap as in China, and really, only Chinese people (besides me, but then again, I speak Chinese) got food there. But I never ate from their lunch buffet, and I suspect that that was likely where the hygiene problem was found. Or maybe it was the rats in the back. Who knows.
I’m still wondering, though, where does the “Mental” part of the hygiene come from?

No, this wasn’t a scam I from a bad ebayer. Instead, it was a lot of bad luck (?) all at the same time that made my ebay item cost an extra $100 and 2 hours of my time, plus gas. You see, I don’t have a home mailbox, so instead I use a PO Box in the city (NYC, that is). I decided to take a trip there to pick up the item and then work at my studio a couple blocks away. Since the post office closes at 6pm, and I had to do something in New Jersey at 4pm, I thought I’d have just the right amount of time to make it to my mail.
I got to the city quickly, around 4:30pm($6 to cross Lincoln Tunnel). My idea was to park nearby and then walk to the post office and my studio. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find parking, so I thought, ‘why not drive to the post office, double park with blinking lights, run in and out, and then find parking?’ That way I’d save a trip and kill time before finding 2 hour parking that ends at 7pm (I could park at 5pm, pay $2 and be good, right?).
Well it was a bad idea. They didn’t stuff my ebay package into my box (which they could have), and left me a card instead, for me to retrieve it upstairs. I was told to go to window #8 or 9 and not wait. So I did that. Imagine though, slow and stupid federal employees. A simple task ended up needing 3 people to accomplish. And too much time. By the time I made it to my car (right outside the door), I had a $95 ticket. ARRRRRGHHHH!
But it wasn’t over. I still had to find parking. I drove ’round and ’round my usual area (the best for finding parking relatively close to my studio), until I decided I’d wait on one street for 5-10 minutes to see if I’d get lucky. If not, I told myself, I’m going home in the middle of rush hour (???). Anyways, within about 5 minutes, a man came walking, on the street, as if going to his car. Guess where that was? Right diagonally behind me. Perfect! I didn’t even have to move my car, just put on my signal, wait for him to maneuver out, then 3-point-park right in. But no, it couldn’t be that easy, right? Well, a car, waiting way way behind me on the street, drives up like it’s his spot and puts on his signal like he was claiming it. Can you believe that?!! I yell, make signs for him to back off, but he just beeps back. The man leaving gives me this look like, this spot is yours, don’t let him take it. I try to back up to let my man leave. The other car doesn’t move. My man has almost no space to make it out, but he does. The guy behind me still doesn’t move - we are in gridlock. Then he decides to come out and talk to me. A Chinese guy(no, his nationality is not important, just descriptive here), with a trench coat, he tries to act superior. His words were something like this: “I saw you drive by, you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting, and you were in front of the car, not behind it”(what???). He doesn’t care I’ve been looking for parking for a while too, or that I got a ticket, and he says so. What an asshole. And when I raise my voice, he tells me to “be nice.” And when I tell him I don’t care anymore and I’m going to let him take the spot, he almost doesn’t hear me because he’s still talking. And when a guy is about to leave the space right behind the space we’re fighting about(so there’d be space for the both of us), I’m so heated I don’t care, and so I drive off anyway. Into the rush hour traffic to go home mad as hell.

Almost lost my finger today. I was at my studio trying to use my serger after it had been in storage for months, and I found that I had a lot of cleaning and realigning to do. When I just about got it set up for a certain stitch, the threads got stuck underneath. So I lifted the presser foot (which should automatically forbid the machine to start whether or not you press on the control foot) and proceeded underneath to get the threads in the right place, when the machine started to sew! I did not press on the control foot, nor was the presser foot down, so basically the machine started by ITSELF! 3 of my left fingers got caught in the parts underneath. 2 I got out fairly easily, the 3rd was wedged in pretty bad. I seriously thought I was going to lose it (literally & figuratively), especially since it hurt just as much to not move it as it did to try and wiggle it out… Finally, and thankfully, I clenched my teeth and just pulled it(the left ring finger) out, and tried to deal with the pain. Luckily no flesh was cut, but there was a sharp, deep indentation which slowly went away over the next half hour. It didn’t bruise nor swell, really, so there was almost no sign that it happened! It’s still sore to the touch though.
A very surreal experience.

Now, why did the machine turn on by itself? This question brings me back to about 6 months ago, when I had the serger set up and running in my old apartment. About 3 times in a row, it decided to start sewing by itself (I was sure my foot nor anything else was pressing the control foot). I thought it was a ghost (but I don’t believe in ghosts?), but then again I figured there was some electrical connection that went a-wire. Doesn’t happen very often, but it can, right? So I let it go and didn’t investigate further.

Now I wish I did. I could’ve avoided my little “accident” today, possibly.

I don’t understand it, I come back to my car - actually, I peeked from half a block away - and saw that bright orange thing in my windshield wiper. Knowing that I parked during a street cleaning (Okay, I saw the street cleaner go by, and even a NYPD parking ticket guy go by, so I thought I was in the clear! I didn’t know he’d come BACK to get me!), I was sort of expecting it, so I just took it (it was an orange envelope, I assumed the ticket was inside), got in my car, and started driving. Not until later on the road did I decide to see how much that one hour I couldn’t wait would cost me. I looked inside the envelope…there was NOTHING! Nada. Empty.

Did I get a ticket and somebody took it out to mess with me? Did I get an ‘envelope’ as a warning? Did some bizarre person put an NYPD orange envelope on my car in a sort of sick-minded joke? I don’t know, and I’m going to have to go to the NYC.gov website and type in my license plate number to find out the truth. (I found out I DID have a ticket)

But this reminds me of a news flash I overheard on TV a couple days ago. I never saw the actual story, but I remember the idea - random people messing with your parking tickets in a new type of scam.

So I searched online, and found this:

• Made Up in Manhattan, a 2005 story about ticketing officers fabricating ‘phantom’ tickets
• Victims of NYC Parking Tickets, about how to respond when this happens to you, among other info & links
• Prank Parking Tickets, a prankster’s paradise - store with hilarious joke items
• Holiday Parking Ticket Trap, where people got tickets on holidays last year
• NYC Ticket & Tow Scam, in brooklyn somebody put up a ‘no parking’ sign overnight
• and the one, from last week, supposedly the “Elaborate Parking Ticket Scam foiled in Harlem” video, which I could not find in any links, is probably the one from CBS2 New York that I was thinking about. Oh well…

to work in NYC. Let me tell you, I have tried EVERY POSSIBLE method, at one point or another. I have driven, ridden bus & train, mixed the two together along with walking, etc, etc, etc. Believe me, it is set up in such a way that you’re best bet is just taking the train, even though it is expensive and rarely runs (NJ transit). At least you won’t have to deal with traffic, and it runs pretty regularly without many mishaps (though they do happen).

Before I had a car here in Paterson, NJ, I had to walk downtown (almost 30 minutes) and take either the ‘guaguita’ to Port Authority for $4 one way (which could take forever, doesn’t run at night, is uncomfortable, and is not totally regular) or take NJ transit which costs $5.25 one way and transfers at Secaucus Junction on route to Manhattan (where if you miss your train, you typically have to wait an hour). Note: there is a cheaper $9 off-peak round-trip option, but off-peak means coming home before 3:30pm or after 7:30pm, and you can’t save by going off-peak in one direction and not in the other. (Both directions have to be off-peak)
After getting my car back (my sister had it for a while), I tried out other options, even though my downtown Paterson commute was easier (no walking or waiting for a bus that never came). Of course just driving directly to Manhattan is not an option during rush hours, since there’s always traffic, and it is next to impossible to find parking.

One idea was to drive to Fort Lee and park in their municipal parking a couple blocks from the guaguita pick-up right before crossing the George Washington Bridge. The parking was not free (and you had to foretell the future to know how many hours you will be away in order to not overpay parking), and the cross-bridge cost is $1. You get dropped off sort of inside this terminal where you can walk to the subway. Of course that ride is another $2, and this is all just one-way, so you can see where the fees add up. On top of that, you’re constantly waiting and riding, so the commute really does take up to 2 hours 1-way. Not worth it.

I also contemplated driving the other direction toward Secaucus. Secaucus Junction would be a great place to drive and pick-up an NYC-bound train running at least every 15 minutes. But no, they don’t allow that. Only certified Secaucus residents are allowed to do this. Another possibility, to beat the traffic & $6 Lincoln Tunnel toll would be to ferry across like my friend who lives in Hoboken. But on further thought, I realized this would be akin to the treacherous commute through Fort Lee & the GW Bridge, so I didn’t even venture on that one. Likewise, I could consider driving to the PATH train in Jersey City, but again, this would only give me more fees and headaches…for that I should drive all the way to Manhattan, right?
So it comes down to this: my best option is driving downtown to the local NJ Transit train stop, hoping for free parking, and praying to not miss my train, then paying a total of $10.50 to go to Penn Station and back.

What a trade-off. To show you what I mean, here’s the pros & cons:

Pros:

• cheap rent
• no roaches, rats, or bedbugs
• fresh air? yeah right…

Cons:

• LONG commute
• EXPENSIVE commute
• need a car to get around –> traffic
• no social life
• no good restaurants, nightlife, stores

But put all the cons together and it’s big. I don’t dance anymore. I don’t go out anymore. No friends stop by. I have to drive everywhere & anywhere. My daily commute to the city takes up to 4 hours of my time…and I’m technically only 20 miles or 1/2 hour from the city!
I really don’t like it but I’m slowly getting used to it. I still work in the city so at least I get that, but…it’s not the same. I’m just not the strip-mall-highway-driving type of girl. Oh well.