Book Board Chat

@admin Happy Birthday, Kurt!

Good evening from Penn's Woods where after a couple of days with evening thunderstorms the heat and humidity have moved on. DH and I were at a book sale today. Lovely day for a drive.

I have a funny story to tell on myself about writing a book description but that can wait for now.

Irene @lovetohike and Curt @admin ~ Are you safe and dry? Is it flooding where you are? BTW Curt, the fix worked again for me yesterday but no such luck today. However, I realize with all the rain you are getting you may have much more important things on your mind right now.

Penny @oceanabooks ~ Have you heard from Kathy/rockymthigh? I didn't find her listed as a member of this board but she might be under another ID which I don't remember off the top of my head. You can email me privately if you prefer.

mysteryhorse After I posted I remembered about lay-away and that might be what the ads were for. I even forgot about layaway until one year emilabooks had posted she was doing some for Christmas gifts for the children.

June Kamm (dupo) I remember Christmas Clubs too. My dad had my brothers and I do them. An important first step for a child in learning to save and delayed gratification. I don't recall how much it was per month, but I know it wasn't even a dollar as the total amount after 11 months or whatever would have been A LOT. I am thinking that maybe we saved at a rate of .50 a month or who knows it could have been a quarter! I just remember the satisfaction of having my own money that I had saved to buy gifts from my parents and brothers.

In reading the Wikipedia entry (not the article below) I learned that the first known Christmas club started in 1909, when Merkel Landis, treasurer of the Carlisle (Pennsylvania) Trust Company, introduced the first Christmas savings fund. Carlisle is about 20 miles from where I live.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_club

Christmas Clubs still exist. Credit unions seem to have them more than banks, but some banks still do have them.

Are Christmas club accounts still a good idea?

Your mother probably had a Christmas club account at a local bank or credit union. You might remember her faithfully depositing $5 or $10 a week all year long to save up money for the holidays.

But is this simple method of saving for the holidays -- which reached their height of popularity in the 1970s -- still relevant today?

A Christmas club account -- which is not really a "club" at all -- is simply a special short-term savings account set up by a financial institution to encourage nest-egg building for the holidays. Most can be opened with a nominal deposit.

But there are few financial perks to be gained from Christmas clubs: The return on these accounts is negligible, and you usually cannot take the money out until the start of the holiday season, usually around Nov. 1.

The point, of course, is not to make a killing on compound interest, but to safeguard your money -- from yourself -- so you have enough funds to spend for gifts or even travel during the holidays. And it helps prevent a pile of credit card debt in January.

While some banks still offer Christmas club accounts, credit unions, by far, are still the champions of this type of savings vehicle. According to the Credit Union National Association, or CUNA, nearly 72 percent of credit unions run Christmas clubs, and consumer interest in these clubs is holding steady.

"These kinds of accounts, small as they may be, are important because they encourage saving; this small step could lead to better saving habits," says Patrick Keefe, spokesman for CUNA.

At TruStone Financial Federal Credit Union in Plymouth, Minn., there's been a slight uptick in its "Holiday Helper" account this year, says Katie Grindeland, marketing manager for the credit union.

"Now, I must confess, this number is up by less than 1 percent (over last year-BUT THE ARTICLE IS NOT DATED!!) but an increase nonetheless," she says. Balances are slightly down over last year.

Grindeland notes that while the original intent of Christmas clubs was to target savers, the appeal of other financial products such as money market accounts, rewards programs for credit and debit cards, and certificates of deposit have taken the shine off Christmas club accounts. But that may be changing because of the belt-tightening that has taken hold among American consumers: "The allure to budget and save is back," she says. "A revival and/or a customization of (the Christmas club account) may be what is needed."

Rest of article:

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/christmas-club-accounts-1.aspx

@admin ~ I knew there were a couple of people who I forgot for the In Memoriam tribute. Please add rhizopus47/Betty I received an email about her. I suspect there may be a couple of other people. I had lost my original list and had to rely on memory. Oh drat, and now you are going to receive this email twice since I deleted the other to correct something and this is a re-post.

Kaye (bouton) ~ I was so touched by the story of your mother reading the BB and talking to you about the lives of people and their families etc. It gave me such a warm feeling and I could visual the two of you chatting away. Pleasant coversation between mother and daughter and better than the soaps! 😉 And while your mother may have never posted she became part of our lives unknowing by 'watcthing over us' plus she brought you to the BB!

carol (bookdelle) As I was scrolling down and did a quick read of "Another deck question..." I thought it said 'Another dreck question'! Thought you were selling stain or putting some on a book! lol

@admin - Would you reconsider and allow those who of us who wish to , to make a donation to you for your time and efforts on our behalf? You have done a lot of work for our benefit and given us a wondeful replacement for the soon to be gone BB. I, for one, would feel a lot better about it if I could pay you a little for your work.

Hi bamaj1! There is a link on the right hand side bar which has the webmaster's address - see "contact for questions/problems"

The other way to make sure he sees your post at Monday, Aug 1, 2011, 8:51pm EDT; or anytime is to write your post and include @admin

Now that will show in blue and he will receive my message about your post.

The Webmaster @admin might enjoy this too.

Funny article, esp. where the author points out the 'flaws' of the 'survey'

Report suggests connection between browser choice and IQ level

http://tinyurl.com/4y7pbf6

@admin Please see Lois' message shortly below this one. She's highly in favor of a n ew board for the pottery chat board people.

Bill

Drat forgot to make that @admin

See below or just know that is is not important. Don't spend this evening doing it!!

@bouton ~ It does more than just show up in blue; it sends you a notification email that the person mentioned you on the BBC. Very handy if you want to make sure the person sees your post to them. I think if you check your email you will find that you just sent yourself an email! Plus you should receive one from me.

Swifty thought it was a very neat feature as well as the shush. He was impressed with the job the Webmaster @admin did. First thing he did was look to see what programs were used. He did make fun of us "old folks" who wanted to keep the scrolling board and not adapt to changing technology! [such as threads]. I told him that baby boomers would be a better term to use and that he should give a lot of credit to not only BB but those who are even older who learned to use computers. He was really just pulling my leg about "old people." His new company told him to buy a new phone and they would pay for it and on going expenses with it. He has been playing with it and finding that even he has to "adapt" and learn some of the new features it has!

I also told him that if he ever needs to hire someone to do websites that Curt might be the guy. He still gets free-lance jobs from past contacts and sometimes he needs someone to work on websites. He isn't keen on doing that work at all. He does have a friend who used to do them when needed but not sure if he is still doing that work.

June Kamm (dupo) Love the "”If you build it, they will come.”

diane cox (furtima) haha on your dog being like Linus of Peanuts. My younger son used to love playing in the dirt and at times looked like Pigpen of Peanuts. Which is very funny in that between the two boys he is the one who is now the "sharp dresser."

Just found out that the poor kid has strep throat. He had a cold and sore throat that went away and two weeks later it was back. He finally went to the doctor and I bet it was his "west coast mom" who told him to get to one. The doctor called back and asked him how he was feeling, he said a lot better. Doctor said well, you have strep throat.

webmaster @admin In case shibadiva didn't email you the link or you miss her post, see her post at Jul 14, 2011, 10:02pm EDT; 9 hours. That is the other biliomania post that would be great to have on the side bar. It contains satnrose hinst and other great links.

Beth Thanks for the link to the auctionbytes article. Shortly before you posted it I received the ebay email that was sent out regarding the 80 characters coming in early Sept. as well as the other changes being made regarding Returns etc.

furtima It was such a pleasure to read that you were going back to painting classes. I remember how wonderful your paintings were. BTW I saw you post about hints and tips etc for listing on ebay. I'll have to give it some thought first. I have all of satnrose' hints as well as ones from others but not organized at all. I will contact @Jan/shibadiva to see if she still has the wonderful pages she did for Bibliomania. In addition to the satnrose hints there was a brief article that bux4books had done called "Bookselling 101" as well as other pages that might be good as sidebars here. Have a couple of other ideas but for now I think the Webmaster had a full plate.

pat Glad you enjoyed it! Wasn't that just so "you" at the end! 🙂 BTW I emailed your VCR vs Tower story to Swifty. He should get a kick out of that. One summer when he took a job unloading truck in the wee hours, I asked him why didn't he get a job as phone tech support instead and he said he didn't wanna deal with some of the questions...he had a lot of experience by then teaching people how to use computers...uh, including his mother! lol

Webmaster @admin ~ Thought you would find it funny! I watched one of the other clips about it. A TV Norway news report about how that youtube clip has become a worldwide sensation.

Some Norwegian humor - Youtube clip. Very funny! It is in Norwegian, but there are subtitles so you don't have to turn on your audio if you don't want to. However I found having the audio on made it even funnier since the inflections of the voice are still there.

Have to send this to Swifty and the webmaster [ @admin ] might get a kick out of it.

Middle Ages Tech Support