Top Online Banks - Forget the Brick and Mortar if You Dare

It's not new, really - the idea of online banking.   No drive through tellers, no big brick building with security guards and alarms and cameras high up in the corners.  These online bank alternatives are still protected by the FDIC (I know, I know - for whatever that's really worth these days), and some have been around for several years now. 

Bargaineering (now WalletHacks) has a nice list of the top online banks in their opinion.  Checking, savings, minimum deposit, fees. 

MSN has created a best online bank list as well -- they give lots of details about online banks versus traditional institutions, including features that may make internet-only banks more palatable for you than your mother's store down the street. 

Consumer Search reviews the service of online banking, without distinguishing online-only from brick and mortar.  The results?  Bank of America comes in first, but an online-only bank, ING Direct, comes in second.  They've also compiled a list of their best internet-only banks (after ING comes Ally, if you're interested).

Updated to include 2017 link to WalletHacks on October 7, 2017.

Fear: How Scared Are Americans of the Economy These Days? Massa, Glenn Beck, the Survival Seed Company, and Lisa Scottoline

Yesterday, I veered from my usual day-in, day-out writing schedule and its corresponding mental whip of meeting my Word Count quota because a pal had let me know that Ex-Congressman Eric Massa was going to do two interviews, and the first would be on television that afternoon, on Fox's Glenn Beck show.

I waited for Massa to become a Congressional Whistleblower.  It didn't happen.

I rationalized this, work-wise, since one of my long-term projects is working with a book editor and an author on a whistleblower memoir (easiest way to describe it, "Enron-esque") and if Massa was going to jump onto a live TV show to be a Congressional Whistleblower on some mysterious corruption stuff, well - there was some sorta work correlation there.  Sorta. 

Nothing much happened during this Hour of Massa, however, whistleblower-wise.  Beck looked as disappointed and frustrated as those Congressmen during the Michael Corleone hearings, where the brother from Italy appears in the room, sitting next to Michael and suddenly, the snitch knows noottthhhing.  Remember that?  Godfather II.  Great movie. 

Then I Saw the Survival Seed Company Commercial During the Glenn Beck Show

What got me during the show were the commercials.  Lots of gold sales, that's not new.  But for the first time, I saw an ad for SEEDS.  That's right.  Seeds, as in gardening.  And, they weren't promoting the seeds for the beauty of the fruit, or the nutrition of the vegetables, or the size of the blooms.  Nope.  They were trying to sell me these special seeds as BARTER.  Better barter than gold, in case of Doomsday here in the USA.   The company is the Survival Seed Bank, and when I surfed around about them this morning, I found that others are pondering this event, too.  Places like BoingBoing and Steve Pendlebury over at AOLNews.

Later, I'm Reading Lisa Scottoline's new book, Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog, laughing away ....

Skip to evening.  Look, the truth is that most of my time is spent reading or writing, I'm such a dull girl, and last evening, I was reading through Lisa Scottoline's new book, Why My Third Husband Will Be A Dog. 

This is one hilarious book - it's a collection of essays from Lisa Scottoline's "Chick Wit" column at the Philidelphia Inquirer.  Funny, funny stuff.  (Read or listen to some of this book here.)

And suddenly, Lisa S is writing about going to a website -- she provides the reader with its address in the book, it's http://www.whatsyourrq.org/ , and writes about taking the test and finding she's zero on the scale (and the average American scores a 4). 

The Readiness Quotient Test

Wow.  Oh, yeah, sure -- of course, I'm going to go over there and take the test.  At the site, I'm told that its the first test of its kind, to let me and other Americans evaluate their readiness for all sorts of disasters -- they mention natural disasters and terrorist attacks -- as well as providing info on what I/we need to do ... to be ready. 

(Lisa Scottoline is particularly funny answering the question, ready for what? Check out the essay "Disasterous" in the book. Page 191.)

Here's what I'm pondering:  how afraid are we Americans today? 

We've got commercials about seeds for barter, we've got a great writer - humor and thriller - describing her experiences with a Readiness Quotient. 

I don't want to be a lemming.  Neither do I want to be the proverbial frog who is placed in the pot of cold water and dies rather than jump out when the water heats to boiling.  What I do know: fear is a dangerous thing.  Clouds your thinking, monkeys with your response, all sorts of destructive things both individually and collectively arise from a spirit of fear. 

I haven't finished pondering all this, but I thought I'd share this much with you today, Dear Reader.  Fear is a powerful, sneaky enemy of which we should all be aware.  Looks like it's here. 

Image:  The Scream. Edvard Munch 1893, from PublicDomainClipArt.

U.S. Dollar's Decline 1800 - 2005

Sometimes, a visual is all you need.

Source:  Barron's via Jim Kingsland. 

Update: Should You Pull Your Money Out?

Last September, shortly after the FDIC Chairwoman's press conference announcing 117 banks were on the FDIC Watch list, I wrote about whether or not we should feel comfortable with our money in the bank - especially as we become more and more a cashless society, using debit cards and credit cards for even the smallest purchases. That article had lots of details that I'm not going to repeat here, but it's worth a re-read if you're interested in this sort of thing.

That post got lots of traffic, I got lots of emails, and it also appeared in several publications. And, today, when I read the news that last Friday, five more banks were closed across the country (bringing the total to 45 closures so far this year), I thought I'd look into this issue a bit more. And here's what I've found.

Rising Oil Prices - What They Mean to Your Family

There's a great post over at SmartMoney about oil prices rising to $100 a barrel -- expect:

1. Rising Gas Prices -- it will cost more to drive your car

2. Rising Heating Cost -- it will cost more to heat your home (less if you heat with natural gas)

3. Rising Cost to Fly -- airline tickets will rise

4. Rising Shipping Costs -- transportation costs will also impact the cost of groceries, clothes, etc. because it will cost more to get the product onto the shelf.

Go read the article for details, as well as links for things like cutting energy costs.

If you want to learn more about oil - especially the peak oil issue - then I recommending reading this post over at Mighty Bargain Hunter. As always, MBH gives lots and lots of good info.