LINKS & STUFF Here are two pieces of economic insight to chew on. The first is an article about John McCain's health care policy. I know it's politically charged, but it's full of valuable economic discussion, so let's get post-partisan for a second. Especially interesting is the comparison to the Credit Card Industry (read it to find out why credit card companies are almost always based in South Dakota or Delaware, then get angry). The second piece is an episode of This American Life called The Giant Pool of Money. They have put together one of the best, and most human summaries of the current housing/credit crisis I've come across. It's easy to understand, and as always, entertaining. Check it out.
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LINKS & STUFF Everyone hates junk mail, but aside from being annoying, it can also be dangerous (dun, dun, dun...). That was very Dateline NBC, but seriously, pre-screened credit offers and unsolicited mail can leave you open to identity theft and can also tempt you to open too many lines of credit — both bad things. Two helpful tools for alleviating these problems are the DMA Choice Program and the OptOut Program (both are free). The DMA Choice service removes your name from direct marketing lists, and the OptOut service prevents pre-screened credit offers from companies who use the four major credit-reporting agencies. These two services are especially helpful if you are moving (or move often) or you live in an apartment complex. Also, if you want to take it to the next level, check out LifeLock. They offer another layer of identity protection.
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News & Updates
Mini-Update: Reply-to-Reminders with Amount
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We just launched a small improvement to the reply-to-reminders feature that turns out to be very helpful. Now, when you get your reminder email, and you reply stating that your bill is paid, you can also include the amount the bill was paid for.
The formatting is very simple, you just reply, as usual, with the first word of the email being 'Paid' and then you add the amount in parentheses. So Paid ($250.15) would mark the bill as paid and also edit the amount to $250.15. If you don't use dollars as your currency, other currency symbols (or no currency symbol at all) work the same.
Of course you don't need to specify the amount if it's not different than what the bill states, but should this happen, you now have a quick way to keep your records accurate. Additionally, many people have emailed us asking how to deal with bills that change amounts from month to month — like electric. This is one way to deal with that issue. You can put an estimated amount in your schedule, then each month when you pay the bill, you can reply to the reminder saying it's paid, and specify the actual amount.
With this addition to the reply-to-reminders it is technically possible to use billQ without having to login throughout the month. (Yes, we actually want you to login less often. Crazy.)
If you have any questions, send us an email or leave a comment. Also, for a more detailed run through of other reply-to options, like deleting the bill, read this post.
NOTE: The reply-to-reminders feature only works when you have a separate reminder sent for each bill.
News & Updates
Update: billQ AIR App for Adobe AIR 1.0
For anyone who had upgraded to version 1.0 of Adobe AIR and noticed that the billQ AIR App wasn't compatible, the problem is now fixed (sorry it took so long). You can download the newest version of the billQ AIR App from the Widgets Page, or from your Tools page within billQ, and be back in action.
If you are still using Adobe AIR Beta v2 then you can continue using your current version of the billQ AIR App without any problems. But just be aware that should you upgrade to v1.0 of Adobe AIR, you'll also need to upgrade your billQ AIR App too. I'm sure AIR v1.0 is much more stable then Beta 2, so it's worth upgrading anyway.
Version 1.0 of Adobe AIR can be downloaded here. It is also bundled with the updated billQ AIR App.
LINKS & STUFF I recently had a conversation with a friend about savings plans, and a related issue of contributing to savings vs. paying down long-term debt came up. This is a common gray area when it comes to looking at the most effective way to budget and manage your money, and probably one of the best articles I have read on this subject is this one over at Kiplingers. It has a very good outline of the best approach to this problem, while still recognizing that every situation is unique.
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LINKS & STUFF The age old debate over 'Renting vs. Buying' contains many myths, but it's important to look past these misconceptions and towards the facts. A recent article on the eFinanceDirectory tackles some of these points in a very direct and easy to understand manner. It's worth a read.
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LINKS & STUFF David Cay Johnston, a New York Times investigative reporter and author of Perfectly Legal, and Free Lunch, was recently interviewed by Tom Ashbrook on On Point. In the interview he talks about how the American economy has been hijacked by corporate special interests as the middle-class and small-business owners are being left behind. You can also listen to another interview with him on Fresh Air.
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News & Updates
Update: Increased Schedule and Group Limits
We have been somewhat quiet on this blog lately, but to make up for it, we just launched an update with a couple of improvements. Most notably, we have increased the Schedule and Group limits on the Plus plan to 40 and 25, respectively. You can see the updated plan details on the pricing page.
When we first went about setting the limits for the allowed Schedules and Groups, we didn't just pick arbitrary numbers. The quotas were based on some usage data and were basically projections about what we were confident offering from a performance perspective. Well, after keeping an eye on things, we felt it was time to increase the limits. Hopefully this will accommodate some of you who were getting close to hitting the caps.
And for those of you still on the Free plan who would like to upgrade to take advantage of the higher Schedule and Group limits (along with all the other great features), you might be interested in our new coupon system. For a limited time only, if you would like to upgrade to billQ Plus you can enter ONEFREE in the coupon field on the sign-up or upgrade page to get your FIRST MONTH FREE. If you have made a resolution to stay on top of your bills this year, you now have a month to take advantage of billQ Plus as a tool to do just that, risk free.
Note: This coupon only applies to the month-to-month payment option since the yearly pre-pay option already includes two months free.
LINKS & STUFF Philip Brewer over at the Wise Bread blog has written an interesting post called A better way to create a budget. In the post he looks at a budgeting technique called "zero-based budgeting," which is actually something Jimmy Carter used during his term in office. Basically, the concept is that you don't use your spending history to determine your budget, instead you use $0.00 as the starting point, and then add only the minimum needed to maintain a certain lifestyle. So instead of just putting down $200/month for groceries, you actually think about how you are eating, what you are buying, and how much value you are getting for each dollar. You might discover you waste a ton, and that you should only be spending $150/month. Very interesting approach.
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