November 7th, 2011
A few friends have asked me what you’re allowed to eat on the slow carb diet. I’ve decided to write down a few of my go-to recipes so people can see what I eat on a regular basis.
Tuna, Broccoli & Pinto Beans
I couldn’t come up with a better name for this, so for now I’m just calling it by the ingredients.
1 can tuna (I’ve been buying the tuna in water).
1-2 cups (ish) broccoli florets
1/2 – 1 cup (ish) pinto beans
Salt, pepper, lemon juice to taste.
Directions: (Pay attention, this is tricky) place beans, florets, and tuna in a bowl. Sprinkle lemon juice, salt and pepper on the tuna to taste. I usually leave the broccoli frozen and then by lunchtime a minute or two in the microwave warms everything up evenly. You could also steam the broccoli if you wanted it to be more crisp.
Notes: I buy frozen broccoli florets. They’re a bit more expensive than broccoli cuts, but I tend to not like the broccoli stems when frozen. They just don’t taste very good. You could do fresh broccoli, though I’d recommend blanching it first.
September 30th, 2011
I love listening to podcasts on my phone, especially Back to Work, Democracy Now en Español, and BBC Mundo.
Unfortunately I’ve not found a podcast app I *really* like on Android yet. I always end up having to configure a few hours of stuff to listen to right before I head out. I want an app that can be set up with a few simple preferences, so when I want to listen I can just put some headphones on and hit play. I thought Google Listen was closest to what I want, but nobody’s worked on it in a few years and it’s showing it’s age. I currently use BeyondPod, which I paid a few bucks for, but I have a number of ways in which it could be improved, many of which are simplifications.
Here goes:
I want a simple list of feeds. I don’t need categories and I don’t need synchronization with Google Reader. Both require too much upkeep for my taste.
I want one playlist. Not one per feed, not one per app, just a single playlist.
I want three ways to get podcasts into my playlist:
- “Catch up”, where podcasts are automatically added to the playlist from oldest to newest
- “Current”, where new podcasts are automatically added to the playlist
- “Manual”, where I have to select which podcasts I want added to the playlist.
I want the app to determine how many podcasts need to actually be downloaded onto my device based on my download speed and how many hours of podcasts are already downloaded. It can download more as needed while I’m listening. I shouldn’t have to know or care whether a podcast has been downloaded yet.
If I’m listening to my playlist and I end up on a track that isn’t downloaded, the app should try and stream it for me. If it can’t stream fast enough to listen without pausing (within reason of course), then it should bump that podcast down and try to play the next item on the list. I expect it to maintain order when bumping multiple tracks.
When I’m listening to a podcast, I want the following four options: play/pause, next (bump podcast down and play next item) skip (move to bottom of playlist) or delete (remove from playlist). I also want a slider that shows where I currently am in the podcast, how much time is left, with the capability to move forward or back.
Ya está. Anyone know of an app that fits the bill? If not, one of these days I might sit down and try to program it myself.
August 27th, 2011
As a relatively frugal person, I have the tendency to want to keep things lying around “just in case” I end up finding a use for them. With my recent minimalist kick, I’ve been trying to suppress this habit by setting a limit on how much I could keep around, and how much just needed to be recycled, donated, or thrown out. I’ve been pretty good with my physical stuff, but I tend to neglect how much crap I’m storing on my computer that I don’t need. I wonder, if you keep *digital* possessions for longer than they are useful, is it still considered hoarding?
I subscribe to more blogs in Google Reader than I can reasonably keep up with. I tend to subscribe to blogs and then forget about them, only to wonder why this strange post showed up in my feed. (My rule now is, if I don’t remember why I subscribed in the first place, then I should probably unsubscribe.)
I think the answer is that hoarding digital possessions is still possible, if they keep you from appreciating the truly worthwhile digital possessions you do have. Whether that’s a few gigabytes of blurry photos, twenty blogs you don’t read, or a hundred twitter users whose posts you don’t care about, deleting / unsubscribing / unfollowing can really be a weight off your shoulders.
June 29th, 2011
I attended the biweekly (that’s every two weeks, folks) Coffee House Coders meeting in Ann Arbor tonight. We had a decent turnout, maybe 12 people at its peak.
I had a great conversation with a guy named bill about working from home or working location-independently. The idea of working from home has always appealed to me, and the idea of working in a cubicle forty hours a week sounds like hell.
Bill is a manager at a video streaming company in Ann Arbor. When I mentioned I wanted to work from home, he told me that in his experience most people that work from home tend to be less productive. This flies in the face of the 37 signals / 4 hour workweek / location-independent ethos that working from home means you’re more productive because you have less distractions. Yet, I think I’ve experienced exactly what he’s talking about.
My last actual full time job was when I worked as a line cook at a restaurant in Traverse City. I would often work 8-10 hour days, often non stop with little to no breaks or food. I’d come home every night mentally and physically exhausted, and would laze about, stay up late, sleep in late, and then go to work again the next day. I felt like work was my entire life, and that sucked. Not that I didn’t enjoy working at the restaurant, and I was proud of the work that I was doing, but it didn’t feel like I was living a balanced life.
Can it be that in order to be sufficiently productive, I have to place myself into a position where I’m forced to work non stop for extended periods of time? How can I enjoy life if all of my free time is spent detoxing from the work that pays the bills?
I’m sure I’m way too young to be considering these questions, but right now seems like the time with the least number of responsibilities, so I want to make my time count. And I want to enjoy myself.
Needless to say, it was a little depressing coming to the conclusion that life after college is just one giant game of pretend, as Joanna so eloquently put it. I pressed Bill to found out what his solution was, from his perspective as a manager of a successful company who wants to retire soon.
His answer (heavily paraphrased): if you’re risk-taking, and tend to go after the opportunities that are high risk/high reward, eventually one will probably end up being successful. That doesn’t mean the path to get there won’t be difficult, but the true path to a healthy work/life balance is by taking the risks that others won’t and never looking back.
Sounds like a plan.
February 20th, 2011
I know my personal finance posts don’t tend to fare as well as my attention / procrastination posts, but I wanted to write about my recent experiences with PNC Bank’s Virtual Wallet.
In a nutshell, I feel like they hired somebody who *really* understood how young people use banking these days, and then they paired that person with the stodgyest old banker that they could find. What resulted is a somewhat disappointing hybrid that isn’t your standard banking and isn’t the latest and greatest. (Skip to my summary)
Opening the account
I opened the account over chat, which was awesome. What wasn’t so awesome was that the chat rep neglected to tell me that I needed to sign a signature card before I could start using the account. I got a welcome packet in the mail, which said that I’d have checks and deposit slips arriving shortly. It also included my debit card, which I was later told I shouldn’t get until I had signed a signature card.
Account holds
Since I’d received my debit card, and checks were supposedly on the way, I decided to deposit a paycheck. I have a balance on one of my credit cards that’s currently accruing interest daily, so I wanted to make a payment on my card as soon as possible. The website said funds from my check would be available on Monday, so I scheduled the payment on Tuesday.
When Monday came, I stopped by a branch to sign a signature card. Contrary to what a rep had told me on the phone, the branch didn’t have any signature cards so the manager had to write up one herself while I sat and waited. (on a positive note, everyone seemed really nice). When I got home, my check was still pending but my payment was no longer able to be modified. By Tuesday I started to get worried because the check still hadn’t posted. I called in, and was told that there was a hold on my “Spend” Checking because I hadn’t signed a signature card, and this was why my check wasn’t posting. I was worried because the pending payment would cause me an overdraft. I called in, and the rep told me I definitely wouldn’t get an overdraft because they knew the funds were there.
I eventually got the hold on my “Spend” Checking removed. The next day, I found out that there was a hold on the check still, and was told this was because they were “unable to verify” funds were available from the sending bank. I asked what had caused this to happen, and they said it’s most likely because the check was so big (it was about $1300). The rep asked me why I couldn’t direct deposit (my boss would have to pay extra at any bank in Traverse City in order to be able to send Direct Deposit. It’s sort of ridiculous considering how much simpler and cheaper DD is than a check, and yet sending a check is free).
After a week, the hold on the check was removed. I had been charged two fees, one for $25 and one for $36. They were kind enough to refund the fees. Since then, I’ve probably gotten six or seven letters in the mail about the check hold and overdrafts. I appreciate the follow up, but an email would have saved paper and been much quicker.
First experiences with Virtual Wallet
Ok, so Virtual Wallet is basically 3 accounts, one no-interest checking “Spend”, one interest checking “Reserve” (I think .25%) and one savings “Growth” (1% interest). I really commend PNC for the interest rates. They’re no ING Direct, but they certainly beat the crap out of the other big banks as far as interest rates go. The Spend and Reserve accounts are “sort of” merged in that their balances are reported together on some areas in the site, and viewing transactions shows transactions for both accounts by default. (This is a little wonky since you get a deposit and a withdrawal line for every transfer between Spend and Reserve).
Also, the Reserve and Growth accounts act as overdraw buffers for Spend, which negates the need to have a buffer in my primary checking since an accidental charge won’t cause me a fee as long as I have enough to cover it in Reserve+Growth.
Transfers
I was really disappointed to find out that transfers between accounts take 1 business day. I’m used to transfers taking place instantly between accounts at the same bank, so this seems really old-fashioned. On a plus note, the account balances show the difference even though funds haven’t been transferred. It’s probably not a big deal as far as spending goes since the Reserve and Growth will cover overdraws on the Spend account anyways, but I am missing out on some interest and I transfers to other PNC bank account owners aren’t quite as speedy as I’m used to.
Transfers outside of PNC (to/from)
I’m basically floating on a Grad Plus loan right now since I’m not officially working this semester, so I have a few months’ worth of expenses I wanted to transfer from my ING Direct account to my growth account. Scheduling external transfers is kind of annoying, as the process is split between two pages (you specify accounts and payment type on one, and amount, payment date, category type, and description on another). Having a gigantic “Calculate Fee” button is a bit scary, and useless considering transfers don’t cost anything. Maybe they’re planning on charging in the future, and put the button there just to save time down the road?
The daily and monthly limits are also really annoying. You can’t transfer more than $2,000 in a day (and this number includes any pending transfers, so a single transaction appears to count for multiple days. Really annoying when you’re trying to move > $2,000 in order to use Virtual Wallet as your primary account. Had it not been from ING Direct I probably could have deposited a check, but then again I’d probably just go through the same hassle I had above, where they “can’t verify” the funds.
Reserve
One of the cool things about the Reserve account is the ability to label an amount of money with a purpose. There are two ways of doing this: a “Wish List” where you can set a goal and put funds towards that goal, and a “Reserve Items” list where you set aside funds for future expenses. I wish those were merged into one feature, which is just labeling a certain amount of money with a name. That’s all I really need. I like that there’s an unallocated balance.
I wish there was a way to create a new item on either list, and have it transfer the money from Spend. Currently, I have to go through the whole process of transferring manually, and then add an item.
I would also like the labeling ability on the Spend account. I think Growth has a wish list, but I haven’t really used it yet.
The interface
Virtual Wallet has a decent blue/green/orange color scheme, with lots of rounded corners and flashy AJAX-ish content.
Unfortunately, they used Flash for everything, and the main screen takes terribly long to load every time I log in.
The organization leaves a little to be desired: the “Quick View” and “Account Detail” pages seem nearly the same, and I’m always confused as to which one I’m on. Both have a slider at the top, and clicking it on “Quick View” brings me to “Account Detail”. Clicking it on “Account Detail” does nothing (not good).
Clicking “Spend/Reserve” at the top brings me to the Calendar (oddly). Clicking a day in the calendar shows me the day Calendar view. Clicking a transaction takes me to the “Search transactions” page (also known as “Account Activity”), with the dates set to that specific day. Account Activity is probably the screen most people are used to coming from other banks. I’ve mentioned before it oddly shows transactions for both Spend and Reserve by default. I’d prefer just showing Spend, but that’s just me.
When adding items to the Reserve Items list, the screen jumps down when I’m typing in the name so that the field is out of sight. It’s a bug, and is extremely disconcerting. I’ve also had the screen lock up on me when adding reserve items if there’s not enough unallocated funds. An error message would do the trick.
Spending/Saving
I haven’t gotten much into the Spending/Saving areas of Virtual Wallet. I was a little turned off from the “Spending Zone” screen (seems heavily influenced by Mint.com) because the fiasco with the held check resulted in several debits and credits for the same amount, throwing off my numbers.
I’m a little neurotic about my money, so I don’t like numbers that aren’t really correct. The “Savings Engine” might be cool for some people. You can set up recurring transfers to saving, automated transfers when you pay bills, and spur of the moment savings by “Punching the pig” (cool idea, but I was a little paranoid I’d punch it by accident so I turned it off. Again, neurotic about my money).
If you have trouble saving and want automated savings to do the work for you, this would be great. It’s not very useful for me though, as I get paid irregularly and seem to have pretty good willpower when it comes to saving “manually”.
PNC Points
I can’t comment on PNC Points because their sign up form wouldn’t let me sign up because some information I entered was different than what’s on my account (though no indication what information was different). I tried to take care of it through chat, but they said I had to call to take care of it. I’m not a big phone person, so I’ve been procrastinating about that.
Summary
Pros
- Chat seems available relatively often.
- Decent interest rates
- Reps have all been friendly
- Labeling amounts of money (Wish List, Reserve Items) is awesome.
- Visually appealing interface
- Automated recurring/triggered savings
Cons / Suggested Improvements
- Lots of paper letters sent. Add a paperless messaging option, so I can get instant emails instead of wasting paper.
- Large checks (probably over $1000) are suspicious. If you have a lot of these, this might not be the bank for you.
- Different reps say different things about Signature Cards, NSF fees, etc.
- Click to chat button randomly appears on screen. Why can’t I always trigger it manually? (if reps aren’t available, say so!)
- Within-PNC transfers take 1 business day. Make them instant.
- External transfers take several days longer than at Bank of America or ING Direct. What’s the holdup?
- Having two checking accounts can be confusing. Merge Spend and Reserve accounts internally, and use reserve items to determine what funds are in “Reserve”.
- External transfer page is complex and boring. Simplify, make it fun! ING Direct does it well.
- External transfers have daily and monthly limits. Such a pain.
- Merge “Quick View”, “Summary”, and “Account Detail” pages.
- Get rid of flash, and use progressive enhancement to add the flashy JavaScript UI over a basic HTML-based interface that is usable with javascript turned off.
- Move up the navigation that is currently flash-based into secondary nav under “My Accounts”. Currently the two links “Summary” and “Account Detail” are pretty much redundant when viewing the flash links.
- Clickable items are inconsistent. If I can click something on one page, and it appears on another page, I should be able to click it as well. If it takes me to one thing on one page, it should take me to the same thing when I click it on another page.
Takeway
Basically, I’m not a fan. The 3 account idea seemed cool at first, but for the most part it’s just been confusing, and PNC seems to have so many antiquated banking practices it’s hard to appreciate how unique the Virtual Wallet features are. I’ve already added this account as my tax refund direct deposit account, so I’ll probably wait for that to arrive and then switch back to Bank of America.
Hopefully somebody finds this useful, whether you’re thinking about opening an account or whether you work for PNC and need some ideas on how to improve.
Update: PNC will shortly be removing interest on the Growth account unless you have at least 5 debit card transactions a month. I’d rather use a credit card for the rewards and extra security, so basically that means if I were to keep Virtual Wallet, I’d not be earning any interest on my savings. I don’t think I would have signed up in the first place, given those terms.