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I was looking through the JSDA 2007 Annual Report, and I found something interesting on page F-24 (the last page in the report). According to this page, 2007 sales in the United States were 33,949,000. It also stated that sales in Canada were $5,393,000 for 2007.

According to Wikipedia, the United States has a population of 304,618,000 and Canada has a population of 33,320,300. You can find these statistics here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cou…

Using this data, we can find that the per capita sales of JSDA in the United States were 11.14 cents. In Canada, the per capita sales of JSDA were 16.19 cents.

I find it interesting that a company that is based in the US would have per capita sales in Canada that are 45.33% higher than their home operating country.

The greater Vancouver BC area does have a population of 2,249,725 ( http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/data/pop/po… This represents 6.75% of Canada’s population. It is possible that JSDA is doing the majority of their selling here since it is so close to Seattle.

As a comparison, the largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States is New York City with 18,815,988 people ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Stat… This represents about 6.18% of the total US population.

Anyway, I thought this was some pretty interesting information that I hadn’t seem brought up on these boards before. It would be interesting to hear what sort of explanations other people have for this.

Here is just a quick rave for Progressive Insurance. I recently moved and I have been doing my best to update my address with all companies that I can remember I have an account with. When I went to update my address at Progressive Insurance, they noted that my move would result in my insurance premium dropping by about $50/ 6-month period. Just a few days after I changed my address, I noticed a pro-rated amount of of my overpayment being deposited back into my bank account. Thanks Progressive! I don’t know if other companies are as quick as you guys to return funds, but I must say that I am impressed with the speed that the funds were delivered back to me.

School Employees Credit Union of Washington is having a rate promotion as well. According to the website, this one does not have a particular promotion name, but it is a promotion nonetheless.

Here are the details:
SECUWA will give you 7.71% APY on any amount up to $750 in both your checking and savings accounts. In order to get this great rate, you must meet two requirements. First you must have direct deposit, and secondly you must have eStatements. If you meet these two requirements then you will get the rate. All balances above $750 will earn the standard savings rate. Currently, savings earns 2.27% and checking earns .50% on balances above $750.

So far this promotions seems to have the best bang for your buck. You earn a high rate over a decent range, and you only have to have two requirements. In actuality, these two requirements are actually quite simple. The only problem with this institution is that they only have two branches. One is in Seattle, and the other is in Spokane. They do have access through the co-op network of ATMs.

I have had Clearwire internet for almost a year now, and I must say that I am satisfied with their service so far. Although not the fastest, they make a great alternative to cable or DSL. The great thing about Clearwire is that it is portable. If you can find a wall outlet and you have a laptop, you can use Clearwire. This is because the company’s internet signal is distributed wirelessly. The other great thing about the product is that you can easily set it up yourself. You don’t need to schedule an appointment with a service technician to come to your house between 8 & 12 or 12 & 4. They only really seem to work during the week, so that makes it somewhat difficult to schedule an appointment if you have a standard 9-5 job Monday through Friday.

Clearwire is a bit cheaper than Comcast as well. You don’t get the speed, but you save with the portability and ease of setup without a technician. Here is a quick comparison between the two providers.

If speed is your only concern, then Clearwire is lagging the competition. I have the regular package with 768 Kbps, and I have not experienced any problems with speed at all. Some higher bandwidth sites can take a little bit longer to load, but it doesn’t really affect your internet experience. One reason one might want to switch to Comcast is if they do a lot of gaming. Comcast is the definite winner when it comes to internet for gaming. If you really desire the speed for gaming, then Comcast is the best deal, but if you are just browsing the net, then Clearwire is probably the best option.

Horizon Bank is also offering a rate promotion, but this one is a bit different from the BECU one. You will notice as I go through these promotions that none seem to have the same requirements. The Horizon Bank promotion is called the “4-5-6″ promotion. The reason for this is that you can earn up to 4% on balances up to $5,000 for 6 months. As with just about any financial promotion, there are a few rules needed to follow in order to get this rate.

• $100 minimum opening deposit required
• You can earn 5% on the account if you open a checking account as well
• This checking account must have 10 or more transactions to earn the rate
• Minimum balance is $500 to avoid a $7 monthly service charge
• Balances under $2,500 earn a rate of .05% APY
• At least 50% of the deposit money must be new money

For all the rules and restrictions, be sure to check out the official flyer.

This account would be good for someone who has more than $2500 to invest. Anything under $2,500 earns only .05%, so I’m not really sure what the point of that is. Also, the minimum opening deposit is $100, but you need $500 to avoid the $7 monthly fee. I’m not sure why anyone would open it with only $100. I have definitely seen better deals out there, but it is a compelling offer if you have a bit of money and need a checking account.

About Horizon Bank: The bank was founded in 1922 in Bellingham, WA and went public in 1986. It trades under the ticker symbol HRZB and is currently trading at $7.10 with a market capitalization of almost 85 million. It has 20 branches within Whatcom, Skagit, Snohomish and Pierce counties in Washington.

I said in a previous post that I was going to discuss some of the promotions that banks and credit unions around the state are trying to use to attract deposits. BECU is the largest credit union in Washington State at over $8 billion dollars in deposits. They were one of the first companies that I can recall that created and heavily advertised any sort of accounts with super high rates. Let’s take a look at the programs that they offer.

BECU currently offers what they call the Member Advantage account. Essentially these are enhanced savings and checking accounts that pay a substantially higher rate provided certain criteria are met.

For Member Advantage savings accounts, members earn an APY of 7.5% on the first $500, and 1.76% APY on all balances above that. If you only have regular savings, you will earn 1.76% APY on your entire balance. It sounds like a big deal, but the Member Advantage will only get you ((7.5% - 1.76%) x $500) an extra $28.70 per year irregardless what your savings balances are.

Member Advantage checking accounts earn 7.5% APY on the first $500 and then .5% on everything above that. Regular checking earns .5%. Having the Member Advantage checking account will earn you ((7.5% - .5%) x $500) an extra $35 per year.

So what do you have to do to qualify to get Member Advantage and potentially earn an extra $63.70 per year?

Here are the official requirements:

• Open both a BECU Savings and Checking account
• Sign up for free eStatements instead of receiving paper statements in the mail
• Sign up for one or both: Free online Bill Payment and make at least one payment a month and/or a recurring Direct Deposit into your BECU Checking account
• You must continue to meet the qualifications to remain eligible for Member Advantage benefits

Basically as long as you use paperless statements and either have direct deposit or use bill pay, then you will be eligible for the enhanced account. Like any account, rates are subject to change and can have an affect on any stated earnings here. To see the current requirements on the official BECU site, click here.

In a way to raise deposits, credit unions and banks have started coming up with clever ways to get people to bring more deposits to them. The majority of these plans come in by way of offering higher rates in turn for some sort of favor on your part.

This is how the typical deal looks.

The institution will advertise an abnormally high rate given our current market conditions. This typically runs somewhere between 5% - 8%. There are typically a few catches though.

• The high rate is usually paid on only a set amount, like the first $1000 for example
• Many require you to have direct deposit through them
• Most require that you are signed up for some sort of online banking feature (usually eStatements, or logging on a certain number of times each month).
• Some require that you do a certain number of debit transactions each month.
• Other interesting rules exist as well.

If you are willing to follow the rules that they set forth, you can find yourself earning a decent interest rate, especially given current market rates. Over the next few weeks I am going to review some of the major promotions that are occurring in Washington State.  I might branch out to other states as well if I find something interesting. I am planning on disclosing the exact details of the promotion, like what you need to do to qualify. I will also state what type of person might be interested in these programs. Another thing that I will disclose is the amount of additional income that you will earn by signing up for this program. This way you can see how much extra you are really earning for all that extra work!

About a month ago, I wrote a post about the best dividend paying stocks in the market at the time. The date for that post was June 16th, 2008. Since then, it can be seen that all of these stocks performed poorly during a period where the DJIA only dropped 5.9%. While that is a fairly large drop, most of these high dividend paying stocks have fallen by much more over this time period.

Take a look at the spreadsheet below to see how these companies have fared over the last month. Use the -5.9% to benchmark against the market.

In this spreadsheet, you will notice that GLS (Genesis Lease Limited) has been the only one with a price increase during this period, but this is only due to a recent run up in price over the past few days. Otherwise, this stock has been in decline ever since its high of $28.35 in June of 2007. The only other company to beat the Dow was CMO (Capstead Mortgage Company).

One other interesting thing of note is that the dividend yield increased on all companies except for the ones that cut them completely. The reason for this is because of the decrease in price. As the price drops, the project dividend yield increases as the price drops. It is easy to see that the dividend has risen on the majority of these stocks, but at the cost of the stock price

Earlier (June 30th, 2008), I created a post about the average age of coin. In my initial hypothesis, I felt that quarters would have the oldest average age since they were more coveted, and pennies would have the youngest average age, since they are most likely to be thrown out or forgotten about. In that original post I had a sample size of only 69 coins. Currently I have 155 coins. Lets see how the average age has changed over this time.

Quarters
Time 1: 17 coins, average mint date of 1995.18
Time 2: 46 coins, average mint date of 1995.70

Dime
Time 1: 18 coins, average mint date of 1994.39
Time 2: 27 coins, average mint date of 1994.33

Nickel
Time 1: 9 coins, average mint date of 1987.11
Time 2: 18 coins, average mint date of 1991.44

Penny
Time 1: 25 coins, average mint date of 1992.96
Time 2: 64 coins, average mint date of 1993.39

From this data it appears that all coin denominations are either staying relatively consistent, or increasing somewhat. Maybe once my sample size becomes large enough, it will start to resemble more of my hypothesis.

The average value of each coin is 10.2 cents. The year with the most coins is 2007 with 16 of the 155  (10.3%). I am sure that this data is somewhat boring to most people, but I find it fairly interesting. Maybe a number cruncher can come up with a little more interesting data than I did.

Think moving is cheap and easy?

Think again.

I am moving this next week on the cheap, and it is still expensive.

Factor in a few expenses and it really starts to add up. For example, my security deposit was $400. Next, add in my first month’s rent of $735, plus a partial month as well. Also take into consideration that I have to pay August’s rent for the place that I am currently in. There goes another $400. You can also add in your standard application fee. This one went for $40. So just to get in, it is costing me $1075 plus $400 in rent that I currently pay.

Other factors include gas spent driving around looking for places. I factor that at about $50. Time spent looking valued at 8 hours x $13/hour = $104.  Luckily this is an in-city move, otherwise I would have had to get a rental truck, and those aren’t cheap. I also lucked out because I have a relatively low initial deposit, and I also don’t have to pay last month’s rent either. Thank goodness for that. Otherwise you could easily tack on an additional $1000. Just what I need.

Other things that I haven’t even got to include setup fees for utilities. These all seem to be random amounts that don’t really make a ton of sense, but there isn’t a whole lot that you can do about them either.