I repeat, closing store cards helped my FICO score
May 28, 2008 
So if you recall, back in February, I closed all my store cards, and by March my FICO score was up 10 points. That post has gotten a lot of comments, most of which I have filtered out because they contain questionable assertions, which I don’t want to be responsible for passing along to people who got to my blog from a search engine query (and obviously need good advice).
I’m happy to report that in April it went up another 10 points, and stayed the same in May. For those of you who thought that something negative came off my credit report at the same time coincidentally and that I was foolish to close all the store cards, I will point out that I’m a very responsible 24-year-old, who has never had a derogatory item. Since I was 16, I’ve had a handful of store cards, and a few bankcards.
Last fall, I was enthralled with the personal finance blogosphere. I read voraciously, looking for tips and tricks from people savvier than I. But now that I’m satiated, I see that online PF sites are no better than their brick & mortar counterparts in the financial sector–everybody wants to sell you something, and/or profit from your dependency on them. Often they retell you the same myths that have been told for years.
All I can offer is my experience: I closed my store cards, continued making on-time payments of slightly-above-minimum, and in two months, my score rose 20 points.
Free Iced Coffee @ Starbucks, every Wednesday until 7/23
May 28, 2008 
So I heard via FatWallet that SBUX had a free iced coffee card. The roomie and I headed out last night, and talked the barista into giving us the cards a day early. I tried to use it today, but was told to return next week. So hie thee hither to a Starbucks near you, and see if you can get your hands on one of these cards!
hmm
May 17, 2008 
Sometimes you have to wonder: what’s really making you angry? Are you really upset with the foolishnesses and frailties of others? Or is it just something within you that you refuse to give voice to? So how do you fix it? How do you release a spring so it falls to the ground instead of blasting away out of control?
I look sometimes at the people at similar stages in life to me and wonder: are you happy? Are you just grinning for the photos because you know that you will show them to your friends? Because I do that too.
1st Gent. Our deeds are fetters that we forge ourselves.
2d Gent. Ay, truly: but I think it is the world
That brings the iron.
–George Eliot,Middlemarch
upd: FatWallet adventures
A user on FatWallet Free Stuff forum keeps posting these religious item “freebies” which all require signing up with the same church. Some threads get deleted, some don’t. I got annoyed with this broad clogging up my RSS with the same thing almost every day, so I finally sent a note to the mod. The response? “I don’t see any link between the site and the user.” Um, what, you thought her church group would have the same name as her username on FatWallet? Does that mean I can post daily with some barely concealed agenda too?
So true
This place is full of depressed, worn out, and bitter people. It will wear you out and, before you know it, you will be depressed and bitter too. Take a walk around and you will see what I mean. People are untidy and wearing wrinkled clothes, smelly winter coats full of cat hair, long untidy hair and with that charateristic sour face. People have facial hair, nasty moles, crooked teeth, worse so than in one of the slums of London. They also like butter on everything. It is simply unbelievable. It is so expensive that no one has any cash in their pockets which only adds to their misery. Doctors and lawyers live in small old buildings without elevators, central air or parking. It seems like the women don’t have money for make-up, manicures, or perfume.
More golden humor like this here: http://www.bestplaces.net/city/Boston-Massachusetts.aspx
