Thu Tu Koelling's Blog » Finances

Fluorescent Light Bulb Almost Paid for Itself in One Month

Thu Tu Koelling — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:27:52 +0000

In my living room, I have a halogen floor lamp that uses two 150 W bulbs. They’re also 3-way lights that could go from dim to bright level, except that my lamp can only handle two levels. It’s really hard to find 3-way 150-watt equivalent compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. When I finally found it [...]

Trick to Calculate Tax & Tip

Thu Tu Koelling — Sat, 19 May 2007 23:54:46 +0000

My brain has been gifted with a pretty good spell-checker but not so good calculator. Instead of doing straight out calculations, I sometimes resort to some math magic. Let’s take going out to eat at a restaurant as an example. When going with a group, it’s more complicated if people want to pay according to [...]

Dormant Account Fee by Bank Is Teh Sux0rs

Thu Tu Koelling — Tue, 01 May 2007 04:04:39 +0000

For a number of reasons, I ended up with four bank accounts: free ipod (that I gave to my brother), high interest rate, convenient location. One of the credit unions lost its luster when it no longer had competitive interest rates and was at an inconvenient city relative to my current locations for work and [...]

2006 Tax Returns Due April 17, 2007

Thu Tu Koelling — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 07:07:10 +0000

In case you didn’t know, taxes are due on the 17th of April instead of the usual 15th. Check out the IRS’s page on the April 17 Deadline (which was pretty hard to find at the time of this writing).

Taxpayers will have extra time to file and pay because April 15 falls on a [...]

Deciding whether to pay off a loan early

Thu Tu Koelling — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 17:47:53 +0000

I’ve reached a financial crossroad, where my car loan balance is something I could reasonably pay off 6 months early and I’ve recently gotten a windfall. I chatted with a friend who is much better with numbers than I am and he pretty much said that paying off the loan won’t save me that much [...]

Gas saving techniques

Thu Tu Koelling — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 23:40:32 +0000

Since filling up my Honda Accord coupe costs $50+, I have had to modify my driving habits and they seem to help. With my previous tank of gas, I was getting 19/20 mpg, according to my GPS system’s trip information thingamabob. First, I tried to resist the urge to be Racer Chick, where I would [...]