Happy Friday! Don't forget: it's daylight savings time this weekend. Set your clocks forward late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. But if the paper cutter sees its shadow, we'll still have four more weeks of winter.
Overdraft fees continue to fascinate: Greg wrote about his frustration with Bank of America on Feb. 27. Three weeks later, the bank said it was eliminating overdraft fees. Coincidence? You decide. Mark's post on the B of A announcement provoked some people (OK: me. But also the Atlantic) to wonder how big a deal this really is, given that new legislation requires many of these changes anyway. So yesterday I called credit expert Gerri Detweiler for clarification. "Significant change was inevitable anyway," she said. "But they are taking it one step further, and it will put pressure on other banks."
But there's always a catch: Then Detweiler reminded me of what the new legislation doesn't cover. To review, the law now requires consumers to actively choose to be enrolled in an overdraft-protection plan; the bank can't enroll them by default … except if the overdraft is for a regularly scheduled payment, or for a check. And you can still withdraw cash you don't have from the ATM, as long as you agree to the fee in advance. The monthly payments and check coverage makes sense (even if it is expensive). But the cash thing? This is progress, sure, but it seems overdraft fees aren't quite as endangered as it first appeared.
How much should you spend on an umbrella? That's not really Moriah's point, exactly, in her post about appreciating life's free joys and wanting to buy a $275 umbrella at the same time, but Wilfredo offers the following astute warning in the comments: A night of heavy drinking, studies show, correlates to a near 100 percent chance of losing your umbrella.
What men buy: Entertainment. And especially in Baltimore, noted Presh. Kate's comment reminded me that I did a similar post comparing how single men and women spend on MSN's SmartSpending blog, which provoked some hilarity in the comments. A particular fave: "We men spend the majority of our money on women!! What happens in new relationships, she normally stays at your place, 95% of the time you're the one paying for dinner, buying something for her, and taking her out!! You should write an article about how hard men work so that they can do these things for women!! Where's the equality?!?"
So, Melinda, what are we having? Presh offered Melinda a 5-minute burrito recipe, Kate's making taco soup, and Logan's chickpeas-and-capers sounds like delicious, Italianate fakery. All of which trump the oatmeal I ate at 9:30 last night.
Question of the day: What do you do with your change? Spend it? Stash it?
The Week in Your Wallet is up next. Have a great weekend.
