I am enjoying seeing the blogs come to life with so many pictures.

WE decided to go for a walk last night and I decided against dragging along the camera, but when I stepped outside I Saw this, so ran back in for it.

Picture #4


If you look really closely, the lower right-hand corner of the clouds has a faint rainbow.

& then the sunset progressed.







For the area, not the most spectacular sky or sunset. It gets really beautiful in the evening as a rule. & the sky has just been so beautiful with a brilliant blue and puffy white clouds in recent weeks as well. But overall a pretty nice evening. We stayed out for an hour and the rain cloud seemed to shift south, stayed clear of us - phew. I got some well-needed exercise. Have to enjoy before it starts getting hotter than Hades... But even so we are lucky to be near so many water ways, it tends to cool off in the evenings with a breeze, but not always. Yup, definitely enjoying mild weather.

In other news, I think we are going to give it a test with the $10k credit card debt, 0%, to earn interest in the bank. I think we just felt uncomfortable borrowing more money than we had. No particular reason, it is just a lot of money to mess with if something goes wrong. What? I don't know really. But the original $20k seems a bit much. I think I will try to get $12k, so even as I pay down the minimums, the $10k will earn interest. Dh has been firmly against investing our e-fund at all as is, but now he is like, maybe we should invest a bit. Is he crazy? LOL. We can take the money we earn from it and invest it - fine. Sometime I just don't know. Why look over a 5% "sure thing"? But anyway, we already expect to earn $500 this year from our rewards card, and now maybe $500 from this little ploy. I think after we give it a try we will try for another Citi Card and see if we can get another balance transfer. I have no idea how much they will give us, but I am sure they won't blink at $10k with our credit score. I think we will open one in my name and one in dh's name just so it won't really hit either of our credit scores very hard. Frankly, in our situation, I think it will help. Anyway, I think I am a little weirded out by the idea so we'll test it and get our little $50 gift card (woohoo). & if I don't regret it and just pay it back in a couple of months - LOL - we might try to borrow a little more. Free money here we come. We have been pondering it, and I just don't feel comfortable opening a lot of cards just for promos and how it could mess with your credit score. But if we can open 1 each, play the game, and close the cards without much of a blip to our credit score, then I am in!! Which I am sure we can. I just am not sure we can do this indefinitely. So I don't want to get too used to it. But all the same I feel quite pleased at the idea of making $1k off the credit cards in 1 year. Doubling our current returns. Well, maybe even tripling if we can get 2 cards at $10k. We'll see!

Not only does CitiBank have no fees and all that, and the gift card promo, etc. BUT the best part to me is just being able to get a check deposited directly to my money market account. I still do not trust the credit card companies enough to send a big negative balance to them I guess.

If you told me a year ago I would apply for $10 cc debt, I would have thought you were insane. Oh yeah - this is going to add to my challenge money - woohoo.

Oh anyway, here is the blog where I got the idea (below). I considered it carefully because I do not necessarily agree some of this bloggers' money-making ideas. For one, I can't see myself applying for a zillion cards just for free money and promos. It has got to affect your FICO signifcantly. But we'll see. I was also reading his step-by-step guide to investing in Treasuries, which was very useful and interesting, I do have to say. But just left me not seeing the point because I can make more in my money market with a lot less effort. But I will keep in mind for when times change. So I had to look at this cc idea a little more critically, and I still think it is good as long as you don't overdue it. So while I recommend the blog overall, I wouldn't do everything the guy suggests myself. I guess a reminder to consider things very carefully when it comes to finance.

ETA: Oh, to give the guy credit he seems pretty on top of the credit score thing - I just saw more of his replies on the subject). I guess the risk is not my thing - LOL.

Yes - for Citi the fees look like they are waived on most of the promo deals for most cards right now. But I will definitely let you know how it goes - will keep you updated.