**Well, after about 8 or 9 days, we finally got all our water fixed. Phew!!

We've actually had our water back for a few days, but everything else was endless problem and delays. Having never had a big job like this before, I would say it went about as good as it could have. Especially without having a lot of time to make a big decision! I actually expected much worse (just, you know, talking to anyone who has ever done a big project in their home). The delays were minor annoyances. I am just glad it is 100% over.

I suppose it's only 99% over because we have to get our lawn fixed now. The damage was very minimal, so I am not expecting it will be much money time or effort to get the lawn back to 100%. It's just one more minor annoyance.

**I decided to cash out my Capital One account. I earned $152 for depositing $500 in there (& for getting two referrals). I had to wait 30 days to withdraw the bonus. I was initially planning to close the account. But the interest was not half bad. But then again, I only put it in my name because I planned to close the account. I can probably do better shopping around.

Anyway, with having to pull out so much from savings anyway, decided to just close the account and do some higher interest research. Would like to keep an eye on rates for a while before I jump - I don't want to be stuck with some temporary promotional rate. I don't know if I can improve upon what I already have.

Oh, and I have closed enough bank accounts recently to not expect it to be a big deal. Usually all it takes is an e-mail. BUT, how awesome is this? I transferred all my money out of the account while I was thinking about it, and was thinking of just e-mailing them later to officially close the account. When I did the transfer it automatically closed the account. The End.

I don't do many (any?) bank bonuses because usually there are too many hoops to jump through (particularly since we don't have any direct deposits). But, um, I will take more of these type deals.

**So, Jeffrey posted something interesting in the forums, about a 10% interest rate he found for a child's account.

I wasn't particularly moved because the requirement for 10% was that the parents had to bank at the institution.

But I did peruse this list a little bit out of curiosity:

http://www.depositaccounts.com/savings/childrens-savings-acc...

A local credit union topped the list, but I Wasn't overly sold because it was a CU we ruled out several years ago for being pretty terrible (lots of fees, and very low interest rates).

I didn't see anything on this CU's website about us parents having to have accounts there, so I called today out of curiosity. I figured that had to be the catch, and was pretty sure I did not want to open an account there (if fees outweighed benefits). In the end, they told me the kids could open the accounts without us. Woohoo!! I am so excited about this!

Not only that, but I looked up how long the offer had been on the table, because I didn't want to go through all this hassle for some temporary promotion. Well, I saw 7% going back to 2007 or 2008, so I think it will be worth it...

No fees until the kids are 18. Only the first $500 receives the 7% interest rate. Both my kids have around $250 in their savings accounts. & their accounts will be growing a LOT faster now. We only opened their current accounts to deposit gifts made out to them (at some point our CU stopped letting us cash them or put them in our account). The 1 or 2 or 3 cents of monthly interest was fine for very little kids. But, I think the 7% will be more interesting and motivating for them. & a good lesson for them to shop around. I mean, don't I feel infinitely stupid for not getting them 7% for all these years. Duh!!