Tax Carnival

... My tax advisor is the Wall Street Journal, blogs, Kiplinger and other magazines.

But where do you find all the personal finance blogs discussing tax issues? Just wait till the
Tax Carnival comes to town.

Technorati: Tax IRS

PG&E: Heat Storm Credit

Fall has been very mild in Northern California. Yesterday the temperature was still 76F/25C. We barely had to turn on the heater in the morning. Our electricity and gas bills have been low. The Oct 15-Nov 15 bill was a grand total of $39. Something struck me as odd on the statement: the bill included a Heat Storm Bill credit of $4.35. PG&E 's website has more details:

PG&E is giving customers a credit. As we all know, California experienced unusually high temperatures in late July 2006. Higher temperatures led to higher energy usage and that, unfortunately, led to higher energy bills. Because of this unprecedented situation and because of our broader commitment to serving our customers, we’re taking unprecedented action. We are retroactively lowering your July bill. In October all residential customers will see a 15 percent credit based on their electric energy usage in July.

Let me repeat the PR-machine-at-work "Because of this unprecedented situation and because of our broader commitment to serving our customers, we’re taking unprecedented action."

When a big corporation is handing out cash, count your chickens!

Technorati: PG&E Electricity Environment Personal Finance

Here's my password

Young and Broke had a nice post about My Grocery deals. Since I was about to post about our grocery shopping, my interest peaked. I checked out the recommended website : MyGroceryDeals and signed up.

What's up with websites who claim to take your privacy serious and supposed to be secure websites?

Dear Visitor to our wonderful website/Valued internet user -
We take your privacy serious ... blah blah blah.
We are a secure website ... blah blah blah.

So why do you send me my password in clear text when I changed it to a more secure one? To add insult to injury, the useful part of the website, requires you to install software to merely print a coupon.

The Coupon Printer contains security features needed to provide you with coupons you can use in a store. It does not install any third-party software, nor does it collect any personal information.

MyGroceryDeals is a great idea, but a poor implementation. No thank you!