Guest Post
By Odysseas Papadimitriou, CEO of credit card comparison website Card Hub

What’s up with this new monthly fee on my checking account statement? By now, your
response to this question has probably progressed from initial bewilderment to hopes for
a typo to anger and, possibly, even to acceptance. But should you be content paying $3-
$10 more per month for a service that once was free? And why exactly are we seeing so
many major banks add new fees to their checking and debit card offerings?

Let’s start with the why. On October 1, new rules from the Federal Reserve, which were
quite a long time in the making, took effect, capping the interchange (or swipe) fees
banks can charge merchants whenever debit cards are used as payment at their stores.
This alone might not seem like that big of a deal to you, but consider the fact that this
change – originally inspired by the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street
Reform and Consumer Protection Act – will cost major banks an estimated $9.4 billion in
annual interchange fee revenue, and the new monthly charges make a lot more sense.

Still, understanding the rationale behind the new law won’t save you from these fees, so
we need to talk options. First off, if you do your banking at a small local institution, you
should be fine. The Durbin Amendment only applies to banks with at least $10 billion
in assets, so it’s only patrons of the major industry players that need to escape increased
costs.

Right off the bat, we can glean a couple of obvious alternatives to simply ponying up
the cash each month for those of you who are customers of big banks that have already
introduced fees or have heard rumblings about your bank joining the fee party. First, you could always take your account to a smaller bank. The immunity of these banks to the new fee cap means that not only will they likely offer lower fee structures for their checking accounts than their larger counterparts, but they will probably have more attractive debit card rewards as well. Secondly, many of the new fees can be escaped by meeting certain minimum balance requirements. So, if you have multiple checking accounts, now would be the time for consolidation.

The other major option at your disposal would be to retire your bank account in favor of a prepaid card. Now, this might seem a bit radical to many of you, especially since people tend to get stuck in their ways when it comes to banking, but you have to understand that prepaid cards are the fastest growing electronic form of payment over the past few years and are equipped to handle basically every checking account task…save, of course, for actual paper-check writing. Prepaid cards allow direct deposit, online bill pay, ATM withdrawals, account- to-account transfers of funds, etc.

The knock on prepaid cards is that they are difficult to compare, thanks to the different fees each issuer charges for the aforementioned uses. This is indeed true, but according to a Card Hub study, the Green Dot Prepaid Card can fill the void left by a discontinued checking account and can do so for free. As long as you load at least $1,000 each month and use one of Green Dot’s 18,000 in-network ATMs for withdrawals, you will not incur monthly charges when using this card. And given that it has a maximum balance of $10,000, you should find that this card meets your checking account needs without a problem.

After all, who writes paper checks these days anyway? It’s a digital world that we live in, and luckily, it’s also a world where you don’t have to pay monthly fees for your checking account if you don’t want to.

Not a sponsored post. Sorry, I had to say it. I met with the Disney Baby team at BlogHer 2011 in San Diego and got to see this product line in person. I was honestly so impressed with the extremely high cute factor of the body suits that I have to share with you.

Seriously.

Another super awesome thing about these body suits – they are expandable. Some babies are just longer and skinny. If you buy a body suit the next size up, it is really baggy. With these body suits you can adjust the length by choosing which row of snaps to use.

New styles of the DISNEY CUDDLY BODYSUIT™ are available now at Target, Amazon.com and Babies “R” Us stores. For additional information, visit: www.babiesrus.com, www.amazon.com/disneybaby and www.target.com. Disney Baby plans to introduce new products and collections later this year.

But beyond the ease of use, these are just super cute!

And since pictures speak louder than words, here are the clothes. They are like a 12 on the cute scale of 1-10!

Which one is your favorite? I love the Monster’s Inc one!

And if you or someone you know is expecting or just had a baby, the Disney Baby site is a fun place to spend some time.  You can upload and share your own magical moments with other parents. You can browse their brand new site additions t0o – from nursery ideas to bath time products – this site captures the magic a new baby brings to your life!

Disney Baby celebrates the fact that life with baby is filled with so many magical moments to be cherished. In order to help parents to bond with their baby, the new Disney Baby collections are designed to provide quality products essential to every experience throughout the day with a touch of Disney magic.
~ Jessi Dunne, executive vice president, Disney Moms and Babies for Disney Consumer Products.

Those words still haunt me. I was 17 years old and a senior in high school.  I put on skis for the first time in my life. It was not pretty.

But I was not prepared for how clumsy I’d instantly become. As soon as I pushed off the ski lift, I regretted my decision. I breathed a heavy sigh of determination and headed down the hill. Food, fire and warmth awaited me and I was going to get there.

Push. Stop. Goooooooooo. Stop. Woooahh!! Stop. Push. Stop.

I was going so slow, then too fast, then I fell. I dreamed of pretending my leg was broken so a patrol could drive me down the hill in their snowmobile.

I cursed a little under my breath as I strained to pull myself up. I had a friend coaching me this entire time. “Annie, you are doing great! I was the same way my first time!” I wanted to hurl snow in her face.

Then, those words.

A dad flew by with his 5 year old daughter. As she zoomed past me on her own set of skis, he said that phrase. That awful phrase. To his baby girl. “Look honey! You are doing better than she is!”

I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed, mad, or hate myself for my clumsiness. I forgot everything I learned in our little ski school that morning and just tried to get down the dang hill.

I am so glad I gave it a chance. That father might have been trying to help give his baby girl confidence, but it shook me. It also told me the importance of getting my children to try new things when they are young. At places like Mammoth Mountain in California you can enroll your kids in classes and they even have intertubes for going down the hills! I’d choose the tubing.  Totally.

Mammoth Mountain is where I want to take my kids really soon. This resort has every kind of amenity and class you can think of.  They have childcare for babies, classes for young children (and adults like me that don’t know a thing about skiing).  Or – what I really want – is to leave the kids with grandma and enjoy one of their romance packages! No matter what, my experience at Mammoth Mountain simply has to be better than my flop in Colorado.

Do you take your children to experience new things young? Have you had a similar experience to mine?

Time for the 2nd round of Vlog Moms! Vlog Moms is a group of bloggers that is practicing our vlogging and having fun with it. Each week someone picks a topic and we all create a vlog about it.  There is a linky under this post where you can visit the other Vlog Moms!

This week I picked the topic – jobs in high school and college! So, what were YOUR jobs?

While in college I was:

*Ticket taker at football games          *Sears Portrait Studio Photographer

*Sunglass Hut Associate                     *Newspaper reporter

*Insurance secretary                           *Real Estate office secretary

*Radio DJ                                           *Babysitter!

Phew! And I know I am forgetting at least one of them.

How are you doing with your New Year’s resolutions? This is a super fun and easy vlog hop a bunch of bloggers are doing. Please join us! Just record a quick vlog sharing how you are doing with your resolutions, put it on your blog then put your post on our linky.

For those of you who cannot watch the video, here is basically what I shared.

I vowed to stop myself from comparing my life, my family and myself to other people. I won’t compare my blog to anyone’s except my own. I refuse to compare my house or my life to anyone else because they are not me. Comparing to others always leads to despair and unhappiness. I do not need that! So how am I doing with that? So far really good! I had a few times where I really wanted to compare and I stopped myself. It has led to less anxiety and overall more contentment.

My other goal, as every year, is eat healthier and get fit. I want to say loose weight because over the winter Josh worked a ton and I gained 10 lbs.  How am I doing? Fantastic! I joined a gym and started to eat more whole foods and less crap. I am eating less dairy, less red meats and a ton more fresh veggies and fruits and whole grains. I feel 100% better, have a ton more energy and I believe this is a lifestyle I can live!

So how are you doing?

Here is Desiree’s video. She is from the blog Mommy Reporter – you should definitely check out her blog!

And here is my video. Enjoy!

This recipe infuses tomato sauce, brown sugar and Worcestershire sauce in a delectable combination.  I used boneless pork chops cut into strips (because they were on sale) but you can use pork loin or pork steaks as well. I served it over white rice but if you use pork loin I think it would be delicious to serve over your favorite noodles too!

I found it on AllRecipes.com and adapted it to suit my needs. The result was amazing!