Sometimes living in a small town is incredibly annoying, but much of the time, it has surprising perks. One of these is my bank. Up until recently I banked with one of the big box banks, but their exorbitant fees cost me thousands of dollars, so I switched. Their crappy customer service didn’t help either.

Now I bank with a small, local credit union. I love it! Personal and friendly, and always willing to go the extra mile, it’s worth the inconvenience of having only a few branches. Plus, as long as the check is under $2500, you can scan it in with your scanner and deposit it without ever leaving your house. I think that’s pretty cool, though I wish they’d up the limit to accommodate someone like me with clients who like to pay all at once.

Back to the point of my story. I recently bought a MacBook Pro 15″. This is replacing the MacBook 1,1 13″ I’d been using. There is nothing wrong with the 13″ older model, and I’ll be selling it to a friends – I just flat-out outgrew it. I needed something with more room and more RAM for work. Enter the new MacBooks. Expect a review on AppleGrrl of the new model, too – I love it. Hello, 7 hour battery life.

My bank calls me this morning to make sure I meant to write the check. Normally I am a frugal spender, and they noticed the amount as being out of character for me. They wanted to check before they cleared it. Now how nice is that!? I assured her that yes, for once in my life, I actually did spend a large amount of money on myself (my last MacBook was bought refurbished at a huge price break), and she sent me on my way. But the fact that they go out of their way on that and other things makes me happy. They also keep an eye on gas stations that gouge customers with that silly $150 hold on charge cards used at the pump and send out a list every few weeks of stations to avoid because of it – if you follow my Utterli posts here, you will know that makes me smile for a reason.

So, I’m glad I made the jump from a big box bank to a small town credit union. Are you happy with where you bank? If not, I’d suggest looking into your local credit union as well.

I am fascinated by this, and want to see it in full, as well as read his book, after seeing it:

Life Inc. The Movie from Douglas Rushkoff on Vimeo.

From the description: “Life Inc the Movie In Life Inc., award-winning writer, documentary filmmaker, and scholar Douglas Rushkoff traces how corporations went from a convenient legal fiction to the dominant fact of contemporary life.

I haven’t written for this blog in a while. Partially because I’ve been so busy with Uptown Uncorked, Blorge, freelance clients and my new gig at Mashable, and partially because I haven’t known what to say that isn’t, well, negative or about money, politics, religion or other hot topics. I finally decided, screw it. I miss my outlet, and y’all can take it.

We’ve been in a recession for quite some time. If you don’t believe me, ask my wallet. I make pretty decent money doing what I do, and up until a few months ago, it was enough. I wasn’t living a lavish life, but things were paid for, and I had a few pleasures as well.

As each month passes the belt gets pulled tighter and tighter. Meanwhile, as the American people are facing their financial reality, and with with posts like this one on Queen Of Spain from my friend Erin Koteki-Vest of Huffington Post and BlogHer showing up, what is the Government doing? Not only wasting our money on senseless wars and other expenses but printing more to bail themselves out.

Y’all, I am no financial genius (just ask my bank, I often go into the red because I forget I paid a bill or absentmindedly didn’t deposit quite enough) but even I know that you can’t just print money like we’re in a giant game of Monopoly. This little news item probably has me even more panicked than all of the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman and other news combined. How about you? Worried yet?

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