An article in USA Today mentions a new method of saving money at the pump, paying in cash. The article cites a pump in South Carolina offering a four cent discount on each gallon of gasoline in return for payment in cash as opposed to credit. Considering that credit cards charge a percentage of the sale and a flat rate, this is a win for the gas station, a business with low profit margins (all the money is in the convenience store). While this is a win for the station, it’s a lose for the consumer.

Considering you can get a 5% cashback card on gasoline purchases and gas at, say, $2.50 (good luck finding that around here) per gallon - 5% is 12.5 cents. You personally save eight cents more by using credit over cash. (if you have a 5% cashback card, if you don’t, then the cash option is better)

Unless you just bet a superfecta, chances are you don’t really care which horse came in fourth. That’s probably why ING Direct’s rate increase to 4.25% doesn’t really excite you when Emigrant Direct, HSBC, and many others are at 4.65% and higher. That being said, 4.25% is not a bad place to put $250 if you want to get a $25 referral bonus. Shoot me an email if that interests you, otherwise, you should get an Emigrant Direct account.

An article in USA Today notes that the National Association of Realtors expects apartment rents to rise approximately 5.3% this year, double the increase last year, in the highest jump since 2000.The four factors they identify for the increase are more jobs, higher home prices, fewer available apartments, and greater demand because of displaced residents from Hurricane Katrina.

The first two factors are well known leading indicators for apartment rents for obvious reasons, an increase in the amount of renters. Job seekers who move to a new job will typically rent before they buy, thus increasing the demand on apartment rents. The same applies for home prices/sales and rents, as one increases the other decreases (or stagnates). It’s easier to rent an apartment for $1000 than pay a mortgage for $2000, even if you are “throwing” rent away. An interesting statistic they mentioned that I thought was worth noting was that for twenty years (1980-2000) the ratio of home price to rent was 12, now it’s 21!

The last two reasons are a little hard to accept as the cause of increased rents. Fewer apartments because condos were converted from rental properties to owner-occupied (they were sold)? Does it really affect overall rents that much? I find that a little hard to believe. As for the 100,000 displaced residents? Those last two may be a stretch in terms of being “major” reasons. But what do I know…

via Yahoo Finance.

If you’re in Maryland then you know that on July 1st your energy bill is going to spike up around 71%, Washington Gas Energy Services (WGES) is an alternative to Baltimore Gas & Electric (BG&E) and they’re offering 10% off BG&E summer rates and 3% non-summer rates for a period of one year if you agree to a one year contract, effective July 1st. “You’ll continue to receive emergency service and one bill for all your electricity charges from BGE. When you choose WGES, there is no interruption of service and no connection charge. If you are on BGE’s budget plan, you may continue to budget your charges.” (website) The little discount will help ease the brunt of the rate hike blow on July 1st… and none of the other companies listed in my searches appeared to give such a discount.

What’s also nice is that 5% of WGES’s electricity is generated from wind, a nice thing to see. The only fine print that I found worth noting, and this isn’t surprising, is a $75 early termination fee and a 45 day notification window prior to service cancellation. The early termination fee is waived if you are moving.

WGES may not be available where you are, here is a search tool provided by the Maryland Public Service Commission.

I spent a fun weekend fishing, seeing my parents, and, oh yeah, attended a beautiful wedding. Two of my college friends became one and I can safely say that everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves and that it was a great time. The ceremony was beautiful, the reception was a lot of fun, and the cake was delicious. (Actually everything was delicious, I think I gained ten pounds between all the alcohol and the food) The only blemish on the night, not for me personally, was the absence of the videographer, from “The Pros,” who didn’t show up at all. At all.

This led me to wonder… does a large company, with a presence in multiple states, really necessarily mean reliability or good service? In most cases you would say yes because there has to be a reason why they grew to the size they are and that reason has to be a high level of service and reliability such that they get a lot of business. “However, value in product is only true value when it is supported by consistent, excellent service.” states their website but they weren’t consistent and who knows about their service since they never showed up.

In this particular case, no, and in fact I would venture to guess in a scenario such as this one (only one chance at it, you can’t be late or flaky or anything… it’s a wedding!) the best bet would be to go with a small one or two person operation (who does it out of enjoyment or is trying to make a name for themselves) that come with good references. Would I have guessed this before this weekend? Never.

Sadly, the couple were warned that The Pros were not 100% reliable, a product of having such a large operation, but very few videographers will give you 8 hours of raw footage (most cut and splice it down to a 30 minute product) so they reserved them anyway. The Pros can afford to miss a few weddings because they conduct so much business. They can afford to miss a few? Ridiculous! Now, do I know the full story? No I don’t, but I do know there was no videographer at the ceremony and that a very capable DJ, who did happen to have a camera, did catch the reception so all was not lost.

The Pros are not reliable, based only on this one situation, and I recommend that you not take the risk of their services. Dennis J. Tessler, Brian M. Tessler, and C. Keith Tessler should be ashamed of themselves that they permitted this to happen.

This is a courteous response sent recently (November 06, 2007) by President and CEO Dennis Tessler:

For several years now when people “Google” The Pros Weddings within the first page is an extremely uncomplimentary article about our company written by a guests at a wedding at which, according to this guest, The Pros videographer was late and missed the ceremony. Since we have no idea what wedding this relates to, the circumstances, or what restitution was made to the client, it is impossible for me to comment on this specific incident. However, after all these years of having to see this article I decided there is a need to respond.

Accepting the letter at face value, it appears, for whatever reason, the videographer was late. If so, I am confident we did everything reasonable and more to make restitution with the bride. I can speak with confidence that everything is done to ensure such instances are extremely rare.

The Pros is a family owned business. I am the owner and my two sons, Keith and Brian, are working hard to build this business for their family’s future. We, along with a dedicated staff, all work extremely hard, to provide the finest in wedding services. Last year we provided service to 8,000 weddings and in total did 13,000 services. We did not build this business by disappointing brides. In fact, we are the most referred provider of disc jockey, video and photography in the nation. With those referrals comes a trust we take very seriously.

Recently, we were given “The Knots Best of Weddings” award as rated by The Knot brides.

We do everything possible to create reliability and are extremely successful in this pursuit. We spend significant dollars in order to have emergency back up in every area at all times. Should a last minute issue prevent a professional from performing their duties, an 800 line is provided which goes directly to a qualified individual, armed with the information necessary to dispatch a backup on a moment’s notice. Because we have a highly professional, stable workforce of individuals
who have been part of The Pros, most of them for a very long time, our emergency line is not as active as one would think. I am constantly amazed that the quantity of work we do and the very few problems we have. It is a credit to those individuals with whom we have been able to surround ourselves.

The article you present “The Pros Wedding Services Not Reliable” written by a guest at a wedding who provides little detail, perhaps because of a lack of information, about what actually happened at a wedding no one can identify, is highly inaccurate and extremely misleading. It undermines the reputation of not only our family business but the 500 people who work so very hard to create an the organization of which we are so proud.

The article has been up for a very long time. I ask you to use your good judgment as to whether it indefinitely serves the consumer community. Perhaps the time has come to take it down. Your
consideration of this matter is greatly appreciated.

Dennis J. Tessler
President and Chief Executive Officer

If you haven’t noticed, JLP at AllThingsFinancial has created several useful calculators worth taking a look at. For those that don’t know, JLP is one of the few personal finance professionals who is a blogger so you can have confidence that these calculators carry a little more credibility than most (unless JLP is bad at math, I have no idea!)… if you have a moment, please check them out and let me know what you think (or what calculator you’d like to see):

Investing and Planning
College Cost Estimator
Financial Goals Calculator
Life Insurance Needs Calculator
Retirement Planning Comparison Calculator - See how much you can possibly save retirement and compare it to the cost of waiting.
Tax Bracket History - Only works for those who are Married Filing Jointly.

Miscellaneous
Annual Gasoline Costs Calculator - How much does it cost you (gas, at least) to drive your car each year?