Many thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts on the best places to buy checks online (62 comments as of this writing!), sounds like I was right to think that $20 for 50 checks was absurd! It appears that there are plenty of affordable options for buying checks and none of them come close to the 40 cents per check that Bank of America’s printers were asking for.

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It’s the thought that counts.

No truer is this line than in the world of Hallmark cards because those babies are expensive. The paradox of Hallmark cards is that you’re trying to be thoughtful but you’re sending something that’s been printed for mass consumption! Please don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Hallmark or special occasion/greeting cards in general, other than the price, and I feel that sending one beats not sending one; but if you want to stand out, you can do something unique at a fraction of the price.

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My family lives in a rural area, and we all wear jeans…a lot! My daughter grows fast and my son plays hard, which means we are constantly dealing with the question of what to do with old denim jeans.

Some of our old jeans are in good shape, but too short. Other jeans, those belonging to my son, usually have holes in the knees. Over the years I’ve gotten creative about ways to use my old denim. You can too.

You might be wondering why you’d want to reuse denim in the first place. I’m a big believer in reduce/reuse/recycle. If your jeans are in good shape, you could always donate them to a thrift store. However, if your family is like mine, most of your old denim is not suitable for donation.

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Last Friday I discussed the CEO of LifeLock’s appearance on the Today Show and how many of the services they offer are things you can do yourself. So, rather than leave it all vague, here’s what you can do for a do it yourself solution.

AnnualCreditReport.com

Through AnnualCreditReport.com, you can request a copy of your credit report from each bureau once a year. I generally like to stagger it every 4 months so you can keep up to date absolutely free. For example, get your Experian in January, then your TransUnion in May, then your Equifax in September, then Experian again the following January.

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I don’t have a will and I’ve done zero estate planning. That being said, it’s a situation I plan to remedy so this recent NY Times article about do-it-yourself wills and trusts was pretty timely. The one important thing I learned about wills and trusts were that they are considered private documents, which means they are valid in all fifty states even if you don’t hire a lawyer to draft them. From my interpretation, it sounds like it’s not an agreement but more a unilateral statement so it’s not necessary to have a lawyer draft it up (especially with how expensive they are).

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