A Smidgeon of Personal Finance June 16, 2004January 21, 2017 Well, it turns out Reagan never did say AIDS in his State of the Union address, so he seems to have used the word exactly once in his first 6 years in office. And if you thought yesterday’s Larry Speakes transcript was bad . . . But before we start all that again (I thought yesterday was your last word!), how about at least a smidgeon of personal finance? EARN A SMIDGEON EXTRA Andy Martin: ‘ING Direct‘s 5-year CD at the moment pays 4.4%. If you don’t make it to 5 years, and decide to do something else with the money, you forfeit half the rate and so earn only 2.2%. But that’s still higher than ING’s current 2.1% rate. So why not take the CD? Worst case, you earn a little more.’ SAVE A SMIDGEON Gary Diehl: ‘I have always been quick to use generics, but after having been given a large bottle of Tide detergent sometime back [If only Charles were satisfied with gifts like this!-A.T.] I discovered something interesting. Tide was so thick and powerful compared to the watery brand I usually used, it actually made the clothes feel soapy. So each time I washed using less, until I discovered that a quarter of the recommended amount worked great. Everything comes out very clean and smelling good. Sometimes if I have a truly grimy load I will go to a third. For bad stains I will pre-treat them with a spray bottle filled with (you guessed it) Tide. I switched over a year ago, my clothes are just as clean, and I spend less money keeping them that way.’ IT MAY SEEM LIKE A SMIDGEON TO YOU, BUT . . . Harry Mark: ‘A quote I thought you might enjoy (attributed to Anonymous): If you lend a guy twenty dollars and you never see him again, it was probably worth the money.‘ ☞ I lent Mark Holman $15 in the summer of 1970, back when $15 was more – especially to me – than it is now. And I never saw him again. And, I don’t want to frighten any of you, but: I’m still looking for him. Tomorrow: Laying Blame Where’s It’s Due