Before online banking, saving money was a pain. You had to carefully plan how much and how regularly you are going to stash a chunk of your paycheck, sometimes you had to handle cash and those annoying deposit tickets. However, in this day and age practically every institution is giving you the ability to move money around fairly easily. Therefore, ignoring your stash is pretty much unforgivable … a lot more so now than during the pre-electronic money transfer days.

So how I am being a good pirate by continuously contributing money to my stash? By using recurring transfers, that’s how.

Once I’ve reached the point in my life where not having that fifty bucks in the bank would guarantee that I would bounce a $15 check, I immediately set up a recurring transfer from my main account into my Scottrade investment account.

Scottrade makes it easy:

Just point them to your account, and they will happily pull out whatever amount you specify at desired intervals (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc). I have them pull out around $100 every paycheck (every week) and I’ve gotten so used to it, I wouldn’t have it any other way. So much better than hoard the $400 somewhere, then write a check to Scottrade at the end of the month, ew. Actually, once you give them the logins to your banking website, they make it almost scary easy, especially when they tell you how much money you got in other bank accounts …

Bank of America is glad to accomodate your desire to hoard as well:

After a confirmation email or two, just punch in the name of the other bank, and BoA will send money these pronto.

However, I think Emigrant Direct takes the cake – their external transfers were the easiest to set up, and they post the same day.

Same schpiel – point to an account, press Submit.

I’m telling you, there’s no excuse to set up a recurring transfer one day before your paycheck gets Direct Deposited. What??? Your paycheck is not Direct Deposited???

Ok, you can’t really surprise me with anything, but this little gadget is a clear signal that the future from science fiction books is becoming a reality.

What got me so excited? This new 1Gb iPod Shuffle.

I think I’m more exited about the ingenuity of one company than about the product itself, but the actual unit is pretty cool too. It features a tiny USB cradle for sync and charging, a pair of headphones, and some Apple decals. The capacity is 1 gigabyte (I fit 140 songs @ 128kbps).

It’s extremely thin, light, and durable. I already dropped it a few times, and its aluminum body is holding up pretty well. Sure beats older, longer plastic Shuffles.

Hang it on your jeans, and rock.

So what do I think?

• Though Apple is a cult I never belonged to, I like their Shuffle mp3 players. Simple, durable, lightweight, no complicated controls, and roomy for all my songs. Perfect.
• I was the early adopter on this one and pre-ordered it a few months ago. It just flew in from China this morning.
• I bought it for about $85 out the door (free shipping, free engraving) off Apple website. I wanted an mp3 player to replace my old 512K Shuffle.
• I cannot wait to work out again!
• Everyone at work pretty much flipped out. You should have seen the older guys – they kept talking about reel tape records weighing 200 lbs and contrasting them with this little unit. Must be hard to realize something you grew up with sucks.
• I don’t like iTunes. I think it’s slow and annoying. However, because of this gadget’s awesomeness, I can deal.

Oh yeah, the CD on the pic is the stable and free version of Kubuntu Linux (read: coo-bun-too), which rules as hard as this new iPod.