The one part of our How To: that we were thought was lacking was the links section. Those were links that I still had on file from when we built ours, and it was slim pickings back then. Oh how times have changed. I thought it would be good to post some other links that I'd found to be particularly informative on the topic and a good supplement to our tutorial on rainwater harvesting. Enjoy.

Overviews / General Information

• Rainbarrelguide.com
  
• Rain-barrel.net reminds you not to drink from these things unless you filter the water.
  

Other How To's

• This Old House (complete with video!)
• Instructables shows how in 42 steps. Step 43: Drink a beer.
• HGTV's Paul James' segment on rain barrels
• DIY Networks even shows how to build a nice platform for elevating your barrels
  

• Rainbrothers of Columbus, OH
• Aaron's Rain Barrels & more
• Clean Air Gardening has barrels as well as diverters, pumps, and other paraphernalia
  

We've pushed the deadline out on the blog advertisement poll. We want to capture as much feedback as possible as this is something we have been against doing in the past. But maybe we were too hasty? So far, the poll is telling us that most people don't mind, so long as they are relevant to the topic.

Here is what has caused us to reconsider:

"Business and Financial Blog Network: an invitation to join: Forbes.com

You are invited to join the new community of the high quality business and financial bloggers from Forbes.com. Our community, the Business and Financial Blog Network, recently launched. I was just searching the key word “personal finance” and came upon your blog.

Your blog will be promoted to our roster of blue-chip advertisers and we will only run campaigns that are appropriate for your audience. You will receive 40% of all net revenues collected by Forbes.com (after agency commitments, ad serving fees and external network support)

Our Adify advertising technology enables you to:

* Review and approve any advertisement

* Access to on-demand, real-time reports regarding the performance of campaigns and naturally your earnings.

You have a choice of ads positions. Please note that we need your site to run the 728x90 leaderboard PLUS either the 160x600 skyscraper and/or 300x250 rectangle.

* 728x90 leaderboard

* 160x600 skyscraper

* 300x250 rectangle

Other benefits:

Forbes.com will provide you with a Business and Financial Blog Network badge to denote membership. You will also receive semiannual research from us that sheds new light on trends and traction of the Blog Network to help you know more about your readers and other blogs in the network. We will host an annual conference at the Forbes Galleries for members of our Blog Network, presenting new trends, tools and other aspects of technology that affect the blogging community in general and our members' specifically."

We have been featured on four carnivals/festivals this week. We are pleased to welcome all new readers to Not the Jet Set. To find out more about us, click here. We are a personal finance blog focused on frugality, stewardship, and current events, while also telling our story as a family and the personal finance decisions we have made. Thanks for stopping by and be sure to check out our new NtJS Cafepress shop!

The Carnival of Money Hacks has posted over at Moolanomy with Mrs. NtJS's garage sale hacks. Pinyo is also launching a new and interesting project called PF Buzz, so be sure to check that out. Some other hacks that caught our eyes:

• The Shark Investor takes a look at earning extra income by freelancing. This is a great read for those of you wanting to make more, but not sure how.
  
• The better half of Budgets Are $exy (sorry J) has an article on friendly and frugal tactics for cutting wedding costs. Congrats on the impending nuptials!
  

You may or may not have noticed the poll on the right. Please take a moment to share your thoughts on this subject both in the poll and in the comments. We value your opinion.

How could they be? This sheet of plastic? Die-cut into such a friendly shape, printed with pretty graphics, embossed with your personal information, and - just for convenience - laminated with a magnetic strip containing the same information. It's inanimate - devoid of thoughts or feelings, incapable of morals or emotion. Credit cards are not evil. Yet the debate rages on - pro-credit-card vs. anti - declaring them a useful financial tool to those who use them responsibly, denouncing them as a financial trap, preying on those less informed and yet still managing to harm those who are. Credit cards are not evil!

... But the companies who issue them are.

Now we are take-charge kind of people and constantly advocate financial literacy as well as personal responsibility. But this industry is so wrought with misinformation, myths, scams, scandals, security breaches, immoral behavior, idiocracy, ineptitude, and underhanded business practices, that even the most informed, well-behaved consumer can (and does) get bitten.

So people will (and have) refuted this claim, but now we are laying down the evidence. We present our case of fourteen reasons for why credit card companies are evil, and thus why you should avoid them like the plague. Our exhibits:

1. Mandatory Binding Arbitration. It can be argued (effectively) that this policy in itself is pure evil. I would not disagree. Many corporations, not just credit issuers, have been burdening their employees, vendors and customers with MBA clauses. These allow the corporation to circumvent the judicial system in disputes and take away your constitutional rights in doing so. Arbitrators have been well documented as being biased to the party that retains them (guess who, the corporation), and rule in their favor more than 90% of the time. New evidence suggests that even those time when they rule in favor of the individual, around half are overturned on appeal. Some even suggest collusion by the credit card companies to ensure that all card on the market had MBA clauses, thus giving cardholders no choice. How about 'none of the above'? Contractually obligated arbitration circumvents your 6th amendment rights by denying access to the judicial system. It's use in credit cardholders' agreements is currently under scrutiny in a class-action lawsuit.
   
2. Universal Default. Here is a policy that only Satan himself could love. This policy, also likely to be found in your cardholder agreements, gives your creditor the ability to review your credit - at any time - and adjust your interest rate - for any reason. Taking on too much debt, having too much available credit, a drop in your credit score (oh my!), being late on one payment to somebody else, exceeding your credit limit with any of your creditors, too many inquiries on your credit, new types of credit issued (a new mortgage or car loan), a slight change in the wind.... all legit reasons for a cardholder to be placed in universal default and see their terms be jacked across the board by others participating in UD. That's right. So you were late paying the phone bill due to an error on their part? If it hits your credit report, then you can see the rates go through the roof on all of your lines of credit, despite the late payment having nothing to do with those creditors. And once the phone company corrects their error and puts your account back in good standing, your creditors are under no obligation to change your terms back to their previous state. Think that terms like "too much" and "too many" are broad and subjective? They are.
   
3. Double-Cycle Billing. This one is a lot of fun too. It allows for your creditor to calculate your average daily balance from the past two months, instead of just the single previous month. What's the big deal? Well, the average daily balance is how they are calculating the interest that you owe. Using double-cycle billing allows them to charge you interest on debts that you may have already payed off. Yeah, that seems totally legit. Both double-cycle billing and universal default have recently drawn the ire of Congress and have caused both Congress and the Federal Reserve Board to propose legislation and amendments to Regulation Z, respectively, that would ban these practices and regulate many others.
   
4. "Late" Payments. One of the more covert methods of screwing the customer is to post their payment after the due date - despite having received it on-time. When employees are rewarded for levying more fees, it's not hard to see how advantageous it is to these folks to just sit on your check for a few hours, or overnight. Another way to accomplish the same result is to make it impossible to pay on time by issuing statements shortly before the due date, or making the due date on Sunday - when no-one is working. Yet another slice of this pie is the practice of moving your due date without notice or reason. Perhaps you have set up your bills to align with your paychecks, and just have you some sanity around paying your bills. But your card issuer decided that they were giving you 9 days too many to get your payment to them. Now why would they notify you of such a change? They don't have to, and their switch to fee income (since there is so much competition on interest rates), has opened a Pandora's box of rogue payment processors. And don't think that electronic payments make you immune to this treatment - they'll sit on those too.
5. Fees, Fees, and More Fees. Consumers Union - those fine people who produce Consumer Reports - estimates that the credit card companies take in 8 billion annually in fee income alone. The Americans For Fairness In Lending site estimates it was as high as 24 billion in 2004. Someone is paying those fees and it's not us! With employee productivity based on the amount of fees collected, it's no wonder that this revenue stream is growing. CU's creditcardreform.org site has a form you can fill out to express your comments to the Fed in regards to their recent proposed regulatory changes.
   
6. Opaque Agreements. Carholder agreements are written in such a way that even lawyers have trouble navigating them. If there were more transparency, people wouldn't sign on for such a lopsided deal. As Curtis Arnold of CardRatings.com says, "You have to be incredibly diligent to avoid the tripwire." As of 2003, it was estimated that only 44% of cardholders had read the entire cardholder agreement. Sounds a tad high, but that's self-reporting for you. Even still, they asked if they read it, not read and understood it. Take a look at yours and see if you can find items 1, 2 or 3 in it. Even if you don't find them, you're likely to find the provision that allows for item 14 - 'terms subject to change at any time, for any reason, without prior notification'.
   
7. Targeting Young Kids. Years ago, it was 'Cool Shopping Barbie' - a Barbie doll complete with her own mini MasterCard (plus a larger one for the child), and a cash register to always approve her credit. MC and Mattel took a beating on that one from consumer advocates, and eventually pulled the product - after Christmas. A couple of years ago, Parker Bros. got on the credit gravy train by issuing new versions of Monopoly with Visa credit cards, instead of the famous 'Monopoly Money'. There was some backlash on that, but not nearly enough, as credit is more socially acceptable today. Both of these cases were thinly vailed attempts to get a branded credit card into a minor's hand and get them to associate money, fun, and purchasing power with their company and product at a very early age. Make no mistake, these are not innocent product partnerships. But it doesn't stop with toys. It seems that card issuers are clamoring for ways to get to this untapped market. Untapped because kids under 18 can't legally be issued credit cards. Their solution is pre-paid debit cards for kids as young as 13. Just another way to get in the parents' pocket but now with a tween at the helm. The game is of course to have the parents step in to bail out the kids. Kids and credit cards. As Janet Bodnar of Kiplinger's said, "That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard."
   
8. Targeting College Kids. A long-time favorite target of scumbag lenders are America's college students. Universities have sold out to the banks to not only allow debt paddlers to pimp their product on campus, but they've also sold their students personal info to all willing to pay. As a result, you have uniformed young adults swayed into card contracts by unqualified pushers, and an incessant torrent of card offers flooding every student's mailboxes. Yes, these 'kids' are technically 'adults' by law, and are liable for their own actions. Parents, in preparation for college, should be teaching their children about these vultures. That assumes that the parents have a clue. Still, these companies prey on these victims at one of the most vulnerable times of their young lives - on their own, alone, and with limited financial means of their own.
   
9. Targeting Bankruptcy Filers. If you are still on the fence at this point, then maybe we have the knock-out blow here. As shown in the movie Maxed Out, one of the credit card companies' favorite new targets is people who have recently filed bankruptcy. Doesn't make sense? When asked about this, the interviewee, Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, said this, "As one of the vice presidents of MasterCard once explained to me, ... 'we know two things about them - one, is that they can't file for bankruptcy again, and the second is they have taste for credit.' And I said, 'What does that mean?' And he said, 'well, they're willing to make minimum monthly payments, forever. And that's where we make our money.'" What a valuable financial tool.
   
10. Advocating Irresponsible Use. This should go without saying after numbers 7, 8, and 9, but there is more to this than just working feverishly to get their product in the hands of those who cannot handle it, nor have the ability to repay. Take one look at their advertising to see this. Walk down the sidewalk and break the heel of your shoe? Don't worry! You can go 'downtown' and not only buy a new pair of shoes, but also a dress to match and a full makeover while you're at it. Nice how that overcast sky cleared up as well. What is the underlying message here? Plastic heals all wounds? Shopping is the best medicine? Life requires takes Visa? Shop, shop, shop, shop, shop. Spend, spend, spend, spend, spend. You can't advertise alcoholic beverages without talking about 'using responsibly'. You can't sell cigarettes without a warning from the Surgeon General - Canada has the best warnings, btw. But these guys can say whatever they want in their advertising.
    
11. Trampling on the Federal Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA). Collections companies break these laws daily. Harassing people, threatening them with action they can't take - "We're going to come take your house", "you'll wake up and your car will be gone", "We're going to call you neighbors and tell them that you are behind on your bills". Most debt collectors are so dumb that they are breaking federal law and they don't even know it. One of the favorite tactics of late is to try and pin an outstanding debt on somebody else. The reason why they keep doing things like this is because, as shown in the MSN money link, sometimes people will actually pay someone else's debt.
    
12. You Need to Establish Your Credit Early in Life.... and all of the other credit myths out there. "Employers check your credit score." "You can't get an apartment with bad credit." "That may be fine for you, but I'm planning to buy a house one day." The industry has long fostered an environment where myths like this and secretive companies like Fair Isaac (home of the FICO score) thrive. No, maybe they didn't start the myths (but maybe they did!), but they also have not denounced them. They've made no attempt to clear the air or set the story straight. See, they don't benefit from informed consumers. There are so many of these myths and half-truths out there that it's no wonder our country is in such a mess financially. "But he said this!", and "I thought that if I did this then...". They don't profit from the truth. The truth is that you don't need a credit card. You don't need to fear/manage your credit score. The truth is that you can buy a house, rent an apartment, buy a car, rent a car, reserve a hotel room, shop online, and get insurance despite never having had a credit card. Never a cardholder. Never an authorized user. Never a revenue stream for the credit card companies.
    
13. Loophole City, USA. A lovely place to visit in the fall, flanked by picturesque mountains of debt and a rushing river of ill-gotten gains.... Didn't you ever wonder why banks, credit card companies and even many corporations relocate to places like South Dakota or Delaware? It's not for the scenery. While states like California have passed laws that make life hell for the automotive industry, other states - through actions or in-actions - have created legal heavens for corporate misbehavior. Guess who has taken full advantage? Debt-mongers of all types. For instance, eight of the ten largest credit card companies are located in states that have no cap on the interest rates they can charge. The other two are in Arizona, where the cap is 36%. When do you suppose they are moving?
14. Whatever Is Next. This list is only their 'greatest hits' to date. Looking forward to Volume No. 2? Congress is eying the industry and calling them out on things like Universal Default and Double-Cycle Billing, and that's great. They need some attention. So what if they are struck down? What's next? These companies have teams of lawyers, lobbyists, and accountants who will work tirelessly to find another sneaky way of sticking it to you, the consumer. Its what they do.
    

Emergency 1
With the run up to the birth of our second daughter, we were doing everything we could to pile up cash in the emergency fund. We did pretty well too. We knew that insurance would pick up a lot of the bill, but that we would have ~$2,400 in out-of-pocket expenses and that those would come due within a month or so of the birth - assuming baby and momma came out healthy, and they did. Thanks to our foresight, we weathered that storm and had plenty to spare.

Emergency 2
It wasn't long after, that our newborn needed a few rounds of tests and specialist visits. It was found that she had a tumor of unknown type. It was benign but needed to come out. She's doing great and got an excellent diagnosis. Out of the some $11,000 in medical bills, we came away with about $1,400 that was our responsibility. It took another hit, but the emergency fund still came out standing.

In between and since these two emergencies, we've been working to rebuild our emergency fund. With it in constant flux, I've not been updating it under the 'Full Disclosure' tab on the right. My apologies, but it just hasn't been worth the effort. We'll be better about that going forward. Our target is roughly $9,000. Not insurmountable, but it's been really tough to get traction in the first five months of 2008.

We should be done with our doctor bills this month, as the last few are getting sorted out now. We should also be done with doctor bills for the year, as we have exceeded our 'member responsibility' amounts for the year, and have entered the 100% coverage zone. But now that we are done with these emergencies, we have moved on to a capital expenditure.

Capital Expenditure 1
Since we bought our house, we have been living with an unserviceable, underperforming well. Our two options, of equal initial cost, are:

1. Drill a new well
2. Hook up to the city water

We have been featured on two carnivals/festivals this week. We are pleased to welcome all new readers to Not the Jet Set. To find out more about us, click here. We are a personal finance blog focused on frugality, stewardship, and current events, while also telling our story as a family and the personal finance decisions we have made. Thanks for stopping by.

The 125th Festival of Frugality is up at the Quest For Four Pillars which features our frugal ode to the frozen pizza. So many great posts this week. Here are just a few of our favorites:

• Moolanomy has a fun test to take to find out if you are cheap, frugal, or neither. I scored a 28. How did you do?
  
• Frugal Dad lists the 5 craziest things he's done to save money. Some of these are quite impressive.
  
• Master Your Card offers some advantages to paying off debt. There is a lot more psychology here than one would expect.
  
• My Small Cents demystifies French food for us 'Mericans. Turns out it's not as 'fancy' as you might think.
• Practical Nourishment not only has a very beautiful blog, but has a great article on making homemade wine.
  

• Searchlight Crusade has an interesting article on how a lower offer can sometimes prevail when buying a house.
  
• The Dough Roller has a particularly illuminating post on the tax policies of the three remaining presidential candidates. A great read!
• Of course, none of the remaining candidates are supporting the Fair Tax (a national sales tax). My Investing Blog looks a bit deeper at this concept. Huckabee in 2012!
  

You've decided to take the plunge. You're going to do it. You're going to sell your car outright. No haggling over trade-in value with some slime-ball dealer. It's time to get the real value out of your car. This is the first part of our series on buying and selling used cars. We're starting with selling as we are going to assume that you already have a car, and will need to get rid of it before buying another. Because you are going to buy someone else's used car, right? And pay for it in cash, right? (this is where you nod your head in agreement)