Green Tee Readings

Yesterday I got a check. A significant check, not one that would afford Palin-level shopping sprees, or that is guaranteed to be life changing, but it’s more than I’ve taken in during a year and used with a modicum of good sense and prudence, the potential for life changing status exists. On charitable days, I can convince myself that the combination of knowing this would happen someday and my general desire to be independent in pretty much every facet of life is why I am where I am. Okay, that’s a shitty sentence. Whatever. Today’s not a charitable day, but I’m still going to take a pass delineating some of the other theories, and not only because they’re not what I really meant to write about, anyway.

What I did mean to think and then write about is the conflict between what is good for me, what is just, what holds true for my larger ideas of a person’s actions. There’s no way I’m just going to go off and splurge on a bunch of stuff I don’t need. Sure, there are a couple of purchases I’ve been thinking about for a while, but I’m not going to spend profligately. That isn’t part of the dilemma, either.

What the dilemma is, is what do I do with the money that I don’t need quite yet, but I know I’ll need in a year or two. The thing that’s made the most sense to me is to put it in CD’s. Right now, the best rates I’ve seen are a special rate at Citibank of 4% APY for 6 months. Clearly, in the field of what’s best for my immediate pocketbook, that’s the answer. They weren’t a huge failure this fall, but quick googling shows that they don’t have some egg on their face, which makes the special rate smack a little bit of “please, come and save our ass by giving us your money for a while.” I’m not sure I want to support that. The financial institution I bank at, the DuPage Credit Union doesn’t seem to have any sort of problems like the failed banks had, which is largely unsurprising. As a local institution their focus is different, and as a credit union it becomes more so. Their rate, though, is significantly lower.

The question for me comes quickly to wondering if I should take the 4% for six months and run happy that I got the most I could and then when the special rate goes away, as it’ll have to, redeposit the rest in a CD at my bank, try and find another small-type bank that might give a rate somewhere in between the two or just take the lower rate offered by my bank and be happy that I’m supporting a local, smartly run business that I’ve an account at for nearly a decade.

I thought I’d be more prepared for this. I thought I was less morally flexible than it seems I might be. Bleh.

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