By Colleen Rothe

Even for those of us here in the Pacific Northwest, summer has finally arrived. A good dose of sunshine is sometimes all some of us need to feel refreshed and renewed. But it also means we might be a little freewheeling with the dollars in our wallet or purse.

Save the freewheeling for a great summer outing or family vacation, though, by saving and cutting back on these summer time items:

Go old school with the laundry. Do what you can to not run your dryer during the summer months. Dust off the clothes pins and hang the laundry outside. Sun and warm summer breezes make laundry smell so fresh and clean. No way to hang it up outside? Got a balcony? Get a $10 drying rack at the local discount or hardware store. Voila. Insta-savings. You could also only use your dryer on a low heat setting or partially dry your work shirts and let them air dry until completely done.

By Colleen Rothe

There seemed to be a more anxious vibe waiting for summer’s arrival this year. And it wasn’t just the school-aged children tapping their feet and griping for the last of spring to pass and bring on the summer fun. It seemed the adults were anxious too. Covers of magazines, the headlines of those remaining newspapers in the Pacific Northwest, and even the warm-weather attire worn by local news media all flaunted at even the hint of a breath of balmy air.

Much of the anxiousness of the kids in the region was because their school year was extended due to snow and flood days (the latter of which still gives me pause as a transplanted Midwest city dweller).

By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

It’s certainly tempting. Every day, new car ads are offering more and more discounts from the so-called MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price), which used to be, back in the bad old days of GM domination, as close to gospel as a Baptist Bible. The newest wrinkle, of course, is born out of desperation. Now that same bankrupt GM is offering huge discounts for all those vehicles nobody wants anymore, and never should have wanted in the first place, but for all those sexy Super Bowl ads over the years showing rugged babe-infested macho men roaming the nation’s byways (leaving muddy tracks in formerly pristine territory) showing off their 500 horsepower freight trains disguised as SUVs and pickups.

GM’s current idea, now that they’ve gotten their latest government bailout, is to pretend, once again, to be doing something about the energy crisis that they themselves in large part helped create, by promoting their latest concept car: the Chevy Volt. It’s a great idea: a plug in electric hybrid that runs on anything from batteries to hydrogen to biofuel. The only problem is, like every other concept car GM ever made, it isn’t actually for sale, and never will be. You could buy a Tesla, of course, for only $92,000 plus tax and prep. More if you want door locks.

By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

You read it here first: about how certain good old Southern states still allow morticians to operate ambulances on the side. Kind of the ultimate two-fer. Now there’s more: the very same folks who have been standing like Goliath in the way of healthcare reform (because it’s already so bloody profitable to them as is) have found a whole, new, lucrative way to make money.

Big Insurance, namely big so-called “Health Insurance” is now investing in Big Tobacco, big time. $4.4 billion to be exact, according to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine. “But, but,” you might splutter, “this means insurance is putting profits ahead of health.” Hello? Isn’t that what they’ve been doing all along, and fully intend to keep on doing with the full consent of the United States Congress, White House, and everybody else who has a nickel invested in the outcome?

By Colleen Rothe

We’re just days away from the extension deadline of the switch from analog television signals to all digital signals. Originally, that date was Feb. 17, 2009. But well before that, the government moved to extend the date to allow folks more time to get ready.

Folks with TV antennas, getting the broadcast system the old-fashioned way, were encouraged to get a converter box and get ready. But if you were a cable user – especially a Comcast user – you didn’t need to do anything. Remember those reassuring advertisements? “You don’t have to worry about digital transition; Comcast has you covered.”

By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

I have a ten-year-old daughter who hates bugs. Granted, she grew up in a big city in China, where even bugs have only a 50-50 chance of surviving all the smog. But even so, I draw the line when she runs screaming from a passing moth or earthworm, while thinking nothing whatsoever of going to school all day at Swine Flu Tech, walking the neighbor’s dogs, picking up their poop (OK, she uses a plastic bag), throwing it in the dumpster, sitting on the curb or playing on the sidewalk with her pals, and wearing the same clothes for days on end because they’re her “favorites.” This same kid absolutely wouldn’t dream of washing her hands without being read a riot act, followed by an ultimatum backed up by major firepower (i.e. getting yelled at by yours truly, which she shrugs off as easily as a Seattle drizzle). Yet she is almost never sick.

In sharp contrast to my daughter, or in all fairness, any healthy ten-year-old, are those among us who are so obsessed with germs they sprint from anti-septic soap dispenser to antiseptic soap bottle, open doors with paper towels, refuse to shake hands, wear face masks at the mall, and are general pains in the butt about all the alleged health risks out there. And the funny thing is, these tend to be the sickest people I know.

By Colleen Rothe

Father’s Day is just around the corner. If you’re like me, your gift anxiety is peaking right about now. It’s especially high if Dad has been hit by the New Depression – this lovely economic balancing that our global markets are doing right now.

But you can still show your appreciation for your dad with some inexpensive, sometimes partially handmade gifts, without him feeling like you’re wasting your dough.

By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

Just when you thought it was safe to come in from the Swine Flu (which has actually reached my own neighborhood in suburban Seattle), it seems that corporate America is determined, at all costs—as usual to be borne by you and me, the consumers—to shutdown the healthcare reform, whether by hook or by crook.

Both of those methods will be in use this weekend when corporate media conglomerate NBC will air an infomercial designed to convince the public, a la those Harry and Louise misinfomercials (also now being revived) that sank Clinton’s health plan, that universal healthcare is somehow bad for your health. It’s like saying that curbing executive compensation is taking money out of your wallet (they have actually very successfully convinced a majority of Americans that this is so—it’s the Joe the Plumber Syndrome).

By Colleen Rothe

Anything labeled “Bill of Rights” should be a good thing, right?

Wrong.

The Credit Card Bill of Rights Legislation that just passed through Congress is supposed to protect consumers, and likely it will. But the ramifications mean that credit will be harder to come by, and even the credit you already hold may be deemed too risky. This week, you may find yourself like many Americans, opening letters from your credit card companies that say your card has been cancelled.

By Colleen Rothe

This past holiday weekend my husband fixed his Google phone, a kid’s dirt bike, a dishwasher, a CD player, and the defrost on one of our vehicles.

We did a quick add up – just rough estimates – and his handy skills likely saved us about $1,540. No small potatoes. And, no, you may not borrow him. Although, I might let you hire him…

But you can borrow his father’s philosophy, which was dutifully passed along to him and now is slowly moving to my own children.

By Colleen Rothe

The headlines this weekend – if you were so inclined to pay attention to such business headlines versus the scarier ones of Korea launching nuke testing – were mooing about plunging milk prices.

Yes, as a mom with three growing kids still at home, a gallon of milk is used up in our household pretty quick. So what it costs, where to get it cheap and fresh, is a must for our family.

Luckily in Western Washington, dairy farmers aren’t too hard to come by. So prices, at an all-time high of nearly $5 a gallon (on sale, mind you) last summer, have evened off and I can now normally get a steroid-free variety of milk for about $2 a gallon.

By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

Most of you have by now received, or will soon receive your own equivalent to the Billion Dollar Big Bank Bailout, in the form of an unasked for check or automatic deposit in the amount of a whopping $250, if you happen to be a taxpayer (CEOs and Senators thus presumably exempted).

Here’s what happened to my $250 bonus. I hadn’t even gotten it yet when (in fact, perhaps, because I hadn’t even gotten it yet) my bank WaMu/Chase reached out and grabbed $34 off the top. That was for an overdraft, because my auto-billpay automatically deducts my monthly bill payments prior to sending out the check in the snail mail. Which means they get to spend my money interest free for a week or so. This has cost me on a regular basis, because the bill payment checks go out, more often than not, before my automatic deposits and other checks come in. And this week my primary income deposits were all from five to ten days late (blame the economy, I guess, or maybe Tim Geithner). Amazing how that works.

By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

Lately, I’ve been dealing with yet another corporate giant in an effort to break through yet another stone wall of the sort that has been constructed in the last few decades to protect corporations, like the mighty fiefdoms they’ve become (if not downright empires). Before getting to the subject at hand, here’s a little bit of history. Let’s start with the following quote:

"Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

Does this sound like Al Gore, perhaps? Or maybe Ralph Nader?

Here at Consupo, we often hear from people who have experienced, well, less than satisfactory customer service, and who are not always sure how to go about sharing that experience. The simplest way is to post a case on Consupo.com, and that is usually where we refer them. But sometimes, we get stories emailed to us that just have to be shared. The following is by Piney Kahn about IndyMac Federal Bank.

My mortgage company is IndyMac and I received a letter from them stating they had no evidence of my home having hazard insurance. I must provide this info immediately, or they would "assign" me with an insurer (this was around February of 2008). Of course, there was no way I could have gotten a mortgage in the first place without having insurance, so this was pretty baffling. I had my insurance company immediately fax the info, but the letters kept coming from IndyMac. The paperwork had been faxed and mailed multiple times by my insurance company and myself. No matter what I did, the letters kept coming and every time I called I was subjected to the same long, irritating message (lecturing me that I needed to provide proof of insurance) and voicemail loops, there was no way around it and no direct extensions. Every person I talked to would also lecture me about what I had to provide. My insurance people had even gotten a hold of specific people and faxed it to their individual machines. I kept asking if there was a way I could scan it in and e-mail it, but IndyMac does not have e-mail that works outside of the company (only internally).

By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

Recently I tried to buy airline tickets for my wife and daughter for a return visit to China. It seems there are a lot of bargains available in the way of airfares. Unfortunately, none of them seem to be for travel to China. Maybe it’s the airlines’ way (or somebody’s way) of exacting some degree of payback on China and/or its citizens, and/or anybody who wants to go there, for all their success lately.

After extensive perusal of the internet, I did find some good deals. A website called Cheapflights.com had lots of reasonable fares from Seattle to Beijing. If you clicked on an attractive fare of $672 round trip (RT), you were then dispatched to another site called Cheapair.com. In the blink of an eye, $672 was suddenly $1318. Heckuva tax. At least for the days I wanted. Theoretically, you could enter a different date and day of the week for each leg of your travel and get a completely different quote. Which, I suppose, is why we have travel agents.