Your thermostat, your driving habits,and your banking

Hello readers, how about a little bit of this and that today? Lets start with your heating costs.
Experts say not to adjust the thermostat setting for a heat pump more than two degrees at once. Adjusting the setting more than two degrees at a once may engage the emergency back-up strips, causing excessive power use- and higher power bills.
It's more efficient to find the lowest possible comfortable setting and keep it there.
Next on the list come our driving habits. During Thanksgiving week in one of our neighboring states the Highway Patrol ticketed more than 50,000 motorists, nearly half for speeding and nearly 1,000 for driving while impaired. Those 51,198 charges amounted to more than 7,300 a day, abut 300 each hour, five every minute. The 24,274 speeding charges represented more than 3,300 a day, about 140 an hour, about 2.3 a minute.
Troopers called the week long crackdown Operation Slow Down, though clearly a lot of people didn't. That's troubling because the leading cause of traffic fatalities and accidents in the state is speed.
Highway Patrol officials say they plan to continue the campaign using helicopters, motorcycles and unmarked patrol cars. Good. Even better, this holiday season, and afterward, slow down. Save someones life- maybe your own.
Finally , put your money where your mouse is. Banks that exist only online-such as ING Direct- are giving brick and mortar institutions a run for their money. They're offering higher interest rates on checking and savings accounts and waving most fees. In fact, the number of households handling their money on the Web is expected to nearly double in the next four years. E-Trade.com and EverBank.com even swallow the fee for using other banks' ATMs. Many traditional banks, eager to regain customers, now offer online services free and pay heftier interest rates on Internet accounts. Those better rates can come with caveats, such as limited check writing and ATM cards that won't double as debit cards. Still, if you're looking to get more bang from your bucks, this is a great time to take the online- banking plunge.
Hope one or all of these topics help. And thanks for reading. Would love to hear from you as to what you think of this blog so far. Thanks, Bill.