News coming from Florida and Irma are dominating my thoughts. It's all I've been seeing on TV. I hope our Florida SAers stay safe.

I have to wonder how property insurers are going to respond. I hope they come through and honor policyholders' claims. That being said, it might be wise for some living in vulnerable coastal areas to rethink their residency, because I don't think this is the last Category 4-5 storm. Global warming and generally warmer air temps will produce more violent storms. I can imagine that some insurers might simply stop insuring low-lying areas like the Keys or even Miami. Sounds crazy, maybe, but maybe not.

Dad was over this morning as he got a new credit card and needed help activating it. He couldn't read the customer service phone number to call. He wasn't sure why he got the new card, and I wanted to see it for myself to make sure it wasn't some kind of scam. I could see his old card expires soon and this was a replacement, but for some reason the new card had a new account number; usually they would keep the same number. So now he has to contact all the places he does auto bill pays, and I will help him with that next week.

I've been so concerned about the Equifax data breach that I decided to freeze all my accounts, not only with them, but also Experian, TransUnion and Innovis.

Well, I simply cannot get onto the Equifax site; no doubt it is jammed with the millions of others who want to do the same thing. I managed to freeze my accounts at the other 3 bureaus. Experian and TransUnion each charged me $10 to do so. But I feel like I'm still leaving one barn door open until I can close the Equifax account.

It irks me that I will likely have to pay them to freeze my account due to their failure to keep my data safe, when I was given no opportunity to keep them from profiting from my data! Insanity!

Before I froze the accounts, I applied for one last credit card bonus! I got a Barclay's card that pays a $200 bonus after you charge $1,000. I can quickly do this with a single charge when I renew my auto and homeowner's policies in a few weeks' time. So in addition to dropping my collision recently, this $200 credit toward my policies will help me enjoy a significant reduction in insurance costs.

After this, I guess I'll have to limit chasing after credit card bonuses, since having to pay $10 each time to lift the freeze would eat into my profits.
I don't anticipate any need for a home loan, car loan or any other kind of loan any time in the future. If I were to buy another home, I'd pay cash with proceeds from my current home sale, and I generally pay cash for a new vehicle.

Maybe I would still open a new credit card if I came across any that offered a $200 bonus, but probably not for a $100 bonus.

Before I got the Barclay card, I applied for the Chase Freedom card and was rejected! I don't know why as my credit is excellent. They will mail written explanation. Immediately after that I applied for the Barclay card and was approved. I didn't want to delay that application in case the Chase Freedom credit check was recorded in a day or two and hurt my chances for a Barclay approval. So my strategy worked.

I vacuumed the whole house today, both floors. Also changed the hummingbird feeder. The hummers usually stay until late September or even early October. Hopefully by then there will be no hurricanes for the tiny birds to contend with.