In October 2007, I speculated whether easy money deals were drying up. True or not, I certainly did not take advantage of as many deals in 2008 as I did the previous year. Here's a brief rundown of my deals for the year:

Consumerism Commentary has a post about predatory bank fees. As you might think, I have a few thoughts.

Let's face it, nobody forces anyone else to sign up for a bank account. If you want a bank account, then you go get one. And you pay the fees agreed upon.

I got an e-mail today from ShareBuilder. Awhile back I had opened a number of accounts to take advantage of some free-money deals, but they each required purchasing a stock. Since ShareBuilder's real-time trade fees are relatively high compared to some other brokers, I have simply left my purchases where they were, earning small dividends appreciating – and then depreciating. (Yes, the stocks are actually worth less now, even with reinvested dividends, than they were when I bought them – good thing I bought them with free money.)

I've been making use of a 30-day free trial of TransUnion's TrueCredit 3-credit-report monitoring service. Each day (almost) I've been pulling a new report and see updated FAKO credit scores. I even used it to help get two baddies removed from all three of my reports.

During the month of October, Zecco is offering unlimited free trades with no minimum balance requirement. This is a great deal, since normally they require $2,500 minimum account balance for only 10 free trades each month.

Let's face it: Banking is a cutthroat business. Banks are constantly fluctuating their rates and giving away everything from cash to gift cards to iPods in an effort to snag those few customers who for some unknown reason don't already have a bank account. Of course, just like dolphins in fishing nets, they also tend to snag a whole host of financial equivalents to those people who stand outside Best Buy the day after Thanksgiving so they can get a shot at one of the 10 "free after rebate" DVD spindles – A/K/A "rate chasers."

Market Watch reports that the Treasury Department wants to solicit ideas about how to change the banking regulatory system, and they offer a few suggestions of their own about which parts may be flawed.

My eyes caught a London Stock Exchange article that stated most people don't know the interest rate on their savings accounts. I thought, Is this really news? Most people don't take stock of their finances at all, so not knowing a detail like an interest rate doesn't really surprise me.

For a long time, I've used a program called Keyring for Palm OS on my Sony Clié. It's a really good program that has served me well, but a few months ago I decided that my pockets were starting to get really full what with my Clié, a cell phone, keys, USB drive, money, my new Creative Zen Vision W, and various and sundry other items. I didn't want to start carrying a purse, so I figured it was time to trim down some of the accessories I was carrying.

Is it just me, or does there seem to be fewer "free money" deals these days? And for the deals that do exist, it seems like you have to do more to get less.

I don't have any hard objective data, but taking a look at the deals mentioned on the bonuses page at Bank Deals, it seems that there are fewer straightforward deals now than there were a year ago.