I order from them every year and they do fine, if not a bit late (in Southern California standards). I remember writing to Richard Fayey in New York in February saying that it was now 80 degrees here and can he ship my scionwood order early, and he replied that yeah he could, but he'd have to tromp through about 3 feet of snow in about a 1-1/2 mile circuit in 8-degree weather just to cut my scionwood, Mr. 80-degrees in February- I wrote back never mind, that's OK. I think I still got them a week or so later.

It happened to DW with our Debit credit card. We bank on line and pay 95% of our bills using on line banking. She notice a $20.00 purchase that we didn't make and notified the bank. The bank representitave told her that it was a good thing that we don't leave money in our checking account and that our over draft was maxed (Thanks to remodeling) They tried to make large pruchases from on line sites like Target, QVC, JC Penney's and Best Buy. Had we not picked up on this when we did they could have cleaned us out because the next day both our pay checks would have been directly deposited into the checking account. The bank credited our account $20 that day. Since then we now have our pay checks deposited into the saving account and tranfer it to checking as we need it. The odd thing about this is that we never use this account for online shopping. I think you stand bigger chance of fraud when using the credit card in a store rather then on line. DW set up our account so that we are alerted to any purchase made over $15. The alert message goes directly to her Blackberry so no matter where we are we are protected.

Scarlett, I don't think anyone has intended to give you "breezy advice", so I too am sorry if I have contributed to your hurt feelings. DH and I have been through several periods of difficult times. When we were first married, he didn't tell me he had debts from his previous marriage that he had walked off from when he joined the Navy. We returned to the same area after his discharge, and his creditors found us after we had acquired some cheap furniture and a car, on credit. Let's just say, at that time, "The Honeymoon was Over". The unexpected debt put us in dire straits because by that time we had a two-year-old and an infant. The car was totally an unwise purchase. DH wanted it so badly and he and the car dealer ganged up on me. I could've been the bad guy and refused to sign, but DH was getting lots of overtime at his job and I was lulled into a false sense of security at the ripe old age of 23. Of course the overtime dried up soon after. Then the car payment took all of one week's pay and then some. Shortly after that, there was a trucker's strike (this was in 1970) and DH was certain he would be laid off. So instead of waiting for the inevitable, he drove from KS to IN, where his brother lived, because his brother told him jobs were easy to find there and they paid higher. What he neglected to say was that the standard of living was somewhat higher there, too. DH found a job there and a house to rent, so we piled our meager belongings into a U-Haul trailer and moved. I was not one to run out on debts, so our landlord was paid what we owed and we notified our debtors of our new address. Of course this did not solve our financial troubles. It took me far away from my family and put us in an area where snow is on the ground from before Halloween to Mother's Day. We discovered our landlord was an alcoholic who was given to coming to my door and screaming at me for some imagined offense. His wife would let herself in while we were gone (they lived next door) and inspect, and leave me nasty notes. But I digress. I take the credit for getting us out of debt. I went to the library and checked out everything I could find about how to save money. One of the books I remember well was "Champaigne Living on a Beer Budget". It was then that I learned about how credit works, among other things. That first winter, I made my son's coat out of DH's Navy dress uniform. My daughter's coat was made from mine, as I had found a coat for myself at a yard sale. My mother had given me a bag of fabric scraps and I made my kids' clothes from that. I didn't have many clothes but I wore what I had. DH, for his job, had to have matching twill pants and shirts and steel-toe boots, so that took a chunk out of his pay. The first thing that I did with my new-found training, was to contact each creditor and ask them what was the least they would take to cancel the contract. I was surprised that they all had an amount right on the tip of their tongue. One of them quoted a realistic amount, that I could meet by arranging with the bank that held the car loan to just pay the interest for a couple of months. I shut everything down that I could. We ate a lot of macaroni and beans, drank nonfat dry milk. DH had no room to complain because they were, after all, his debts and he was in a long-term doghouse as it was. Getting the first creditor paid off was the hardest, but it was the "chink in the armor". With that payment off our backs, I was able to double up on the payments for another creditor, specifying that additional payment was to go ON THE PRINCIPAL ONLY. Before long, I had another one paid off. That following summer, we had enough money that I could use $20 every other Saturday at yard sales. When my $20 was gone, I was done. But I managed to buy, through that summer, jeans and coats and shoes for my kids, toys for the coming Christmas, tools for DH. When the magic day came that the car was paid off, it was like Christmas to me. Gradually we got on our feet. We bought a mobile home on credit and moved into a trailer park. It was our own home and the payment and lot rent was less than the rent we had been paying. Plus it was closer to DH's work. Then he was laid off. Then our son had an illness that landed him in the hospital and us with no insurance. DH got another job. He took a second job at a gas station. I used my skills to get things paid off. But it was hard because he still just "didn't get it". He thought he deserved something for all the hard work he was doing and kept buying things on credit: color TV's, expensive fishing equipment that he hardly used, an El Camino. I refused what I could, and we fought almost constantly. At one point it looked like our marriage was over. I was so sick and tired of being poor and him not taking it seriously. I took the kids and moved back to where my family was. He ended up selling what little we had and following, and we managed to patch things up, but it meant we were starting over again financially. I was able to get a job that paid pretty well, so at last we were able to have two incomes, but it meant the kids, by then 11 and 12, had no one at home with them. They got into so much mischief. If the neighbors weren't complaining, the kids were tattling on each other. But we were able to scrape together enough to buy a house in an older neighborhood that was not far from work for either of us. As time wore on, I doubled up on the house payments to shorten the length of our loan. Eventually I had the house paid off. We saved $17,000 in interest. Neither of our kids went to college. Our daughter dropped out of high school and our son, though he graduated, was not college material. DD made me a grandmother at the age of 42, and then didn't take her maternal responsibilities seriously, so we threw money at that problem for awhile. Then DH began having trouble with his knees and we discovered he had degenerative arthritis. Not long after, he became disabled. I had quit working, so I had to go find a job again. Shortly after that, it became clear we were going to have to adopt the grandsons. Then our son started having panic attacks and we had to throw money at that for awhile. And now, here we are. DH is 65 and I am 62. He has finally been able to have surgery, recovered well and is getting around better. Our grandsons are 18 and 19. The 19YO will graduate from HS this spring. The other is with DD and will probably drop out, not having applied himself and having nearly enough credits to be able to graduate any time soon. DS has managed to recover. We bought a small house that he lives in. He pays us an agreed amount every month and the house will be his soon. DD has just had bariatric surgery and then lost her job, so she is now looking for another. We bought another small house that she may end up having to move into for awhile. We are considering offering her the same opportunity to own a home that we offered DS. Neither of them have good credit so a conventional loan is out of the question for both. It seems everyone has to learn how to manage their money the hard way. But we are not in bad shape, considering all. We owe no debts. We own our own home plus the two little houses, free and clear. We own one recent-model extended cab pick-up. Signed our 12YO pick-up, that was well cared for, over to DGS that lives with us. We have money in the bank. I am now retired. My retirement check starts this month. It's not huge, but it's more than I thought it would be. Sorry for the length of this, but it illustrates the ups and downs of life. There have been times when I thought we were in such a horrible financial mess that we would never be able to recover. But we did. It took some know-how, but mostly just dogged determination. I shed many tears of hopelessness and frustration, spent many sleepless nights of worry. So trust me when I say "live within your means" and "Pay off all your creditors", I speak from experience. There is nothing breezy about it.

"NO EXCUSES EVER." But you are now making an excuse. "I got neither the PAPER BILLING nor the CUSTOMARY EMAIL." Your excuse is that you didn't receive a paper bill or an e-mail. "I pride myself on never having paid a dime in interest (other than my mortgage) due to my fiscal responsibility, personal convictions from age 17 to now 72." But your fiscal responsibility failed you if you, with all your experience, failed to make a payment because you didn't get a reminder. Your fiscal responsibilty is what should have alerted you to the fact that you had a payment due. "NO EXCUSES EVER." Apparently not true. "One would not know about 'back up email alerts' etc, unless there had already been a problem." Not correct. I'm aware of the option to receive e-mailed alerts and text-to-cellphone alerts because I like to know when my payment has been received. I pay my bills through my regular bank's Online Bill Pay feature. I have it set to send me an e-mail when the payments have gone out of that bank, and I have the credit cards configured to send me a text to my cell when the payment has been credited to my account. In setting that up, both on my bank's web site as well as the web sites for my various Visa cards and MasterCard cards, as well as my Discover card, I saw all the options that are available for alerts. Being aware of the options/possibilities doesn't mean that there have been problems. Through my Online Bill Pay, I can also have my bank issue a check as payment to any company I choose, or any individual I choose. For example, our gardener -- I pay the lawncare company each month through the Online Bill Pay, but the bank sends the company a check. I receive an e-mail when the check has been sent, and I receive an e-mail when the check has been cashed. It doesn't mean that there has been a problem, nor does it mean that I anticipate a problem in the future. It's simply that I work in the technology field, and I think it's cool to take advantage of what technology has to offer.