Bank Accounts

CHICAGO // How do you take a spring fling in this city without springing for an expensive vacation? First, plan to spend a lot of time outdoors and second, hope for fine weather. With spring in the air and summer just around the corner, I headed to Chicago for a $500 getaway. The plan was to meet up with my mother -- who was traveling from California -- for some sightseeing. On a clear April day, I arrived in the city as tulips blooming in a kaleidoscope of color set the tone. A dash of boosterism added to the atmosphere: Banners with Mayor Richard M. Daley's picture that proclaim, "We're Glad You're Here!"

They might not be old enough to open their own savings accounts without help from Mom or Dad, but Worthington Elementary School pupils already have learned the important lesson of saving money. That's because, for the past 10 years, the school has had a partnership with Columbia Bank that enables the children to learn about saving with real accounts and meetings with bank representatives. "This just shows them how important it is to save," said Jane Sims, assistant principal at the school, who oversees the program at Worthington with school counselor Milene Pettit.

The New Testament tells us that it is easier for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Political heaven, though, is a different story. Just look at the national tickets of the two major parties. Recent news articles have estimated that the combined holdings of the four candidates for president and vice president fall between $600 million and $1 billion. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and John Edwards all have reported assets in the tens of millions of dollars, but none is in John F. Kerry's league: between $27 million and $57 million in assets that he owns personally or jointly with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, plus $500 million to $800 million that Kerry's wife inherited from her late husband, an heir to the Heinz ketchup fortune.

MOSCOW - Welcome to Russia's lazy days of summer. So far, July has brought a run on banks and angry protests outside parliament. The government is trying to squeeze billions out of one of the world's oil giants, and network news executives canceled the last television programs to offer a platform for Kremlin critics. There is talk in some newspapers of possible war between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia. "The two peoples are racing towards armed conflict like two avalanches," Komsomolskaya Pravda ominously warned.

After working on a recent column about married couples keeping money in separate accounts, it struck me as incongruous that the trend is occurring even as same-sex couples are battling to become single financial entities. Five states - Massachusetts, Vermont, California, Hawaii and New Jersey - now formally recognize same-sex relationships. Massachusetts' Supreme Court last fall struck down that state's ban on gay marriage. New Jersey's new law, which is awaiting the governor's signature, allows a state income tax deduction for dependents and an inheritance tax exemption, among other benefits.

You can already buy groceries, school supplies and lawn mowers at mega-department stores - not to mention that puppy the kids have been begging for. Now Congress is considering allowing retail behemoths to handle your checking and savings accounts, too. The change could create The First National Bank of Wal-Mart. How about Sears Bank & Trust? Or Volkswagen Commerce Bank? Banks inside supermarkets and some department stores have become commonplace. But those are existing banks partnering with stores.

Relatives of a missing Federal Hill man flew to Memphis, Tenn., last night, after a new videotape showed him emptying his account from a bank machine there. James Clark Standiford, 33, has been missing since early Tuesday, when someone deliberately set fire to his one-bedroom rental house in the 200 block of E. West St. Since then, police tracked him from Cross Street Market to an industrial area in Tennessee about 900 miles from Baltimore. Relatives had initially worried that Standiford, who has a torn ligament in his right knee, was abducted.

Spending on residential remodeling has set records during the past two years as more people invest their increased home equity in new kitchen cabinets, granite countertops and whirlpool baths. Renovation experts said the extent to which those investments may increase a home's value depends on the real estate market and the neighborhood as well as the quality of the improvement. Appraising experts said homeowners can expect their best return from investing in kitchens, bathrooms, basements or additions.

A lawyer for a former PTA treasurer accused of embezzling more than $64,000 from Hampstead Elementary School's parent organization and the prosecutor in the case said the man is expected to plead guilty to theft today. John N. Biggs Jr., 41, was scheduled to go to trial today on dozens of charges in connection with $64,605 worth of checks written from the elementary school PTA's bank account that could not be accounted for. But prosecutors and Biggs' attorney have struck a tentative agreement through which Biggs is expected to admit to the first of 43 counts against him - a felony theft scheme - and agree to repay $56,105 to the school's PTA, said Melissa O. Hockensmith, Carroll's senior state's attorney for white-collar crime.

Shortly after our marriage, I committed a cardinal sin: I bounced a check. My bride was mortified, and rightly so, because she worked for a bank in those days, and spent a fair amount of time showing little old ladies how to balance their checkbooks and avoid the very embarrassment that I had caused. The result: She assumed control of the family finances, and for the past 30 years I've been allowed access to the checkbook only under strict supervision. Which has worked out just fine. While this beautiful and capable woman spends Sunday afternoons negotiating the invoices and bank statements, I get to watch football, interrupted only by an occasional outburst of salty language when her numbers don't add up. Our bills get paid on time and our bank account is in the black.