If you're a photo fanatic like me but you haven't heard of Picnik.com, this week's post is meant to introduce you to this amazing photo editing site. Get ready: it'll change your digital life!

Signing up is a cinch, and once registered, you can start collecting your own personal library of photo creations you'll be doing down the road. Simply provide a username, password and email address and you're done! You can then import your photos from your Picasa, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Webs, Webshots and Photobucket accounts if you're already active in the communities there.

I happen to love their featured filters this month (you can find this under the "Create" tab at the top); not only can you "pink" a picture for Breast Cancer Awareness Month but you can also do some fun Halloween filters like vampire eyes and zombie skin. (Let me tell you, making yourself look like a zombie is actually pretty fun!) You can also add little extras like stickers, text, frames and other fun stuff not to mention photo-editing musts such as taking out red-eye, cropping a photo or resizing one if you need to.

Basic features come free of charge, and for those of us who need more intense photo editing and adding more photos to your collection, you can also upgrade your account.

So, what are you waiting for? Go create!

[Image Via ]

As a reminder, don't forget that Monday is Labor Day, and all TDECU branches and offices will be closed in observance of the holiday. If you need to call us, Member Care will still be available, and Online Banking and Mobile Banking are always just clicks away.

We hope you enjoy the long weekend!

Let's be honest. Personal Finance is a bit of chore. It ranks somewhere above doing the dishes but above laundry for me. Writing about it isn't that thrilling, and reading about it is usually even worse. When deciding to read about personal finance it is either to confirm that what you're doing is correct, or because you have absolutely no clue why there is no money left in the bank at the end of the month.

I started of this year by reading Ramit Sethi's first book I Will Teach You To Be Rich. He does a great job of keeping the topic interesting and giving solid financial advice at the same time. Sethi graduated from Stanford University in 2005, and has a venture-backed startup as well as a personal finance blog that garners about 250,000 views a month. He says that he got interested in personal finance while preparing to go the college, "I applied to over 70 scholarships and I still remember my first one: They wrote the $2,000 check to me, which I promptly invested, losing 50% of it in a couple months. After that, I decided to learn about money so I didn’t lose the rest."

Sethi is an outlier, not many of us applied for scholarships, and even fewer would have thought to try growing the gift by investing it. The man is a natural at finding ways to efficiently earn money, and does a great job of explaining what he has learned to help others.

The key to what Sethi preaches is automation. He doesn't believe in willpower; the idea that if you want to do better with your money you will. Most of his advice centers on trying to keep you from hurting yourself financially. According to Sethi to majority of financial errors can be avoided by setting up automatic transfers the instant your money gets to your bank account so that spending it isn't even something that you think about.

There are many different ways to automate your money. You could go the high tech route via automatic transfers in online banking suites or low-tech with the envelope system. That is where you take your money and divide it into categorized envelopes. Then once you have spent the money in the envelope you are out of luck until the next month.

Advice like this, and more can be found on his blog, iwillteachyoutoberich.com, and you can read the first chapter of the book here. Let us know in the comments of any other books you’ve read that have helped you out with your own finances.

Our very own Rhonda Wolf and Brent Loyd started a reading program at 4 local elementary schools in the Brazoria Area. Once a week they read to a class of Pre-K through 2nd graders. We also donated a “Big Blue Reading” chair to each of the schools libraries and an give an annual donation of $250 to purchase new library books.

Wolf is thrilled about the program, and loves that she is able to give back to her community in this way. One of our favorite things at TDECU is being able to support this type of creative community involvement. All of our team members are always looking for ways to help out where we can. In the Lake Jackson area we were very busy shortly after Hurricane Ike in our efforts to help in that time of crisis, but the desire to be more than just a financial institution is not limited to times of crisis.

Keep up the good work Rhonda, Brent, and everyone in Brazoria!

We will be having a grand opening ceremony at our newest branch this saturday, December 12th, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. There will be plenty to do, and the highlights include:

On behalf of Kim Shelton:

I have never been treated so well by a company in my life.  I have never even heard of a company that treats their employees this well.  The Credit Union has gone above and beyond in making sure that their employees are taken care of.  This being a time of hardship for many, it is really enjoyable coming to work and putting some of our worries away for 8 hours. 

Thanks for the food and drinks that the CU is supplying.  It has been so good and plentiful-I’m sure I weigh just a little more now.  I am not in need of a place to sleep, but I also want to thank the CU for making accommodations for those in need.  And the Skip a Pay has helped all of us out during a time that we had unexpected expenses.  I could go on, but I have to start working now.

I am proud to be a TDECU team member!! Thanks, Kim Shelton - Member Account Services, Supervisor