Archives for October 2009

Free Google Voice Invite Giveaway

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

I almost forgot, I’m wanted to give away my Google Voice invite to a randomly chosen reader. So if you liked the features and money-saving opportunities, you can enter for a free GV invite by leaving a comment under this post with your First name (or nickname) only and valid e-mail address (will not be shown or shared). You can leave the actual comment box blank. For the first drawing, I’ll run it for 24 hours until 10/21 at 6pm Pacific. I’ll give out more if they put some more in my account.

No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. Winners chosen randomly. One entry per person. Good luck!

Update: 6 winners were picked and sent an e-mail. Thanks to readers MattG, Gopi, Greg, and Pete who offered 5 additional invites. For those that didn’t win, I’ve gotten several comments that asking Google directly works and only take about 2 days to get your invite.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Free Edible Arrangements Box of Chocolate Dipped Fruit

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.


Get a free 6-piece box from Edible Arrangements via their Facebook page. I was a little skeptical, but I got my coupon in less than 24 hours. Valid for first 100,000. Delivery is not included. Get one for your significant other and be romantic for a day on the cheap! 😉

Bring this coupon to any participating Edible Arrangements® locations and redeem it for one (1) box of 6 FREE PIECES OF CHOCOLATE DIPPED FRUIT. Valid at participating Edible Arrangements® locations throughout the (50) United States and District of Columbia as well as Canada. Six pieces of Chocolate Dipped Fruit may vary and include one or more of any of the following types of fruit: Apples, Oranges, Bananas, Pears, Strawberries, and Pineapple. Fruit selection is not specified and options are at the store’s discretion. Delivery costs are not included. Offer may be picked up from any participating Edible Arrangements location to avoid delivery charges.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Ways To Save Money With Google Voice

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

The telecom service Google Voice has been giving now new accounts faster recently, as well as now letting some current users invite others. I already have an account from back when it was GrandCentral, but I just requested an invite from Google and got an invite within 3 days.* Since it appears they are ready to open things up, I thought it might a good time to explore ways that this service can enhance your calling experience and even save you some money.

Calling Features

Google Voice provides you a free phone number, designed to be your primary number, which you can then link up with your existing phone numbers – work, home, and mobile. This About Page provides a nice round-up of the features of Google Voice. Here are the ones I’ve found most useful:

  • Ring All Phones. You can choose to ring all your phones when someone calls your GV number, and pick up any one of them.
  • Call Screening / Routing / Blocking. If the number is unknown to you, then they have to announce themselves and then you can decide whether to take the call or send it to voicemail. The caller never knows if you actually got the call. You can route specific callers to specific phones, or just block them so you never have to take their call.
  • Voicemail to Text. Voicemail messages are transcribed to text for free, and can also be sent to you via SMS text message. It’s not perfect, but you can usually get the gist of the message.

Money-Saving Features

One major way that Google Voice can save you money is by reducing the number of “peak” cell phone minutes you use, so that you can either drop down to the cheapest plan or even go prepaid if you’d like.

Ring All. Since all your phones ring, you can pick up your work phone or landline if it is more convenient, when usually people would just call your cell phone by default. This could reduce your minute usage more than you think.

Never Use Up Any Cell Minutes Using Calling Circles. Also known as T-Mobile MyFaves, Verizon Friends & Family, Sprint Pick3, and AT&T’s A-List. Simply add your GV# to these calling circle programs, and every incoming call can now be free. You’ll need to set the caller ID to show your GV#, and not the originating caller’s ID. However, since there is the screening option where every caller has to state their name, you can still find out who’s calling before answering.

Calling out can be free as well, if a bit more hassle. You can also dial out for free by calling your GV# first, press 2, and then enter the number you wish to dial. If you have internet access it’s easier, just click on the contact on GV website.

Free Long Distance From Landline. If you really want a POTS landline, you can now switch to the cheapest local plan with no long distance. When you want to dial long distance, just call your GV# and have it dial out from there. (If you don’t have a GV# within your local calling area, you must dial out using the internet.) Calls are free to US and Canada.

Free Text Messages. You can send and receive text messages through GV for free. This can be a bit of a hassle, but perhaps you have unlimited data but hate the idea of paying another $10 a month for text messages. (I mean, how are text messages not included under data??) With a data plan, just use your phone web browser or specific GV app for your phone.

Other Possible Uses

Extra Business Number. Instead of using it as your central number, use GV as an alternative number for your business venture, superhero alter ego, or whatever.

For Minimalists / Nomads. Even if you don’t have a landline, VoIP, or even a constant cell-phone, you can now get a phone permanent number. You can access your voicemails online, and call back when you feel like it. Some users have dropped everything except for a prepaid cell phone plan costing less than $10 per month.

Got more tips? Share them in the comments. Want a Google Voice account? Request an invitation here.

(*This is pure speculation, but I used a non-yahoo/gmail/hotmail “paid” e-mail and think it might get a faster response due to the people abusing things by trying to re-sell invites on eBay.)

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Will Replacing 401(k) Plans With Portable Pensions Fix Retirement Planning?

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

stool
Traditional Three Legged Stool of Retirement
(post, image via Michigan.gov)

Over the weekend, I finally got around to reading this Time magazine article about Why It’s Time to Retire the 401(k) which has been getting some buzz. The author promotes bringing back what I call “portable pensions” to replace the employee-controlled 401(k) plan, which would guarantee say 50% of your last year’s salary for the rest of your life. Sounds nice, but how will it work, and who’ll pay for it?

Take the Mr. Shively in the article, who is still working at 68. About 25 years ago, his employer dropped the pension and replaced it with a 401(k). Over those two and a half decades, he has managed to save $70,000 in a 401(k). Yet it is suggested that if only his company kept the pension, he would be getting $1,308 per month, or $15,700 a year. Such a lifetime of cashflow from age 65 would cost at least $200,000 according to ImmediateAnnuities.com ($250,000 if joint, covering a spouse also age 65). Where did the $130,000-$180,000 difference come from?

Pensions are more expensive to run than 401(k) plans. Let’s say you have average employees making $50,000 a year and you match 100% up to 5%. That costs $2,500 a year – bang, you’re done, and you don’t have to worry about investing the money to meet future liabilities. Where does the savings go? Either Shively got paid more (through higher salary or matching contributions) and didn’t save it, or his employer pocketed the savings, or likely a little of both.

This brings us to the other problems of the 401(k) system are, which were explored in this 2001 Barron’s article by William Bernstein after the last stock market crash. “The 401(k) is likely to turn out to be a defined-chaos
retirement plan.”

Employees are not saving enough. Will this be fixed by a portable pension? Only if employers are willing to pay higher total compensation, which is unlikely. Otherwise, will people really be okay with forced savings like an additional mandatory 5-10% contribution? Folks tend to see that as a tax, like Social Security.

Investors are depending on future market returns which will likely not be as high as in the past. The idea of gaining 8% per year, 5% after inflation, sounds nice but may not happen in the future. Current P/E ratios are still above average current. This means people will need to save even more than they thought. Again, where will this money come from?

401(k) expenses are too high, which reduces returns even further. Having a guaranteed income for life requires insurance companies. Which means instead of mutual fund expenses, you’ll have hidden insurance fees and guaranteed returns that will have to be significantly less that market returns. If more transparency and direct competition existed, perhaps the costs could be minimized.

Investors have poor investing knowledge. This is kind of an unsaid reason of why 401(k)s are bad, because there will always be those invested poorly. My concern is related to this recency bias. 401ks got traction initially because markets were hot at the time. Talk of pensions increase now because the recent performance was awful. What happens when the markets get hot again? Will people be happy with their 6% steady increases when others are gaining 30% in year?

I’d like to see what happens with this “portable pension” idea, but the practical realities concern me.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Thoughts About Bailouts and Bonuses

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There seems to be a lot of noise about previously struggling financial companies who were begging for bailouts but now are paying out billions of dollars in bonuses to employees.

I’m not trying to be political here at all, just thinking out loud. First, I don’t see why any private company should be allowed to be “too big to fail”. Otherwise, the whole point of bailing out these companies was… to bail them out and have them recover to be successful once again. The question is, why didn’t the government borrow a credit card tactic and charge them a nice 5% “balance transfer fee” and 35% APR since they were a “high-risk” borrower? You know, the same terms they’ve been giving to consumers forever, even forgetting things like payday loans. Then taxpayers would have earned a nice interest rate on their lent money, the public wouldn’t feel so angry about these bonuses, and the banks can repay quickly and move on with a better public image.

From this Forbes article, it appears that many of the TARP recipients got a deal for about 5% interest rate for the first 5 years. Banks like JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley have already paid back their money.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Chase Freedom Credit Card

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Savings I-Bonds Update: September 2009 CPU-I Data Announced

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

New inflation numbers are out, so it’s time for another semi-annual update:

New Inflation Rate
March 2009 CPI-U was 212.709. September 2009 CPI-U was 215.969, for a semi-annual increase of 1.53%. Using this official formula, the variable interest rate for the next 6 months will be approximately 3.07% based on current fixed rates.

Buying Now? If you buy before the end of October, the fixed rate portion of I-Bonds will be 0.10%. You will be guaranteed a total interest rate of 0% for the next 6 months due to previous deflation, and 0.10 + 3.07 = 3.17% for the six months after that. You can’t redeem until 12 months have gone by, and any redemptions within 5 years incur a 3-month interest penalty.

A known “trick” with I-Bonds is that if you buy at the end of the month, you’ll still get all the interest for the entire month as if you bought it in the beginning of the month. Let’s say we buy on October 31st. You’ll be able to sell on October 1st, 2010 for an actual holding period of 11 months. (3-month interest penalty still applies.)

However, given the first 6 months of 0% and the 3-month penalty off the end, I think I’d wait until November 1st.

Buying Later? If you wait until November 1st, you will get a new unknown fixed rate + ~3.07% for the first 6 months, and an unknown rate based on ongoing inflation after that. It can’t go much lower than the current 0.10%, so I’d wait a couple weeks and see if you haven’t used up your buying limits this year.

Existing I-Bonds? If you have an existing I-Bond, the rates reset every 6 months depending on your purchase month to your original fixed rate + variable rate. Even though you probably went through 6 months of 0% total interest, the next 6 months won’t be that bad as compared to current savings account rates of ~1.50% APY. I have some at 1.2% fixed rate, which will give me 4.28% for the next 6 months. Interest on savings bonds is not subject to state income taxes. I am keeping mine.

Beware Low Purchase Limits
The annual purchase limit is now $5,000 in paper I-bonds and $5,000 in online I-bonds per Social Security Number. For a couple, that’s a $20,000 total cap per year. Buy online at TreasuryDirect.gov. As for paper, here is a post on how to buy paper savings bonds from your local bank.

For more background, see the rest of my posts on savings bonds.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


PineCone Research Application Link (Paid Online Surveys)

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Here is an updated application link at Pinecone Research, which is again accepting new members. (May expire at any time, so apply now if you’re interested!) Looks open to all, but certain demographics will get more surveys. Only one person per household can sign up.

PineCone Research remains one of the better paying and reliable survey companies, with a payout of $3 (check or PayPal) for each 15-minute online survey. The hardest part is getting accepted, as they only take applications intermittently. I shared my thoughts on Pinecone and paid surveys in general here. I call them Bored Money – not terribly efficient but you can do it at your leisure and occasionally get to try some neat things like new soda flavors or even a new Sonicare toothbrush.

The three survey sites that I have been most active with besides Pinecone are NFO MySurvey, Opinion Outpost, and SurveySavvy. I like it them because they consistently offer me paid survey opportunities, they pay upon request reliably (important!), and they don’t mind if I don’t do every single survey offered.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Existing Sprint SERO Plan Upgrade Tips & Tricks

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

This post is targeted for those who have the grandfathered cell phone plan called the Sprint Employee Referral Offer (SERO) plan. This plan is no longer available to the general public, but for $30 a month it gave us 500 minutes per month, unlimited 7pm nights and weekends, unlimited text messages, and unlimited data.

Many of us love the plan, but it appears that Sprint really wants to phase us out, or at least upgrade us to their new Sprint Everything Plus Referral Program (EPRP)* where a similar plan costs $60. They are doing this by not allowing many newer phones to be activated on SERO, including the Samsung Instinct HD, Palm Pre, and HTC Hero (Android OS) phones. It seems like they will continue to ban all the best new phones. Here’s what I did to keep my $30 SERO plan and still get a relatively snazzy phone for a net cost of $130.

$70 Credit For Extending Contract By 2 Years
Do this first! Follow the abbreviated directions below exactly from user t-bob of SlickDeals. Do not call in. It will extend your contract by 2 years, but you’ll still be eligible for the $150 phone upgrade credit.

At 22 months you are eligible to renew your contract. When you are eligible, login to your account at sprint.com and click on the “contact us” link at the top right of the page in the black bar. Click on the “Email us” link. Search for something like “renew contract”. Now you should finally be at the web form to submit an email to Sprint eCare. For topic select “Plans, features, and services” and for subtopic select “Plan inquires.” In the text box say that you have heard that there is a $70 service credit available for renewing your contract and you would like to take advantage of that.

HTC Touch Pro2 for $199
You should get a reply within 24 hours that you can get the $70 credit. Verify online by checking that you now have a negative balance. Now, what’s the best phone that you can get to work with SERO? The answer in my opinion is the HTC Touch Pro2. Previously, the issue was that it cost $350 even after a $100 mail-in rebate. However, simply visit this link first, and then you’ll see the Touch Pro2 for only $199 on Sprint.com with no rebates. I thought it was just Sprint.com, but it was because I first saw this thread on Fatwallet. It checked out fine for me, and I already have my UPS tracking number.

Update 10/15/09 3pm Pacific: It appears this may no longer work on SERO plans. If you already got the $70 credit, you can either use eCare and tell them you changed your mind and have them reverse it, or you can wait to see if the price will drop again as the holidays near. Samsung Intrepid which runs Windows Mobile 6.5 is also available. Again, your contract will just shift to 2 years past your new purchase date.

You can read reviews of it here, here, and here. When you buy the phone, your contract will be extended again just slightly to 2 years after your purchase date.

It may not be the best phone out there now, but it does have a nice-looking touchscreen, a big physical keyboard, and access to a decent number of useful applications including Twitter, Facebook, Opera Mini, and Skyfire. All for $130 net. I can even tether it using PDANet and make it a wireless modem for my laptop, which I’ve been doing with my Motorola Q for the last 2+ years.

If you really want an iPhone or other specific phone and are willing to pay $30-$40 more per month for it, then I would say go for it because this plan won’t last forever. I’m just not ready to pay an additional $1,000 over the next 2 years just yet. 😀

* Russ.S.McGuire@Sprint.com / 383

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Free Experian PLUS Credit Score From American Express

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Just a reminder that American Express cardholders can get a free look at their Experian PLUS credit score and credit report once every 12 months. This is Experian’s own proprietary (“FAKO”) credit score, but is the best you can get from Experian since consumers can no longer get their FICO Score based on Experian data. (See here for current myFICO coupon codes.) PLUS has a range of 330-830 as opposed to the FICO range of 300-850, but like all FAKO they don’t necessarily map directly to FICO.

To access your score, visit americanexpress.com/creditreport and log in as usual. It is free, and you do not need to enroll in any trials to get your free score. They will however try to upsell you their CreditSecure monitoring service after 30 days. Just checked for DW:

From their site:

How much does My Credit Score & Report cost?
My Credit Score & Report is a complimentary benefit offered exclusively to American Express Cardmembers. You pay absolutely nothing. Simply sign up to gain access to your Credit Score and Report.

How long will I be enrolled in My Credit Score & Report?
Your enrollment in My Credit Score & Report will last 30 days. After 30 days, you will no longer have access to your complimentary Credit Score and Report. If you wish to continue enjoying access to your Credit Score and Report, you may enroll in CreditSecure.

Don’t forget about all the other ways to get a free credit score without free trials.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


MMB Incorrectly Labeled As Spam Site on WOT

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

There is a new web browser plugin called WebofTrust which is a “free Internet security addon for your browser. It will keep you safe from online scams, identity theft, spyware, spam, viruses and unreliable shopping sites. WOT warns you before you interact with a risky website.”

Unfortunately, it seems that my domain somehow made it on a list of sites that promote a get-rich-quick scheme by buying links on Google Adwords. The original page seems to be here, where I am associated with some guy named Scott Hunter. What makes it worse is that a user on the MyWOT Forums is was* telling people to blindly rate all of these listed sites negatively without even actually verifying the content. As any regular reader will know, I have never posted anything to do with any of these Adwords schemes.

As a result, my site has been labeled as a scam site! Users visiting my site will see a pop-up indicating I participate in “phishing or other scams”, and that my site is dangerous.

*Update: It appears I was confused with my-moneyblog.com (note the dash), which is indeed a spammy site and is pretending to be me on some level. The original WoT forum member has edited their post, and the negative reviews have been removed. If you use this plugin, please feel free to rate my site honestly.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Strong 2009 Market Returns So Far: Time To Rebalance?

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

If you haven’t noticed already through your portfolio statements – the stock markets are doing well in 2009. The broad US stock market and the broad developed international markets are up 22% and 29%, respectively. Some funds are doing especially well, such as the Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund (VEIEX) which is up +62.6% year-to-date.

Vanguard recently sent me a newsletter with a link to an article titled Strong 2009 performance warrants yellow flag, which states in part:

While it may be gratifying to see these robust gains lift the balances of your funds, the markets have “come a long way in a hurry,” as the saying goes. At this point, it may be wise to ensure that your asset allocation is in line with your long-term goals.

A discussion thread on this article at Bogleheads had member Robert T pointing out the following comparisons in 2008 and 2009 YTD performance data:

Many of the asset classes that got hit the worst in 2008, have made the largest comebacks. Of course, we can’t know for sure if this surge will continue or if we’re headed back down again. But I think Vanguard’s advice is sound, to make sure our asset allocations are on target. If you had the guts to rebalance at the end of 2008, then buying more stocks “low” would have paid off nicely. Right now, you’ll want to make sure you’re not overweight in stocks.

I have been using my ongoing investments to balance out my asset allocation through the year, but as my latest portfolio snapshot shows, I am still overweight in Emerging Markets and underweight in bonds.

Is your asset allocation where you want it to be?

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.