Archives for February 2011

FDIC-Insured Bank Accounts Holding Chinese Renminbi (CNY) (RMB)

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Reader Jonathan wrote in the tell me that the Bank of China (BoC) is offering FDIC-insured bank accounts that are denominated in renminbi, the official currency of China. Also referred to by the primary unit yuan, you may have heard about how China tightly controls this currency in the news. Since many sources view the yuan as being undervalued relative to the dollar due to artificial exchange rates, some people view holding yuan as a good investment. Here’s how the Bank of China news has played out in financial websites.

  • 1/12 – The Financial Times blog BeyondBRICs brings up the ability to open accounts in yuan, but says “No need to rush out and open a renminbi account just yet.” They note that this ability has actually been around since February 2010, but nobody in the media really noticed.
  • 1/12 – The Reuters blog by Felix Salmon picks it up and brings it a step further, pointing out that US officials have said the yuan is overvalued, so that “Chinese revaluation is going to happen at some point, and when it does, you’ll make money”, and “the downside is limited”. More excitement.
  • 1/14 – The Wall Street Journal blog ROI joins the fray, stating (1) It’s very unlikely to go down. (2) It’s very likely to go up. (3) You won’t miss out on a lot of interest elsewhere, as nowhere else is paying a lot of interest. (4) It will diversify your portfolio. (5) It may offer you and your family something of a hedge against the decline of the U.S. economy. Can you feel the buzz?
  • 2/7 – Time Magazine blog Curious Capitalist has another post on the topic a few weeks later. It provides more detail on what this account does not offer: interest, the ability to withdraw yuan, deposit yuan, write checks, or use debit cards. Basically you can speculate on the conversion rate of USD-CNY and that’s it. More below.

So, should you go out and open an account? Well, first you must go in person to a Bank of China branch in New York City, either at Madison & 48th St or in Chinatown. Some of the articles erroneously reported that you can open up an RMB account at the Los Angeles branch. According to the Bank of China website, this is not true. The branch does not offer FDIC-insured accounts, and doesn’t offer personal account of any kind.

The limit a U.S.-based individual customer can exchange is $4,000 a day. From what I have gathered, you open an account and “buy” RMB from Bank of China using your U.S. dollars. Your deposits are FDIC-insured against bank failure, but not losses from currency fluctuations. If you wish to withdraw, you must again exchange your RMB back to USD, leaving you again with dollars. You can’t withdraw any RMB, here or in China. The savings account earns no interest. So any difference will be due to the exchange rate.

According to the Wikipedia entry for Remminbi, academic studies have shown then yuan to be undervalued relative to the dollar using “purchasing power parity analysis”. The Treasury Secretary called it “substantially undervalued” a month ago. Per this article, the rate of 6.5855 CNY to 1 USD set just yesterday (2/16) is a record high, leaving the yuan up 3.6% since last June.

I honestly don’t pay enough attention to currency markets and all the politically-related news to really weight the pros and cons properly. Even if it does seem like the yuan is undervalued right now, but who knows when or how it will be corrected? China sets the exchange rate for the most part, so it could be years or more. During that time, its economy could experience high inflation as well which could make RMB even weaker relative to USD.

I see no sure bet here, just a speculative investment. But if you have a “play money” account capped at 5% of your portfolio like I do at times, this might be one idea that you could drop some bucks on. What do you think?

Update: You can get basically the same thing online at Everbank WorldCurrency Access deposit account. It doesn’t currently earn any interest, and unfortunately there are no interest-bearing CD options available right now either. But it does let you get it renminbi-denominated.

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Infographic: U.S. 2012 Budget Proposal

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Here’s another infographic from the New York Times illustrating the proposed budget for 2012. Rectangles are sized according to the proposed spending. Color shows severity of cut or increase from 2010 (green increase, red decrease).

If you like such visualizations, check out Death and Taxes 2011.

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.


Magazines Decoded: Best Mutual Funds of 2011

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’m catching on some personal finance magazine reading and find myself again rolling my eyes at their respective “Best Mutual Funds” lists. I’ve had subscriptions to all the major magazine for about 5 years now. Here’s how I translate them through my jaded eyes:

Best Mutual Funds of 2011

Here are our picks for the best mutual funds. We don’t chase performance like those other guys. We put tons of hours into finding the best mutual funds with good management skill and experience and other things that sound good in theory. Oh, and they have to have really good performance over the last several years. But again, no performance chasing here. Nuh-uh.

Where were we? Oh yeah, so to start we had to drop some funds from our list this year, due to their recent drop in performance. I’ll also add some other tangential reasons to hide this fact a bit. We really don’t know how that happened, sorry about that. It was completely unforeseeable.

Oh, but not to worry, we replaced them with other excellent funds that did some really smart things during the last crisis/boom/cycle. Now, if we could just have told you before they did awesome, instead of recommending those crappy funds we dropped in the last paragraph…

Finally, we decided to add more low-cost index funds to our list. For some reason, they keep performing well over long periods of time and are gaining customers as a result. The Vanguard Group recently became the largest mutual fund company in the world by assets, surpassing even Fidelity with their 401k monopoly and their famous Magellan and Contrafund-style active funds. Shh… here’s the secret that nobody else knows: low costs are important.

— Love, your favorite personal finance magazine.

Suggestion

Any magazine with a Top Stocks or Top Funds list should always have to include the same list from 10 years ago. So with the Top Funds of 2010 you’d have to see the Top Funds of 2000. That would be interesting.

I just realized I was similarly disillusioned a few years ago and wrote Anatomy of a Personal Finance Magazine Article.

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.


Tax Software Giveaway: H&R Block At Home

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H&R Block contacted me to help give away six copies of their H&R Block At Home tax preparation software (formerly TaxCut). Specifically, you will get a free code for H&R Block At Home Premium edition ($49.95 retail value), the level above Deluxe, which has added guidance for the self-employed (Schedule C) and those with rental income (Schedule E). Federal E-file is included. State filing is $34.95 extra.

First, please consider my other H&R Block At Home findings:

  • Amazon.com has H&R Block At Home Deluxe Federal + Federal E-File + State for $24.99. State E-file looks to be another $19.95 extra. (If you are willing to download directly onto your computer, it’s only $21.99. Here are the direct download links for Windows or Mac.) Premium is $44.77.
  • If you are okay with mail-in rebates, you can get H&R Block Deluxe bundled with some anti-virus software for $20 + $2 shipping, and get a $20 prepaid VISA card via rebate at TigerDirect. I couldn’t get the rebate form to download.
  • Until February 15th, you can visit a physical H&R Block location and get your return done for free, but only if you qualify for a 1040-EZ. (No itemized deductions, no dependents, no capital gains.) Otherwise, you’ll have to pay significantly more than the DIY software. Considering the 1040-EZ is only like a page long, if you qualify your taxes should pretty easy to do yourself anyway.
  • You can save 25% off all the online versions here.

If you’d like to be entered for the giveaway, just leave a comment with a valid e-mail below by 11:59pm Pacific on Tuesday, February 15th. Name not necessary. I’ll randomly pick 6 winners and contact you via e-mail.

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.


Got an American Express? 5 Free iTunes Songs

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.

American Express is offering cardmembers 5 free iTunes songs if they register online and then use that same card to buy 5 song downloads from Apple iTunes. The limit appears to be purely on a per card basis.

Thanks for reader Nick for the tip. See the fine print:

To be eligible to receive the statement credit, you must register any valid U.S. American Express® Consumer Card or Business Card from American Express OPEN at amexnetwork.com/iTunes and use that Card to make a purchase on iTunes® between 2/10/11 and 3/15/11. A statement credit equivalent to the price of 5 song downloads on iTunes plus sales tax will be issued generally within 5 business days after your qualifying purchase, but may take up to 2 billing periods to post to your account. Limit one statement credit per registered Card regardless of the number of transactions made. If your registered Card is replaced, you must re-enroll the replacement Card prior to making the iTunes purchase to get the statement credit. Additional terms apply; see Registration Terms and Conditions for details.

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.


Restaurant.com Valentine’s Day Promo Code

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’ve written about Restaurant.com already in the past. As opposed to a gift certificate, these are essentially coupons. The standard offer is a $25 certificate for $10, which usually comes with a $35 minimum purchase + 18% required gratuity on full price.

However, if you’re patient (see below) you can usually get them for 80% off or better, which lowers the price to $2. Now the math might look like this:

Dinner for two = $40 regular menu price
Minus $25 certificate = $15
Plus cost of certificate ($2) = $17
Plus 18% gratuity on menu price = $7.20Total price = $24.20 or $12.10 a person including tip for a sit-down dinner.

I wanted to add few updates.

  1. You can always find the current promotional code here, it is automatically updated. I don’t want to repost every time they run a different promo. I would wait unless it is at least 70% off, the max is usually 90% but that is somewhat rare. Currently, with the promo code LOVE you can get 80% off until 2/14. I’ll let you decide whether it’s actually a good idea to use it on V-Day, as opposed to saving it for another time. 😉
  2. If you don’t find many participating restaurants locally, don’t forget to possibly use them while traveling. I went to Las Vegas recently, we were told about a nice white-tablecloth steak place called Austin’s Steakhouse inside the Texas Station Casino (off-strip). The steak is really good, and also they have a special that is $14.99 for prime rib, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Turns out there this place is on Restaurant.com. Here is a Chowhound link about good Chicago restaurants on their list.
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.


Better Inflation Chart with CPI Component Breakdown

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.

In my last post, reader Greg shared a better chart that illustrates the components of the Consumer Price Index, which is supposedly to track what the average consumer spends and thus is used to gauge inflation. Definitely worth archiving for later.

Source: New York Times. Click to visit. It’s interactive, so you can zoom in and out to see all the little details.

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.


Minimizing Your Personal Inflation Rate

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.

Inflation. Deflation. Hyperinflation. It’s all people seem to talk about these days. I’m always reading that you should always consider your investment returns after inflation. But what is inflation? Most of the time, they are talking about the Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers (CPI-U) published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is based on the price of a theoretical basket of goods. Here are the components of the CPI, made into a nice pie chart by dshort.com from this recent BLS CPI report.

However, common sense tells us that we do not all share the same inflation rate. A long-distance trucker will be much more sensitive to the price of gas than a couple living in Manhattan. A grandmother who has owned her home since 1940 and doesn’t plan on moving doesn’t notice if rents are rising 3% or 6% a year. The CPI could have very little correlation to your personal inflation rate.

In addition, it’s possible to manage our own personal inflation rates by changing our behavior or making some upfront investments. Let’s take a look at the largest components of the CPI.

Housing (42%)
This category includes the cost of rent (or owner’s equivalent cost) as well as utilities like gas and electricity. The most obvious way to deal with inflation is to own a house, either directly or via mortgage. With a 30-year fixed mortgage, your monthly payment is going to stay the same, and your total housing payment is only going to vary a bit as your insurance and property taxes go up. My neighbor used to have a mortgage of $300 a month.

As for utilities, a solution I plan to install is solar photovoltaic (PV)panels. In most states, you can sell back the electricity you generate with solar panels throughout the day, so that it cancels out your entire electricity bill. With a large enough system, you will never have a power bill again. Here is a helpful PDF consumer’s guide on solar systems from the Department of Energy.

The large upfront cost can be defrayed with federal and state tax credits, and the panels come with (about) a 25-year warranty. Other parts, like the inverter, come with a 10-year warranty. If you have the space you could also install a windmill, or contract electricity from other sources.

If you live in an especially hot/cold climate and much of your expense is cooling/heating, a very important area is insulation.

Transportation (17%)
This category includes the cost of vehicles, public transportation, and fuel. I plan on owning all my cars for at 10 years each, so even though it will catch up to me eventually, the annualized cost should remain reasonable. Avoiding the hit of depreciation during the early years, either buy buying used or holding for a long time, is important.

As for fuel, again I plan on using my solar panels to create electricity for my plug-in electric vehicle. Range is currently an issue, but as battery technology improves, I expect that it will be feasible for most households to own at least one electric vehicle.

Food & Beverages (15%)
This category includes food at home, dining out, and also alcohol. Why not grow some of your own food? We are starting to dabble in square-foot gardening, which involves planting small, efficient gardens that use minimal water, pesticides, and labor. Dining out is one of those expenses that is almost all for pleasure and convenience, so if it becomes hurtful then we’ll cut back. I’ve already been cutting back on the alcohol for waistline reasons.

Education & Communication (6%)
I’m not sure why these two are lumped together, but I really don’t see communication costs rising very much in the future. It would appear that data transfer is only going to get faster and cheaper. On the other hand, education costs continue to skyrocket. (Okay, now I see why they are together… sneaky) Even though this is only 6% of the CPI, if you have kids then tuition prices are likely a huge concern. If you don’t have kids (and are done with school), then you don’t care at all.

There are still some limited opportunities for prepaid college tuition out there, which are worth exploring if you accept the penalties for not following their restrictions. An example is the Florida Prepaid college plan.

Any other ideas for controlling your personal inflation rate?

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.


Flowchart: How To Save Money On Credit Scores

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’ve written several posts on credit scores, credit reports, and how to minimize your spending on them. While there are times when you might just have to plunk down your hard-earned money on a credit score, most of them time you can avoid it.

Here’s a flowchart that I just whipped up that will help guide you to what you need. No matter what, you’ll pay less than retail. Anything blue is a click-able link to more guidance and information.

pay for FICO score with coupn Annualcreditreport.com
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.


Current myFICO Coupon Codes

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 retail price for a FICO credit score from just one credit bureau is now $19.95. That’s a hefty chunk of change, given that there are three credit bureaus and thus three credit scores – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Before paying anything, you check out these ways to get a FREE credit score from all 3 bureaus. No trials required!

If you must have a score from myFICO.com, then here are some coupon codes that’ll save you some bucks. You enter the promo code relatively late in the buying process, right before entering your credit card information. Here’s what it would look like if you got a 25% off coupon code:

Currently Active myFICO.com Coupon Codes
none

Expired myFICO.com Coupon Codes
CPPSAVINGS
TWEET25
SW94608
FICO25
FICOHELP25
MYPOINTS30
DECEMBER26
26UNTIL2010
SURVEY30
NOVEMBER26
FINANCIALHELP25

Note: Experian no longer allows Fair Isaac to sell FICO scores to consumers at all. You can get a free Experian-based credit score from Credit Sesame.

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 $2 in Amazon MP3 Downloads

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Amazon.com is offering $2 in free MP3 downloads with the code VDAYMP3S. No purchase required. Enter code at this link. It should increase your gift card balance by $2 for music purchases only. You must redeem the code by February 14, 2011 11:59 PM PST. Limit one Amazon MP3 promotional credit per customer.

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.


Do You Believe In Your Asset Allocation?

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asset allocation image from wikipedia

Mark Cuban recently had a post on his blog called Wall Street’s new lie to Main Street – Asset Allocation. In it, he quotes a recent newspaper article that presents this model asset allocation:

15% in an S&P 500 index fund
5% in a small-capitalization value fund
20% in a diversified international stock fund
5% in an emerging markets international fund
5% in Real Estate Investment Trusts
10% in stocks with a history of paying competitive and increasing dividends
10% in a diversified portfolio of convertible securities
5% in a U.S. Treasury inflation-indexed bonds and notes
15% in an international bond fund with traditional fixed coupon bonds
5% in an international bond fund for inflation-indexed bonds
5% in cash equivalents.

To which he translates as:

I want you to invest 5pct in cash and the rest in 10 different funds about which you know absolutely nothing. I want you to make this investment knowing that even if there were 128 hours in a day and you had a year long vacation, you could not possibly begin to understand all of these products. In fact, I don’t understand them either, but because I know it sounds good and everyone is making the same kind of recommendations, we all can pretend we are smart and going to make a lot of money. Until we don’t

Now, I don’t rely on Cuban for investing advice, but I do think he has a point. Over the past couple of years, I have to come value simplicity and also belief in investing. Now, I think asset allocation is important. To me, asset allocation is owning different assets that (1) all have good prospects for long-term returns above inflation, and (2) don’t necessarily move in the same direction. This allows you to reduce volatility when one things zigs while the other zags.

However, this also means you have to own said assets both when they are up and down. If the only reason you own something is because it’s in some financial newspaper article, then you’ll just sell it when the same newspaper starts touting the next new thing. This will likely lead to worse returns than just holding cash. You should only invest in asset classes that you understand and have strong reasons to hold in both good times and bad.

Here are the asset classes that I have strong beliefs in. This is of course my own personal opinion, but I’ll try to share my reasoning as well.
[Read more…]

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.