Archives for November 2011

Betterment.com Stock Asset Allocation Updated 2011

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(Update: Betterment has a new promo for a $100 bonus with $10,000 investment held for at least 60 days. This is a bigger bonus with bigger requirement than the previous $25 bonus for a $250 investment. In case you wanted to know, my $1,000 experimental Betterment portfolio has been fully converted to the new asset allocation already, and is currently worth $964.)

Betterment.com is an investment service that started up last year, where simplicity and ease of use is the focus. Back in May, I opened an account for myself and wrote a review of Betterment. Right now if you open an account with at least $250, you will get a $25 bonus.

My primary gripe at the time was their asset allocation for stocks. (I actually liked the simply bond allocation.) However, I recently received an e-mail that they are making some changes in September. Before:

  • 20% Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI)
  • 20% iShares S&P 500 Value Index ETF (IVE)
  • 20% iShares S&P 1000 Value Index ETF (IWD)
  • 15% iShares Russell 2000 Value Index ETF (IWN)
  • 15% iShares Russell Midcap Value Index ETF (IWS)
  • 10% SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA)

After:

  • 25% Vanguard Total Stock Market (VTI)
  • 25% iShares S&P 500 Value (IVE)
  • 25% Vanguard Europe Pacific (VEA)
  • 10% Vanguard Emerging Markets (VWO)
  • 8% iShares Russell Midcap Value (IWS)
  • 7% iShares Russell 2000 Value (IWN)

The major change is that they are adding international stock exposure, which is nice since about 55% of the world’s publicly traded market value is outside the US. They have landed on a conservative 35%/65% international/US split. You may also notice that they got rid of the Dow Jones ETF, which I complained about as well since the Dow Jones is simply not a very good index. The iShares S&P 1000 Value Index ETF is gone as well, most likely because it had so many overlapping holdings with the S&P 500 Value index.

How will the change occur? From the same e-mail:

Starting in September, your account will automatically begin transitioning to the new portfolio, and will be phased in over a period of two months to take advantage of average pricing over time.

Such a change to their portfolio and the subsequent buying/selling will unfortunately mean some extra tax bills for investors, but this is how it goes with internet startups. In the long-term, I feel the changes make Betterment a better product.

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.


The Last Lecture: Legacy, Achieving Goals, and Gratitude

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 late Randy Pausch became well known as a Carnegie Mellon professor who made a inspirational “last lecture” called Achieving Your Childhood Dreams (over 14 million views) after his diagnosis with pancreatic cancer. He later then wrote a book called The Last Lecture with Jeffrey Zaslow. As a former bestseller, you can now find copies on the cheap. It is a short and worthwhile motivational read. All the quotes are from the book.

Legacy

Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think.

One of the things I think about a lot more these days is legacy. As a human, I think most of us have a desire to outwit our own mortality.

What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

I think children help fulfill that need, as they allow a chance for a part of us to live on forever. For him, the Last Lecture itself was a legacy project for his family so that his young kids would know him better when they grew up. He also talked about his professional legacy:

Now a computer science professor at Washington University in St. Louis, Caitlin (oops, I mean, Dr. Kelleher) is developing new systems that revolutionize how young girls get their first programming experiences. […] (You can keep tabs on their progress at www.alice.org.) Through Alice, millions of kids are going to have incredible fun while learning something hard. They’ll develop skills that could help them achieve their dreams. If I have to die, I am comforted by having Alice as a professional legacy

So his legacy projects were three things: his family itself, something for his family, and something to leave the world a better place. I think this is good framework for creating my own legacy.

Achieving Goals
Now how did he achieve those childhood dreams, as well as his legacy goals? More or less it was just hard work and persistence. What stood out to me was the idea that some things should be hard to achieve, and if you get it anyway you should be proud of it. Time spent complaining is time wasted.

The brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.

…The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.

Gratitude
Pausch didn’t get there on his own, even with all the hard work. He showed gratitude to his parents, his wife, the professor that got him into grad school after he was rejected, his kids, and many other colleagues.

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 One Year Subscription to Economist & Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine

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(Update: Looks like this deal is over.)

I know that there are some Economist readers out there, and it’s a pretty expensive subscription. Right now the site NEAmag.com/2011FREE is offering a one-year subscription for free (51 issues) with no credit card required. You’ve got nothing to lose by trying, and there are several other magazines including Kiplinger’s Personal Finance available as well.

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.


Veteran’s Day: Top Requested Gifts For Soldiers In Afghanistan

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.

Why not observe Veteran’s Day with a useful gift for a current soldier? My wife’s co-worker is currently serving in Afghanistan, and he sent over a list of requested items from his unit. I’ve also read through several recommended lists online – long but good ones here, here, and here. There are some inconsistenties – one says to send homemade cookies, another says that nothing homemade is allowed. Some places accept books and music CDs, others don’t. However, between them there are definitely many things in common.

Mainly, don’t treat giving to the troops as a charity like Goodwill or Salvation Army. They are already supplied with all the essentials, and may have access to a commissary (though many don’t!). The point is to provide them with comfort and improve morale. They are far from home in a tough environment, so give them something that reminds them of their “normal” lives.

Don’t give them hotel toiletries, find out their favorite brand of toothpaste or shampoo and send them that. This applies to everything else as well. Find out what they want first if you can – requests can be very specific – and then send it to them. If you don’t someone particular in mind, you can get an individual’s name and address from AnySoldier.com, complete with their personal requests. In addition, here is a highly condensed list of popularly requested items.

Food
Individual-wrapped items are preferred as they are easier to share and to carry around.

  • Energy & Protein Bars – Clif Bars, Powerbars, Muscle Milk.
  • Drink powders – Starbucks VIA instant coffee, Arizona Green Tea, Crystal Light Energy, Propel, popular GNC products. Also sugar, Equal/Extra/Splenda, and powdered creamer packets.

Entertainment

  • Batteries (colder months only; AA, AAA, C & 9V)
  • DVDs of current television shows and new release movies
  • Recent magazines and/or newspapers
  • Cards, board games, travel games

Improve Morale

  • Phone cards, unlocked GSM phones, or other way to call home
  • Letters and picture to let them know that you support them.

Other

  • Thick heel, high or low ankle socks. Black, olive green, or white. Cotton or wool. Seems you can’t have enough good socks. These are also used to cool drinks. Less worry about getting the right size.
  • Small plush toys or school supplies for Afghan children

Do not send alcohol or adult materials. Do not mix toiletries and food, unless they enjoy food that tastes like deodorant. Don’t send anything that will melt, leak, or explode like aerosol cans. Rather just order a pre-made gift basket online? Check out TreatAnySoldier.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.


How To Get Cash From Citibank Balance Transfers

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.

(Update: Since the Citi Diamond Preferred Card post generated some questions, I’ve updated this post for the new Citibank online interface. Even though I first wrote this way back in 2005, the steps are pretty much the same. Just be sure to note the dates of earlier comments.)

Citibank is the easiest issuer to get cash in the bank from if you have a 0% APR balance transfer available on the card. This is because they will write you a check for your balance transfer amount. The best part is Citi was smart enough to make this feature available online. Here is a step-by-step walk-through, complete with screenshots:

1) Get online access and log in to your credit card account.

2) View the specific card that has the balance transfer offer you wish to use. On the menu bar, go to Tools & Services > Request a Balance Transfer. Here is a screenshot:

3) Select an offer. You may have more than one, ideally you’d be looking for the longest duration offer with the least fees.

4) Get Your Money! Confirm your request balance transfer amount and fees due.

 

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.


Goal Update: Investment Portfolio Asset Allocation & Holdings – Nov 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.

Time for another update of my investment portfolio, including employer 401(k) plans, self-employed plans, IRAs, and taxable brokerage holdings.

Asset Allocation & Holdings

You can view my target asset allocation here, along with link to other model portfolios. Despite the headlines, I still like to buy, hold, and rebalance. Here is my current actual asset allocation:

Everything is within acceptable ranges, other than I need to buy more TIPS. This is just an overshoot since I have my 401k buying shares in a stable value fund automatically, and my TIPS are mostly stuck in IRAs. Actually, my TIPS holdings have been doing great, due to how low real yields are right now. Last I checked, even 10-year TIPS had negative real yields.

My current ratio is about 75% stocks and 25% bonds. I’ve been thinking about this balance. On one hand, I’m contributing a lot of money into the portfolio, and I hope that I can get my “early” retirement on within the next 10 years. At that point, I’m going to want something closer to a 60% stocks and 40% bonds setup, the classic balanced fund ratio. So I want to shift towards bonds, but bond yields don’t look very appetizing right now. For now, I’m just going to keep up the gradual shift.

Stock Holdings
Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI)
Diversified S&P 500 Index Fund (DISFX)*
Fidelity Extended Market Index Fund (FSEMX)*
Vanguard Small-Cap Value Index Fund (VISVX)
Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF (VEU)
Vanguard MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (VWO)
Vanguard REIT Index Fund (VGSIX)

Bond Holdings
Vanguard Limited-Term Tax-Exempt Fund (VMLTX)
Stable Value Fund* (3% yield on past purchases, 1.8% on new)
iShares Barclays TIPS Bond ETF (TIP)
Individual TIPS securities

The overall expense ratio for this portfolio is in the neighborhood of .20% annually, or 20 basis points, which is much lower hurdle to overcome than the average mutual fund expense ratio of over 1% annually. This is all DIY, so I don’t pay portfolio management or financial advisor fees.

3% Safe Withdrawal Rate

I’ve also decided to use a 3% theoretical safe withdrawal rate instead of a 4% withdrawal rate. So instead of reaching 25 times our annual expected expenses, we will need to save 33 times. This is due to the fact that we will probably reach early retirement with 10 years, and thus our portfolio will have to last a lot longer than a conventional age 65 retirement. 3% is a more conservative number, and in reality I doubt that we will even go by the 3% number in strict terms. From reading other early retiree stories, we’ll stay flexible and adjust our withdrawals somewhat with market returns.

With portfolio increases and additional contributions, at a 3% withdrawal rate our current portfolio would now cover 43% of our expected expenses. If you recall, I plan to have the house paid off at retirement as well. It might be nice to have a portfolio that yields 3% where we could spend the dividends and interest payments, and I have been tossing around ideas for that as well. I still like the idea of 50% Target Retirement Income (or similar) and 50% Wellesley Income.

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.


Capital One Cash Rewards Review: 1% Cash Back On Purchases + 50% Bonus Every Year

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.

Update: This offer is no longer available.

The Capital One® Cash Rewards earns 1% cash back on all purchases, plus a 50% bonus on the cash back you earn every year. As long as your card is still open at the end of the year, that’s a total of 1.5% cash back. You can request the cash back as a credit on your account, or in the form of a check. In addition, it offers an additional $100 bonus if you spend $500 within the first 3 months of the account opening. The Capital One Cash Rewards has no annual fee and a 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers till June 2014. Added to Best Cash Back Rewards Credit Cards page.

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.


TreasuryDirect.gov Security Login Changes 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.

TreasuryDirect.gov is the official US Treasury website that allows individuals to directly buy securities online, including savings bonds and Treasury bonds. The problem is that they don’t want to take any responsibility for unauthorized access to your account, including reported fraud and theft, which actually makes them less consumer-friendly than even those evil megabanks. In the past, they figured the problem would be best solved with a series of clunky security measures.

I’m not sure why, but they have now streamlined the login process to be more similar to banking industry standards. On November 6th, they sent out the following e-mail to account holders:

TreasuryDirect has completed its security upgrades. Now, it is not necessary to use an access card to log into your account. When you log into your account, you will receive an e-mail containing a one-time passcode and the opportunity to register your computer. Also, for your added security, you will select a personalized image and verify your contact information.

The website was subsequently slammed and completely unusable all day. Always fun to spend the day wondering if your money is still there. 🙂 Today, I was able to log into my account and check out the new process. As mentioned in the e-mail, here are the new layers of security:

  • You must enter your account number, no usernames. So it’s still W-123-456-789, instead of something you would use across multiple websites like “johndoe90210”.
  • If your computer is not recognized, a one-time passcode is sent to the e-mail address on file, valid for only 2 hours. You must enter this passcode to go further, and you can set a cookie to remember your computer and skip this step in the future. For some reason, the cookie didn’t work for me, I always have to go the passcode route. (screenshot)
  • You must set a personalized image and caption text. This is standard procedure amongst banks now to prove that you are on the valid TreasuryDirect site and not a fake spoofing website.
  • Finally, you must enter your account password by clicking keys on a virtual keyboard. This is to counteract keyloggers. As before, You can use a physical keyboard simply by disabling javascript.

I see this as an improvement in accessibility, although probably a slight decrease in security. I’m okay with it; I can finally shred my secret decoder ring access 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, 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.


Goal Update: Home Equity Historical Chart – Nov 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.

We closed on our mortgage refinance about a month ago, the old loan has been paid off, and we are just about to make our first payment on the new loan. Still, I always seem to go back and forth between different possible scenarios of paying down the house quickly or according the “minimum payment” as I call it. Technically, I could just about pay off the house now, if I chose to liquidate my taxable investments and empty out my emergency fund reserve.

I decided to go back and reconstruct a chart of our home equity over time, and compare it to a couple of alternate scenarios.

The red line represents our actual home equity, as a percentage of our purchase price. We use the purchase price because our home is currently worth about the same as when the bought it. An appraisal done for our refinance last month came in at 6% above our initial purchase price. Before the big refinance, we did a haphazard combination up of throwing in a few hundred extra bucks each month and one big lump sum prepayment. Currently, we’re right at 35% home equity.

Just for fun, the dotted red line is an exponential trendline of the red line. It has the loan being paid off somewhere around 2020.

The blue line represents our theoretical home equity if paid according to the normal 30-year payment schedule of our initial 6% fixed mortgage, starting from when we bought the house in the start of 2008. This would have had the loan paid off in 2038.

The green line represents our theoretical home equity if paid according to the normal 15-year schedule of our new sub-4% fixed mortgage, starting from this month. This would have the loan paid off in 2026.

I definitely still want to pay it off in under the current 15-year term, but as usual I like the flexibility. If children come into the picture, we’ll probably cut back on work and slow things down. But for now, I’m still hacking away. We hit the 401k cap already for 2011, so we have some extra cashflow.

By the way, I am only a proponent of paying extra towards your mortgage if you are maximizing your available tax-advantaged accounts like 401ks and IRAs as well as have a nice cash cushion. Although now I do think everyone should consider 15-year mortgages. Who wants to take 30 years to own a home? Most other countries don’t even offer 30-year mortgages, and the government support of 30-year mortgages here simply inflates property prices.

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.


Dogs of The Dow Performance Worse Than Index Fund

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 gotten a few questions about the Dogs of The Dow, which is a stock-picking strategy that involves buying equal amounts of the 10 highest-yielding stocks from 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. At the beginning of each year, you adjust the portfolio to again to hold only the top 10 highest-yielding stocks from the previous year, selling the rest.

This strategy had its 15-minutes of fame in the 1990s, but somehow keeps popping up now and again. At the site DogsOfTheDow.com, you’ll see a rather biased presentation of this strategy. I mean, look at the very first sentence of the site, after all the ads (emphasis mine):

Looking for a simple way to select high dividend yield Dow stocks for your investment portfolio? Try Dogs of the Dow. Read on and you will discover a technique that would have given you a 17.7% average annual return since 1973! That’s not bad, especially considering that the Dow Jones Industrial Average overall return was 11.9% during that same period (As reported in U.S. News & World Report, July 8, 1996)

Umm… yes, in 1996 this strategy was found to have excellent results looking backwards (known as data mining). That was fifteen years ago! You’d think the stats would have been updated a bit since then. I wonder why it hasn’t? Perhaps it’s because the Dogs of the Dow strategy has since lagged the Dow itself over the last 15 years. Check out this MarketWatch article by Mark Hulbert:

The strategy took the investment world by storm in the early and mid-1990s, on the strength of both its simplicity and excellent long-term track record — at least when back-tested. A funny thing happened on the way to the bank, however: In real time since then, the strategy has failed to keep up with a simple index fund. For example, the strategy has beaten the Dow itself in just 5 of the last 15 calendar years. And those five winning years have not come close to making up for the losses incurred in the 10 losing years.

As with many such simplistic strategies, as soon as it is pointed out, the market adjusts and the outperformance disappears. So while I’m still intrigued by the idea of living off of dividend income, I see nothing special about the Dogs of the Dow.

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.


Supply and Demand: Technical vs. Humanities College Majors

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.

Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution writes that College Has Been Oversold:

Education is the key to the future: You’ve heard it a million times, and it’s not wrong. Educated people have higher wages and lower unemployment rates, and better educated countries grow faster and innovate more than other countries. But going to college is not enough. You also have to study the right subjects. And American students are not studying the fields with the greatest economic potential.

He shares the chart below comparing the number of graduates in various fields in 1984 vs 2009. Amazingly, compared with 25 years ago, there has been no increase in the number of students graduating in science, engineering, and math. Meanwhile, the number of students graduating in visual and performing arts, psychology, and communication and journalism has doubled.

This is a touchy subject. Just because you have a humanities degree does not mean you won’t find a meaningful career or financial security. The problem is the upfront price tag: can you really justify spending $100,000+ without a clear path to earning that money back?

From a supply and demand standpoint, the chart may help explain why college graduates are having a hard time finding jobs. For example over the last 25 years, I doubt the demand for psychology majors has doubled, and I really doubt the demand for engineering majors has stayed constant.

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.


Bank Poll: Where Is Your Primary Checking Account?

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 has been a lot of commotion about banks and debit card fees recently. Fees were tested, added, announced, removed, and probably soon, added back indirectly. However, megabanks still have the power of inertia and convenience. I am betting that most people did not move their accounts just yet. But maybe I’m wrong?

For this poll question, I want you to think about your current primary checking account. This is the account where the bulk of your paycheck or other income is deposited, and out of which you pay your bills on a regular basis.

Where Is Your Primary Checking Account?

View Results

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(RSS readers: You may need to visit the website to see the poll.)

I have a lot of accounts, but my primary checking account is online-only Ally Bank, as previously reviewed. I do keep a megabank account for the occasional need for in-branch services like a signature guarantee, cashier’s checks, bank wires, large checks that I can’t use eDeposit, and so on.

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.