Archive for January, 2005
Monday, January 31st, 2005
(This entry is continued from Part 1.)
3) Getting your money: Some banks such as MBNA, CitiBank, and Chase will allow you to either transfer your balance directly to a checking account or send you a check in the mail. The former is preferred since you’ll be losing potential interest while the check is in the mail and waits to clear.
Update: Citibank cards are by far the easiest to use to turn a balance transfer into cash, because you can request your balance transfer to be sent to you as a check (click for how)!
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Posted in Credit Cards | 22 Comments »
Sunday, January 30th, 2005
I don’t have internet. Moving really stinks. Everythings a mess, I don’t even have a dial tone let alone DSL, so not even a free AOL disc can help me.
Did you know that Kinko’s offers free internet at their stores, as long as you provide your own laptop? Good deal. However, printing costs $0.49/sheet for black & white. Not a good deal. I had to pop in for work, so at least I’m not paying for it. Gotta run!
Posted in Frugal Living | No Comments »
Sunday, January 30th, 2005
Did you know that Kinko’s offers free internet at their stores, as long as you provide your own laptop? Good deal. However, printing costs $0.49/sheet for black & white. Not a good deal. I had to pop in for work, so at least I’m not paying for it. Gotta run!
Posted in Frugal Living | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, January 26th, 2005
I have credit card debt. A lot of it, actually - over $23,000 of it right now. But I’m not worried, because a) I have the cash to pay it off and b) It’s in no fee 0% APR balance transfers, so my debt is not growing. In fact, I am making money off of it because I am storing my money in an interest bearing account.
Before I go any further, I need to write this:
Do NOT do this without first reading and understanding all of the conditions of the credit card agreement and all of the potential pitfalls. I will try my best to describe them, but I may not remember them all or correctly convey their importance. Getting in debt is very easy and getting out is not. Credit cards lend you cheap money because they are counting on you to spend it.
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Posted in Credit Cards | 23 Comments »
Tuesday, January 25th, 2005
I hate packing, I have lifting heavy objects, I hate unpacking, I hate paying enormous amounts of money to moving companies, and trying avoid all the many, many, scams out there. My wife decided that our trendy loft with 20 ft. ceilings and french doors is no longer working out since it’s is basically one big room with no privacy, and it doesn’t allow pets. So, we’re moving to a charming (a.k.a. old and rickety) 2 bedroom cottage (a.k.a. small house) where I can have my own filthy room and the future dog can have his/her own fenced yard. Ah well.
This meant that we had to break our lease, losing our $1000 deposit. Ouch. And we are paying double rent for two weeks, in order to move things over gradually to the new place and reserve the house. So that will affect some of our goals, but we did sell our washer and dryer since the new place includes it, so that’s good.
Posted in General | No Comments »
Saturday, January 22nd, 2005
Update: Want $10 For Opening An Account? Check out my Emigrant Direct Opening Bonus.
So I ended up opening an American Dream Savings Account at Emigrant Savings Bank, or Emigrant Direct. My experience? Well, let’s start with the application process:
1) First you apply online, giving your usual personal information, and answering some credit related questions, such as where you lived previously or what loans you have out. For those of you that keep track, this is a “soft” credit inquiry which should not hurt your credit score. You’ll need the routing number and account number of the checking account you want to link with this savings account.
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Posted in Banking, Deals & Offers | 35 Comments »
Friday, January 21st, 2005
As I start looking into individual stock trading techniques, I guess I need to join the stock blogger crowd and put a disclaimer up on my website:
The information provided on this site is not financial advice and I am not a financial professional. This is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or trade securities. Trading securities can lose you a whole lot of money, and fast. You probably know more about stocks than me. I try to be accurate, but sometimes fail miserably. I can buy, sell, or hold any positions mentioned on this website at anytime.
While I would be flattered if someone were to actually take my ramblings seriously and buy a stock from my writings, I’m deathly scared of lawyers.
Posted in General | No Comments »
Thursday, January 20th, 2005
I just got this in the mail recently and finally got a chance to read through it. It’s titled “Investing Essentials”, by Kenneth Morris and Virginia Morris. It’s actually barely a book, more like a pamphlet (20 pages long including glossary). It looks like a condensed version of Wall Street Journal Guide to Understanding Money and Investing, by the same authors.
From the cover it is:
“An easy-to-understand, easy-to-use primer that helps to take the mystery out of mutual funds, stocks, diversification, risk/return, liquidity, and tracking performance.”
I’d say that pretty much sums it up. If you are already familiar with the basics, this won’t be of much interest. It would probably be great for the beginning investor or a teenager interested in the markets. Either way, it’s free from Fidelity, just click here and fill out the form. No purchase or account with Fidelity required. Give it as a gift? I’m not sure when I filled it out so I can’t say how fast it comes, but it does come.
Posted in Book Reviews | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, January 19th, 2005
Every Apple announces a new product, the capitalist in me says “run to the Apple store tomorrow. Buy as many as you can carry, and re-sell them on eBay. With the profit, keep one for yourself basically free”. Like this guy who bought ten of ‘em (not the blogger, the guy in the picture)! And when I was in college I very might well have does that. But now as a working stiff I just can’t spend 3 hours in line to buy toys. I do have an silver Apple iPod Mini that I got for Christmas, which is awesome.
Apple’s new iPod shuffle (retail $99) now has a 2-4 week wait time, and the average going price on eBay is $140. That’s a swift 40% profit, even with the fees since shipping is usually about $10 and costs $4.
If I bought 10 iPods x $40 = $400. If the line was 4 hours long, that’s still $100/hour, which is definitely more than I make. Still, I’d have to take time off work, and I value vacation time at more than $100/hour! Now if I bought 100…
Posted in General | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, January 19th, 2005
I got this offer, which is online and apparently open to all, in the mail today. Which is weird, because I am not even eligible since I am a current Ameritrade customer. I did open up my account with Ameritrade back when they were giving out a $75 bonus, with a $2,000 initial deposit. This offer is a bit sweeter, you get a Palm Tungsten E PDA, which goes for $180 at Amazon ($199 retail). But you get the PDA about 8 weeks after you open the account. Not bad, $180 from $5,000 over 9 months is a nice 4.8% annualized interest rate. Or you could look at it like a free toy for something you would have done anyways. I’m not sure if the value of the PDA is taxable - if not, that would make the deal even better. I got my $75 bonus from Ameritrade without any hassles.
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Posted in Deals & Offers | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 18th, 2005
It only took me two days to read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki & Sharon Lechter, as it is relatively short and an easy read. And Kiyosaki likes to say things over and over… and over. This supposedly non-fiction book deals with the conflicting teachings of his “Poor Dad”, his real educated paycheck-to-paycheck father, and his “Rich Dad”, a middle-school drop-out who is a millionaire. There are two basic themes that I got out of the book, after wading through the hokey stories:
1) People need to learn “financial literacy” more than book learning taught at school. I can agree that money matters are not taught in school nearly enough, but I’m certainly glad I went to ninth grade.
2) You should buy assets, not liabilities. Assets, such as real estate (especially real estate), stocks, and bonds, make you money. Liabilities, such as your house, car, gadgets, take away your money. This is probably the one thing to get out of this book, perhaps minus the real estate focus.
He includes very many vague stories about buying real estate properties for cheap with little or no money down and flipping them for great profits. Or investing in start-ups with great results. Many of these stories have been investigated with little proof found to support them. Overall, I see the book is more of an inspirational book on entrepreneurialism (is that a word?). Basically, try to think outside the box, and invest your money in something that grow instead of letting it sit in a bank account or spending it on that nice car. He just makes it sound way too easy to become a millionaire, just like any infomercial you see at 2am in the morning. Also, the book plugs expensive ‘get-rich’ seminars and his Cashflow game way too much.
Still, if the book gets your off your ass and thinking about making yourself some money, it’ll be worth the ten bucks and two days of reading during football commercials.
Posted in Book Reviews | 11 Comments »
Monday, January 17th, 2005
Here are the contents of my current E*Trade Brokerage taxable account:
20 shares of Microsoft (MSFT) bought at $25.5
35 shares of Intel (INTC) bought at $14
12 shares of Pfizer (PFE) bought at $40
11 shares of Anheuser-Busch (BUD) bought at $43.5
Rest in cash
Overall, my portfolio is about 3-4 years old and is up a grand total of +2.63% in share price and neglecting dividends. Pretty crummy, yes. This portfolio was bought with little concern over P/E ratio, PEG, Alpha, Beta, or much else but the fact that I: use a laptop powered by an Intel Pentium processor using Microsoft Windows, while taking a drug by Pfizer and drinking Budweiser on weekends. Now you see why I need mutual funds?
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Posted in Investing | 11 Comments »
Sunday, January 16th, 2005
While I am busy implementing my asset allocation, I am still looking ahead to learning more about stock trading - including extended-hours trading, options, calls, and margin trading. I don’t necessarily think I can beat the market, but I am still curious as to how it all works.
In order to do that with minimal transaction costs, I just opened an account with FreeTrade.com, an affiliate of Ameritrade that offers 20 free trades a month, and very reasonable commissions after that. You must open an account with a minimum of $5,000 via a bank wire transfer or brokerage transfer. I’m going to transfer my E*Trade brokerage account, as I am very unsatisfied with their customer service. After that, there are no minimums and you can transfer money between your checking accounts easily via ACH.
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Posted in Deals & Offers | No Comments »
Saturday, January 15th, 2005
Almost everyone online uses Amazon.com, and I thought everyone knew about this deal, but apparently not after a dinner out with friends tonight. It’s pretty simple:
1. Go to A9.com, a search engine by Amazon powered by Google.
2. If you are greeted by name in the top-right corner of the page, you are all set. If not, sign in.
3. Run a search for anything.
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Posted in Deals & Offers | No Comments »
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