Archive for February, 2005
Monday, February 28th, 2005
Here is an interesting little quiz from Checkfree, a popular provider of online bill-paying software. It’s basically about how you handle money. My results: 63.6% Controller, 18.2% Traditionalist, Trend Setter 9.1%, Adventurer 9.1%. I think I’m actually even more controlling, but I rent and I hate doing my taxes so I put it off.
There is a little form at the end (I put in junk) and then they give you some “strategies” to help your finances, which look a lot like company-sponsored links to me. I suupose it’s worth a read. There were a couple of sites I’ve never heard of before, however, such as ThinkGlink.
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Posted in General | 4 Comments »
Sunday, February 27th, 2005
Voice over IP (VoIP) telephone services such as Vonage
and Broadvoice have been around for a while, offering cheap nationwide calling using your regular telephone over your broadband internet such as DSL or Cable. I’ve been a bit reluctant to switch over, as I use my phone for work a good deal, and fax functions are also important to me. However, with major companies such Comcast and SBC joining the VoIP fray, I think the time has come for it to hit the mainstream. Now, how cheap is it?
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Posted in Deals & Offers | 7 Comments »
Saturday, February 26th, 2005
I spent absolutely no time today thinking about personal finance or investing, and it was great. (Well, maybe a bit now.) Just a great day out walking and having a bar-b-que with friends. Therefore, I thought I’d put out a couple links to some new sites I’ve bookmark’ed recently.
WellSpent - Personal Finance blogs have gone mainstream, and BusinessWeek has their own. The topics covered are very varied, which is a nice change of pace. MyMoneyBlog even got a brief mention a few days ago, neat! 
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Posted in General | 2 Comments »
Friday, February 25th, 2005
Update: I made a True Cost of Holiday Shopping Calculator to go along with this saving idea.
There are so many temptations in our consumer-driven society. I mean, I already have an iPod Mini and I still want a iPod shuffle! And who doesn’t need another banana case? One of the ways I keep myself from spending too frivolously, other than the frugalness instilled by parents of limited means, is to keep in mind the magnificent wonder of compounding.
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Posted in Frugal Living | 4 Comments »
Thursday, February 24th, 2005
Well, it’s been five days since I found out one of my credit card numbers was stolen. After using up my free credit reports from Transunion, Experian, and Equifax, I found out there were no new credit lines opened. I’ve also been checking my other credit cards often with no further suspicious activity, so I feel a bit better now. All this highlights a need to keep a backup of all your financial information, along with useful phone numbers to call in case.
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Posted in Deals & Offers | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005
(Updated August 8th, 2006: Interest rates keep rising, but these offers are still around. Savings accounts are paying 5%+ now! All card offer details have been double-checked for accuracy.)
More than a few people have asked about some good 0% APR Balance Transfer offers available, in response to my previous posts on taking advantage of these offers (see here: Part 1, Part 2,& Part 3).
I’ve looked at over a hundred cards online, scoured the “Terms & Conditions” fine print, and these are the best that I’ve found, with my opinions. I’ve tried to include a variety of card issurers - Citibank cards are at the top as they can issue you checks directly for the balance transfer amount. Just click on the card name to go directly to the correct offer and card application.
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Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 57 Comments »
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005
I just saw this while reading the March issue of Kiplinger Personal Finance magazine. are promoting their line of My Retirement Portfolios, their verson of Vanguard Target Retirement Funds, funds of funds that automatically re-allocate themselves every year based on time until retirement. Their 2035 portfolio contains 80% stocks, and 18% bonds, very similar to the Vanguard 2035 Fund that I hold. However, this fund holds about 10-12 different actively managed American Century funds, instead of the four passive index funds in VTTHX.
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Posted in Deals & Offers | 1 Comment »
Monday, February 21st, 2005
This post has been updated and moved here - 0% apr balance transfers with no fees.
Posted in General | No Comments »
Monday, February 21st, 2005
This post should be posted remotely…
Posted in General | No Comments »
Sunday, February 20th, 2005
(This entry is continued from Part 1 and Part 2.)
5) Things to watch out for: Even if things go smoothly and you get your money, here are some possible consequences to consider -
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Posted in Credit Cards | 12 Comments »
Saturday, February 19th, 2005
I just found that that someone just used my Amazon.com credit card to buy $138 worth of shoes at a store called Journey. They also tried to buy $300 of shoes at Payless, but that got rejected. That’s a whole lot of $10 shoes. For some reason Bank One didn’t feel the need to call me about this, but they did disable the online access to my account. I guess this is cheaper than just calling me?!?
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Posted in Credit Cards | 1 Comment »
Friday, February 18th, 2005
I don’t really write much about frugal living ideas like making bag lunches or taking 5 minutes showers, not because I don’t think it’s important but mostly because there are a lot of other sites that do it very well (and have ideas I’d never think of). However, I also feel that some things are just worth the money, even if not essential.
One of these things for me is the daily newspaper. This is one of those things that seems like an easy thing to stop receiving and save yourself $10-$15/month. I mean, Cnn.com is a click away! But I can’t.
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Posted in Frugal Living | 1 Comment »
Friday, February 18th, 2005
I woke up early today to watch the stock market open, as Neville does. I’ve been thinking of buying some shares of Scholr Pharma (Symbol DDD) for some time now. I won’t go into details why, but I just put in a limit order for 100 shares of DDD at $4.80, good till cancelled, in my Freetrade “Play Money” account. This should be a short-term position, I intend to set another limit sell order soon. We’ll see if it fills today.
Now where did I put that disclaimer? Oh, here it is.
Posted in Investing | No Comments »
Thursday, February 17th, 2005
I bought my tax software from OfficeMax recently. There seems to be a new sale every week these days, but I got H&R Block TaxCut Deluxe, 1 free e-file, TaxCut State, Microsoft Money 2005 Stanard, and DeductionPro, all for $100 - $80 of mail-in rebates = $20. But wait! You can file for free at this link from the IRS.
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Posted in Taxes | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, February 16th, 2005
Another semi-conservative option I am considering for my Ameritrade side-bet goal is buying stocks with high dividends. Due to their favorable tax rate of 15%, a semi-sluggish stock market, and itty bitty bond yields, dividend-paying stocks are getting popular. Here are some of my findings:
There are many ways of getting into the action, my leading favorite is the ETF iShares Dow Jones Select Dividend Index fund (DVY) that invests in dividend-paying stocks. DVY owns the 50 highest-yielding stocks in the Dow Jones Total Market Index, excluding real estate investment trusts (they don’t get the 15% tax rate). The expense ratio is also a very reasonable 0.40%.
Dogs of the Dow is a strategy that involves picking the ten stocks of the Dow Jones (DJIA)which have the highest dividend yield within the last year. I have heard some good things and more bad things about this strategy. Here are some performance comparisons, note that they lag the S&P 500 in the long-term, but are much more stable.
Here is another article on ADVDX, an actively managed fund that seeks income through dividends.
Even the semi-famous bull Siegel now has modified his position to support buying dividend paying stocks. An interest except is the assertion that the 100 highest-yielding stocks in the S&P 500 have done better than the index as a whole over the past 50 years. Hmm, but could you identify those stocks ahead of time?
Posted in Investing | 8 Comments »
