Archive for March, 2005
Friday, March 18th, 2005
Right now, my portfolio is very cash heavy (almost 50k), as I saving for up a house in crazy-prices land. Accordingly, I am always on the looking for liquid investments that are safe and pay competitive interest rates. So I’m taking another look at U.S. Savings Bonds.
Let?s start with the two types of Savings Bonds that are available: EE and I Bonds. I’ll start with characteristics that are the same for both types, and then focus on I-bonds, leaving EE bonds for a later post.
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Posted in Savings Bonds | 14 Comments »
Thursday, March 17th, 2005
One drawback of using FreeTrade for my brokerage is that I don’t get free real-time quotes. I’m not a very active trader, but when I do make a trade it’s nice to have the best information possible, especially if I can still find it for free. Most brokerage offer real-time quotes if you hold an account with them, such as Scottrade, Ameritrade, or Fidelity. But after a bit of research, I found that you can get free quotes and some decent charting software for free.
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Posted in Investing | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, March 15th, 2005
I wasn’t sure where to file this, but I guess “Frugal Living” will do. That’s mainly because I do not equate frugal with cheap or stingy. Frugal to me means living simply and doing smart things with your money, not stealing or stiffing people working hard.
As suggested by a reader, I thought I’d go over my thoughts on tipping. First, there are a bunch of websites that offer tipping guidelines, such as Tipping.org and this one and this one.
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Posted in Frugal Living | 4 Comments »
Monday, March 14th, 2005
The wife cut my hair again tonight, it’s something we’ve been trying to avoid the now $15-20 places are charging for a guy’s haircut these days. I mean, usually they can be done with me in 5 minutes, but then there’s always another 5 minutes of close scrutiny and “fine-tuning”. Seriously, at the rate my hair grows I’ll be back in two weeks anyways. This is about the fifth time that she’s done it, and she’s definitely getting better. 80% clippers, 20% scissor action.
Of course, I am not allowed to come near her hair. I think the $20-$30 she spends on her hair is probably worth it, she only goes every other month or so anyways. On the other hand, those $12 a piece hair products - *ouch*. Ok, I’m not allowed to write about those.
Got extra hair? Try donating it here.
Posted in Frugal Living | 7 Comments »
Sunday, March 13th, 2005
Back in college, since I had no car and ate cheap take-out 5 days a week, I never went to warehouse clubs. But since getting married, my wife’s family extended their “business” membership to us, and we now go to Costco once every 2-3 weeks. These stores are enormous, and always seem to be located on the edge of town. Our is about a 20 minutes drive away. At first, I thought it was pretty cool, being able to buy soap and toilet paper once a decade. But after my last run, I’ve been analyzing it further…
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Posted in Frugal Living | 32 Comments »
Saturday, March 12th, 2005
So I had all my W-2s, 1099s, stock trades and dates, etc. ready to do my taxes. I sit down at the computer and… where did my tax software go? I know I took it out of the boxes, cut out the UPCs, and sent off the rebates. I already threw away the boxes, so there should be a little stack of CDs in my office… hours later… nada. Nowhere to be found. I’m seriously losing it.
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Posted in Taxes | 4 Comments »
Saturday, March 12th, 2005
According to this (long) thread at FatWallet, the CSRs at Emigrant Direct Savings report that the bank is going to raise their rate to 3.25% APY on Monday, March 14th. This good news for people like me who are using it without any problems, but many users are experiencing delays in getting their paperwork. I recommended skimming the thread or reading my Emigrant Direct review and the subsequent Emigrant Direct comments first before jumping in, if you haven’t already. Nobody has actually lost any money as as I know, but this is a bank, and security (or image of security) is their whole purpose.
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Posted in Deals & Offers | 4 Comments »
Friday, March 11th, 2005
I’ve heard a lot of people recommending this book, so I picked up a copy of The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason at the library. It’s been out a while, so chances are there is a copy out there, or try getting a copy used. The book is compact, and my edition was only 144 pages long.
Overall, the book was more inspirational than educational, much in the same vein as Rich Dad, Poor Dad. It is told as a set of Babylonian short stories, with Old English writing style including phrases like “Which desirest thou the most?”. Truth be told, it got a bit annoying after a while. However, there were some good rules set out in the book, which include “start thy purse to fattening”, “control thy expenditures”, “make thy gold multiply”, and “make thy dwelling a profitable investment”.
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Posted in Book Reviews | 11 Comments »
Thursday, March 10th, 2005
It seems that MyMoneyBlog as been named one of the “Ten Money Blogs Everyone Should Read” by Yahoo!’s Tech Insider, with MyMoneyBlog topping the list! No idea why they picked me, and I don’t think the rankings actually mean anything, but it’s still cool.
For those that are new - Here is my most recent financial snapshot, which lists all of my assets and liabilities. Here is some information about me. And here is my mid-term goal. My long-term goal is to retire early with $1.5 mil by age 55. Enjoy and take a look around!
Posted in General | 7 Comments »
Thursday, March 10th, 2005
After hearing a co-worker talk about taking a 401(k) loan to help with the downpayment on his new house, I decided to ask the HR Department about it. Here are the rules for my company, yours may be slightly different.
You can borrow the lesser of 50% of your vested balance, or $50,000. So with my current financial status, that would be approximately $6,000. The interest rate charged is WSJ Prime + 1% at the initiation of your loan (Currently 5.5+1 = 6.5%). But the interest is paid directly back into your account. You can repay it over 20 years if the loan if for your house, and 5 years otherwise.
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Posted in Retirement | 12 Comments »
Wednesday, March 9th, 2005
Here are my financial goals for March (or what’s left of it):
1) File taxes for myself and the missus. I sent in the many rebates for the TaxCut Deluxe tax prep software that I bought. Will need to do 1 joint Federal and multiple state returns due to us being married mid-year. Not looking forward to it.
2) Looking forward, do the research in order to find the right amount of tax withholding per paycheck in order to pay as little taxes during the year as possible without penalties and avoid giving out an interest-free loan to the IRS. Especially since I wait until March to do my taxes!
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Posted in Goals | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, March 8th, 2005
I’m a bit late, but here were my goals & sub-goals for last month, and here is my current status:
1) I did some research into ETFs, but not a whole lot. I examined possible areas of interest such as chasing high-dividend earning companies and real estate investment trusts (REITs). Definitely more to be learnt out there.
I did buy 100 shares of DDD @ $4.80 per share. At $480, it is less than 1% of my net worth, and it is a company that I’ve wanted to own a piece of for a while. We’ll see how it goes!
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Posted in Goals | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, March 8th, 2005
(Update: The video is no longer on the front page. To see it, visit here, and scroll down to the article titled “Blogs Expose Personal Finances”. For some reason, I also notice that she’s the only woman pictured. Weird.)
Wow. I just got a chance to check my personal e-mail and I am flabbergasted to find out that MyMoneyBlog and PFBlog has been mentioned by name on CBS Marketwatch! Sweet! To see the clip, go to Marketwatch.com and click on the video on the right. I had to turn up the sound really low, as to not give away that this is my blog (to protect my privacy as is mentioned in the video). Interviewed was Terri Cullen, columnist for the Wall Street Journal, who also wrote the article “Blogs Expose Personal Finance: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, which is available temporarily for free to read at http://wsj.com/free.
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Posted in General | 4 Comments »
Monday, March 7th, 2005
Warren Buffet, the 2nd richest man on the planet, released his annual letter to shareholders over the weekend. He apologized for the fact that this was the second year in a row that his company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA), has lagged the S&P 500 Index. He has openly said in the past that it will be very hard for a company of Berkshire’s size to beat the S&P 500 by very much, especially of you buy a low-cost index fund like Vanguard’s VFINX. Of course, he is a very humble man. Over the past 40 years, Berkshire has grown its book value per share at an annualized rate of 21.9%. That’s more than twice the S&P 500’s 10.4% annualized return in that time.
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Posted in Investing | No Comments »
