Archive for August, 2005
Tuesday, August 9th, 2005
Don’t worry, I haven’t turned into some financial “advisor”. I was researching ETFs for my 401k roll-over, and came across this article from RadicalGuides: Turning Taxes to Your Advantage. As you know, I’m a index fund (or ETF I guess) guy. I think it is really hard for an mutual fund with active management to beat the market indices over time, and is really hard to pick ahead of time which ones will do so. So is the writer of this article, but he/she points out a possible new way of using ETFs to make tax-loss selling legal and profitable. Sound confusing? It did to me too, I ended up making up a simple example to wrap my head around it. I’m not 100% sure it is right, please let me know if I am wrong!
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Posted in Investing | 14 Comments »
Monday, August 8th, 2005
If you’ve been visiting this site within the last hour, you’ve probably seen some funky things going on while I tested out new background images and colors (even bright pink!). I ended up taking a picture of… what else? My money! My $20 bill to be exact. I wanted to take a picture of a $100 bill, but I don’t carry that kind of bankroll around. What do you think? I think it adds a little somethin’-somethin’.
Posted in General | 10 Comments »
Monday, August 8th, 2005
This week’s Carnival of Personal Finance is up at Consumerism Commentary. Check it out!
Posted in General | No Comments »
Saturday, August 6th, 2005
(Want to catch up? Continued from Parts One, Two, & Three)
Ok, last part, I promise. After doing a lot of research, mostly on ETFs, I’ve decided to choose option #1 and roll my 401k over to Vanguard and stick it in one fund, their Vanguard Target 2045 Fund (VTIVX). Here are my reasons:
1) It’s already my desired asset allocation, and if I split it up into multiple funds I’d be buying basically the same funds anyways, and paying more in fees.
2) After rolling it over to a Traditional IRA, I plan on converting to a Roth IRA gradually as the income limits allow. If I bought ETFs I’d have to pay commissions to buy each year as I fund my IRA, and again to sell when converting to Roth.
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Posted in Retirement | 14 Comments »
Friday, August 5th, 2005
I started MyMoneyBlog on Blogger like many others, but got tired of having my site look like everyone elses (not that mine is all that awesomely designed). But switching to a “real” host costs… money. But to me the flexibility and ability to customize is worth it. I host this blog at Dreamhost, and have teamed up with them to give anyone who signs up for a one-year pre-paid plan $77 off, using the promotional code ‘77OFF1YEAR‘. For the vast majority of bloggers, I recommend their most basic plan, ‘Crazy Domain Insane’. I use this plan and don’t get anywhere near the limits. Here are some of their features:
- One-click automatic WordPress installations
- One of the webhosts actually recommended by WordPress.
- One FREE .com/.net/.org/.info domain (get www.yourblogname.com)
- IMAP, POP3, and Web-Based email access (get you@yourblogname.com)
- 150+ GB Storage and 1.5+ TB Transfer
- 97-day full money back guarantee, excluding domain fees (you get to keep it)
- Unlimited additional domains hosted (buy more at GoDaddy
)
- … so much more stuff I don’t even know what they mean.
Ok, let’s talk cost. The basic plan, if you pre-pay for one year is $9.95/month with no setup fees. So that’s $119.40. With the coupon, it’s $42.40 for one year, or $3.53/month including a free domain name.
I can try and help with any DreamHost-related blog questions if you want, just ask below. I’ve been pretty happy with them, they respond within 24 hours for e-mails, although I don’t really contact them very much. If you’re site is huge or you want the best support, you’ll have to pay more and I wouldn’t go with Dreamhost. But it’s great for the price.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 20 Comments »
Thursday, August 4th, 2005
I’m really not the hugest fan of ShareBuilder, but it seems to be pretty successful. Right now, in partnership with Costco, they are offering a $50 bonus and 10% rebate on transaction fees to Gold/Business Members, and a $75 bonus and 25% fee rebate to Executive Members that open up a new account and make one transaction (trade). Make sure you use the promo code ‘COSTCOEP50′ or ‘COSTCOEP75′ to get this promotion.
I’m going to open up an account, but not as my main brokerage account. Since this is free money, I’m going to put it in something fun and risky! Here’s my plan:
1. Go to the ShareBuilder website and apply. Be sure to enter the correct promotional code in the blank.
2. Deposit $50 of my own money (to make the 1st trade).
3. Pick the Basic Plan with no monthly maintance fees and $4 trade.
4. Buy $46 of any stock or ETF. $4 will go towards the trade.
5. Wait the 4-6 weeks for my $50 bonus.
6. Withdraw my $50 bonus. Net cost to me: nothing!
7. Don’t touch the account or make any more trades for 20-30 years. Hopefully they last that long.
Why? This is free money, they don’t even run a credit check when you open the account. If you want to sell a stock, they charge $15.95. That cuts into the bonus so much it’s not worth the effort just to get some bonus money. On the other hand, why not invest in something with a high potential return and take advantage of their lack of maintenance fees?
Emerging Markets are an asset class that invests in the performance of the world’s major emerging markets, including South Korea, South Africa, China, Taiwan, India, Russia, Brazil, and over 200 others. It is characterized as being risky, but with a high overall average annual return over time of about 17%! Of course, it is very volatile in the meantime. You should not put a lot of your portfolio in this stuff.
But with free money, why not? $46, invested at an 17% average rate, over 20 years, is $1062! Over 30 years, it’s $5109! Yes, inflation will devalue the final amount, and you’ll pay captial gains when you finally sell, but it’s not bad for 10 minutes and loaning out $50 for a month. I think Sharebuilder automatically reinvests dividends, but not sure, I’ll have to check again.
Now you could to this ‘plan’ with any volatile stock, but I like the index since it’s very very very unlikely to go completely belly-up, unlike some random pharmaceutical company. Thoughts welcome! I haven’t made the trade yet, I’ve opened the account and am waiting fo r it to fund.
Posted in Investing | 28 Comments »
Thursday, August 4th, 2005
Every morning I check my e-mail, I get more and more spam related to hot stock picks and get-rich investment ideas. I get very few ads for Viagra, other male enhancement products, or even pirated Microsoft softare. Is anyone else getting this? My e-mail address is public, so I guess it could be harvested by a robot, but it just feels so targeted. And what is it with spammers and poor spelling and grammar skills? Like I’m going to buy a stock with “promsing asdn specualtive future”…
Posted in Investing | 12 Comments »
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005
(Continued from Should I roll over my 401k? Part 2 - Maybe Rollover into Fidelity?)
I believe in the power of low-cost investing in well-managed index funds, as proposed by books such as Random Walk Down Wall Street and Four Pillars of Investing. So here’s what I’m considering if I roll over my 401k to a Vanguard IRA. I would probably merge it will my existing Traditional IRA there, leaving me with a balance of around just over $20k.
Option #1: One Fund
Right now my IRAs only hold one fund: Vanguard Target Retirement 2035 (VTTHX), and my wife’s hold the Retirement 2045 Fund (VTIVX). I did this do get a balance of about 85% stocks, 15% bonds. I feel I should be closer to 90% stocks, so I could put everything in the Traditional IRA into the 2045 fund. That would leave me with the following allocation:
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Posted in Retirement | 12 Comments »
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005
Here we are, all trying to either retire comfortably or be filthy rich. But what are we rollin’ in now? I just bought a 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix. It’s got a somewhat peppy V6, and is a great highway cruiser. My wife drives a ‘95 Nissan. I’m always lookin’ at other people’s cars. So what’s everyone else driving? In no particular order:
Michael rolls in a ‘95 Accord & a ‘95 Nissan pickup.
Hazzard has a ‘97 Toyota Tacoma pickup for his ride.
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Posted in Frugal Living | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005
Here we are, all trying to either retire comfortably or be filthy rich. But what are we rollin’ in now? I just bought a 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix. It’s got a somewhat peppy V6, and is a great highway cruiser. My wife drives a ‘95 Nissan. I’m always lookin’ at other people’s cars. So what’s everyone else driving? In no particular order:
Michael rolls in a ‘95 Accord & a ‘95 Nissan pickup.
Hazzard has a ‘97 Toyota Tacoma pickup for his ride.
Read the rest of this entry…
Posted in Frugal Living | 28 Comments »
Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005
(Continued from Should I roll over my 401k? Part 1 - Stay put with old 401k?)
I just had a couple of very nice conversations with the customer service reps at Fidelity and Vanguard about rolling over my 401k into an IRA. I’ve always liked dealing with both these solid companies, they have short phone hold times even on their main lines (unlike E-Trade, which sucks), courteous people (again, unlike E-Trade), and they even speak intelligible English (unlike Dell)!
I cleared up some things with Fidelity first. I couple of commenters on my last post suggested simply rolling over my Fidelity 401k directly to a Fidelity IRA, so I explored that a bit. Here are my findings:
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Posted in Retirement | 1 Comment »
Monday, August 1st, 2005
So it’s time to decide whether I should keep my 401k money at the original manager Fidelity, or roll it over to join my IRAs at Vanguard. I have enough in there to be allowedto leave it indefinitely. I’m not considering any other options as I’ve already chosen Vanguard as my retirement broker. Here are the funds I have in my Fidelity 401k right now, with expense ratios (e.r.):
40% in S&P 500 Index Fund (like FSMKX), e.r.=0.10%
20% in Spartan Extended Market Index Fund (FSEMX), e.r.=0.10%
20% in Spartan International Index Fund (FSIIX), e.r.=0.10%
20% in PIMCO Total Return Admin Fund (PTRAX), e.r.=0.68%
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Posted in Retirement | 9 Comments »
Monday, August 1st, 2005
This week’s Carnival of Personal Finance is up at InCashFlowWeTrust. Check it out, lots of submissions this week, even I somehow managed to do it.
Posted in General | No Comments »
