Archive for October, 2005
Wednesday, October 19th, 2005
(11/5/05: I have streamlined the directions for new participants. Please follow the new directions for the Emigrant Direct $10 Opening Referral Bonus Promotion.)
I just got official word that I am approved for 1,000 Emigrant Direct Bonuses now (880+ left). So everyone that I said was not in the 1st 100, you’re good to go, please continue to e-mail me your 2nd round of e-mails. I’m going to streamline the process soon, but for now, go tell all your friends! =)
Posted in Deals & Offers | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 18th, 2005
I’ve been talking a lot about I-Bonds, mostly because, for me, it’s the equivalent of a 14-month Bank CD returning 5.83% APY. You won’t see an interest rate that high anywhere else. I’ll need this money in a year and a half, so a 14-month time frame is perfect. I wouldn’t put my Emergency Savings there, unless you ladder them. For example, I have a $5,000 I-Bond bought in 2003 that I can cash out whenever if needed (but I won’t since it’ll be earning 6.82% starting in December!). Anyhow, I have:
1) Transferred money from Presidential Savings to Checking.
2) Set up my TreasuryDirect.gov Account.
3) Don’t want to cut it too close, so I’m scheduling a buy order for $5,000 in I-Bonds on 10/24, Monday. (Gonna buy more in November.)
Posted in Banking | 16 Comments »
Tuesday, October 18th, 2005
Here’s an update from a reader who actually went to one of those Get-Rich-Quick seminars with Stanley Danko, The Millionaire Next Door co-author:
Hey I just went to this in Portland, OR. It is worse than you think.
There are 4 speakers selling something.
1st - Buying stocks $3000 Kit. Had a list of best 25 from 2001 (Whoops) I wrote them down, only one made money. Free info on many sites.
2nd - Asset Protection $4000. Hey just fill out these forms in 15 min. send in and you can never be sued again. Yea right. Program. Set up Family Limited Partnership(FLP), Set up Living Trust. Put assets in Living Trust. Put Living Trust in FLP. Make Living General partner, Now put FLP into Living Trust. Buy on many internet sites only $29.95
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Posted in General | 10 Comments »
Monday, October 17th, 2005
[Continued from Part 1.]
Previously I went over the return that I could expect from buying I-type Savings Bonds at the end of October. While the numbers for buying in October are pretty much set, predicting the rates for buying in November will require a lot of guessing and hand-waving.
Short answer: It’s a toss-up. I’m buying half now and half next month.
Long answer:
Read the rest of this entry…
Posted in Savings Bonds | 4 Comments »
Monday, October 17th, 2005
(11/5/05: This is old news, I now have plenty of referrals. Please follow the new directions for the Emigrant Direct Opening Bonus.)
Quick update - I just checked and I have reached 100 referrals for my Emigrant Direct Opening Bonus Promotion. But, I also saw that my contracted number of referrals has gone up from 100 to 1,000!
Posted in Banking | 3 Comments »
Sunday, October 16th, 2005
Welcome to the 18th edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance. For those unfamiliar with the Carnival, it’s a sampling of some of the best articles as submitted from various personal finance bloggers over the past week. For those unfamiliar with MyMoneyBlog, please poke around. To get a “Best of” type of post, check out my FlashBack Series.
Now, for your reading pleasure…
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Posted in General | 9 Comments »
Sunday, October 16th, 2005
Here are some updates on previous posts -
Bank of America’s Keep the Change program - Signed up at my branch successfully, haven’t used it yet though, keep forgetting.
How To Convert Your Paper Savings Bonds to Electronic Format - Mailed in my bonds, and they are all viewable online now after a little over a week. It’s nice since they update and show you exactly how much they are currently worth, like a bank account. I’ve just been including the face value in my net worth calculations.
Read the rest of this entry…
Posted in General | No Comments »
Saturday, October 15th, 2005
Well, there goes another Saturday devoted to watching college football. Now back to the issue at hand - Should I buy I-Bonds now or later? I’m definitely buying some, since the higher rate, low risk, and 1-year minimum hold time matches my Mid-Term goal needs very well. As I and others have mentioned, as long as you buy sometime during the month, you get interest for the entire month. So if you buy at the very end of the month (I’ll call this ‘buying late’), you can view it as getting 12 months of interest in only 11 months. So, we should buy either at the end of October or the end of November. There is a difference, so let’s compare:
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Posted in Savings Bonds | 5 Comments »
Saturday, October 15th, 2005
For those that are unfamiliar with I-Bonds or just need a refresher, please check out my old post U.S. Savings Bonds: I-Bonds and EE-Bonds - Good investment?. Keep in mind that it was written 6 months ago, so “current” and “today” means March. Everything else should be good.
Best source for additional information: Gov’t Treasury sites here and here. I’ll try to answer comments too of course.
Posted in Savings Bonds | 1 Comment »
Friday, October 14th, 2005
As promised last month in my How To Predict I-Bond Savings Bond Rates post, the CPI-U inflation data for September is out, and we can get busy predicting the new I-Bond rates that will be officially announced on November 1st, so we can make educated decisions on to buy now or later. Spoiler: it’s gonna be high, as in over 6% APR high. But, first the math:
The inflation-linked part of the I-Bond rate is based on the inflation change for the last six months as measured by the CPI-U:
March CPI-U = 193.3
September CPI-U = 198.8
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Posted in Savings Bonds | 12 Comments »
Thursday, October 13th, 2005
If you apply to as many offers as I do, you can’t afford the ink to print all those Terms and Conditions out. But it is really critical to save the details of everything you apply for, in case you need to fight for your money later. Companies change offers or take down their offer websites all the time. The solution? A free PDF Printer Driver called PDFCreator. Once installed, just do File > Print like usual but choose ‘PDFCreator’ as your printer, and out comes a nice Adobe Acrobat PDF File! The time you printed it out is even included. Also great for saving online statements.
Example: The 0% APR Discover card offer here has no mention of a balance transfer fee in the Terms and Conditions. But now, I have a .PDF of the complete T and C’s saved on my hard disk if there is any dispute.
Posted in Tools & Calculators | 5 Comments »
Thursday, October 13th, 2005
In another brilliant move to lose potential customers, ING Direct has changed the terms of their $25 Opening Bonus to a minimum opening amount of $250. It’s a bit sneaky, because they will let you to open with only $1, but you won’t get the bonus. Instead, they claim you’ll just get “a friend for life”. Uh-huh.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 9 Comments »
Wednesday, October 12th, 2005
Lots of good ideas on my last post, thanks! Tonight I explored my options for hosting an online shop. Not exhaustive, but here are 3 main options.
1. Host it myself. I recently upgraded my Dreamhost account to their ‘Code Monster’ package, which includes a license for Miva Merchant, an e-commerce software product. When I read that it includes “built-in shopping cart and payment processing”, I thought great! I can take credit cards easily. Nope, it just means it integrates with many Merchant Accounts. Still, it’s pretty powerful - This would be the most customizable option, but it will have the steepest learning curve. Unfortunately, I didn’t upgrade to the next hosting level which includes an SSL Secure certificate and a dedicated IP address (both needed to properly accept credit cards).
Cost Estimate: $200/year for SSL License, $5/month for dedicated IP (Merchant Account: ~$100 Setup, ~$20 a month + % fees)
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Posted in Entrepreneurial | 10 Comments »
Tuesday, October 11th, 2005
As I’ve become more adept at website stuff, I’ve often thought of a lot of little online home-based businesses to start. I think that it would be fun and educational to go through the hoops of getting the business licenses, organizing things, doing cash-flow analyses, etc.
There seems to be three types of sites - ad-supported content sites, selling software or advice (virtual items), and selling physical items. While the first two are probably the easiest and requires the least inventory and/or physical space, I also want to involve my wife in it, and she doesn’t do computers. So we started brainstorming business ideas.
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Posted in Entrepreneurial | 13 Comments »
Tuesday, October 11th, 2005
Sounds like an informercial, huh? I feel that I’ve gotten a lot of new readers who found out about my Emigrant Direct bonus, but don’t forget there are many others for those that are new to the game:
ING Direct Bonus: $1 now $250 to open, $25 bonus
VirtualBank Bonus: $100 to open, $20 bonus
Emigrant Direct Bonus: $1 to open, $10 bonus*
HSBC OnlineSavings Bonus: $1 to open, $35 bonus
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Total: $103 to open, end up with $193. Almost double your money! $90 in bonuses with $352 upfront which is still your money and earning decent interest.
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Posted in Banking | 14 Comments »
