Archive for February, 2006
Here are more free and cheap tax filing options, in addition to my previous list of free tax-filing options (check those out first!). Note the following are online and Mac-friendly. Links courtesy of Fatwallet.
H&R Block TaxCut Premium Online #1 - Free Federal Return if you print it out, $19.95 to e-file. State Return is $24.95. Thus, best for people with AGI’s > $50k with no state income tax.
H&R Block TaxCut Premium Online #2 - Federal + State Return for $19.95. Free Federal e-file. Best for people with AGI’s > $50k with state income tax. The Premium version offers extra features like extra help for small-businesses and a free tax consultation. I’m most likely going to use this one, to get some help with my Schedule C.
Posted in Taxes | 3 Comments »
Ok, I give in to the peer pressure. Cap started it, and now everyone’s sharing what’s in their wallet, so here I go… To start, my wallet is a Coach black leather bi-fold, a nice gift from someone with better taste than me.
As shared before, I have my trifecta of credit cards:
» Citi Dividend Platinum Select MasterCard
» MBNA/Fidelity Investments 529 College Rewards Card
» Starwood Preferred Guest American Express Card
Read the rest of this entry…
Posted in General | 8 Comments »
The real estate world is abuzz about Zillow.com, which provides free, instant valuations of any house just by giving it an address. No e-mail required, no Realtor bugging you. It uses data from tax records and historical prices of homes selling in the neighborhood. You know every single homeowner that hears about this is going to type their address in. Thus, the site crashed promptly after its launch. But it’s back up for now.
Be aware that it is still in Beta, which means it doesn’t quite have all the data it needs to be accurate in all areas of the country. Read this Businessweek post ‘Zillow Goes Live–Too Soon?‘ for more details. I did my place and my parents’. Prices seemed on the low side to me.
Posted in Real Estate | 14 Comments »
How do you know when there’s too many personal finance books out there? When comedian Dave Barry does one. In his new book Money Secrets: Why Is There A Giant Eyeball on the Dollar?, he pokes fun at corporations, Suze Orman, and everyone else.
He shares such gems as the solution to soaring college costs: Don’t let your kid study too much, so they can’t get into private school. State schools are much cheaper. Just like the gurus, he’s got a financial assessment quiz for you, with questions like:
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Posted in Book Reviews | 2 Comments »
My $10,000 balance transfer from my Discover Miles Card was safely converted to cash and is now sitting in HSBC earning 4.80% interest. I also made one purchase to get the free 5,000 Miles. I’m happy to say that it all went smoothly. No balance transfers fee were charged, and the 0% APR indeed covered both balance transfers and my purchases as promised, so no interest was charged. I even got my 5,000 bonus Miles immediately after the first statement cycle closed. It’s nice not to have to badger a company for a bonus.
I also received their rewards catalog for their ‘Miles’ redemptions. Ugh, the selection is bad. Converting back to cash-back, it was in the neighborhood of .6-1% back. I can do so much better with my current 2-5% cashback cards. Still, I’m not wasting these points!
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Posted in Credit Cards | 16 Comments »
After I revealed some of my previous money mistakes, I noticed so did Hazzard and Madame X. Is it bad that I enjoyed reading them? So I’ve decided to hold a Reverse Carnival, where instead of submitting financial tips, everyone submits their own money screwups. Buy Enron at the peak? Bet your net worth on black and lost? Let’s share in the misery. Non-bloggers welcome, just submit them here by next Tuesday. Spread the word - money bloggers reveal bonehead moments!
Posted in General | 10 Comments »
Here’s a tough question I got via e-mail, paraphrased:
“I finally got a stable job. I have $9,000 in credit card debt, half at 12.99% and half at 8.99% APR. I have no emergency funds at all, that is why I have so much debt. Should I pay down the credit cards or should I build a backup money fund? Do you think I should apply for more credit cards to lower the APR?”
This was in response to my Emergency Fund options post. As I am not the best person to ask about getting out of credit card debt, I’m throwing this out there for feedback. Here’s what I have off the top of my head:
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Posted in Budgeting | 18 Comments »
My cell phone is on the fritz and I’ve been trying to snag a cheap one on eBay
, but I keep getting outbid. I finally remembered bid sniping software, which I used to use all the time. I logged into my old AuctionSniper.com account, and to my delight I still had some free snipes left! They give you 3 free snipes when you sign up, and another 3 every time you refer someone to the service.
What is bid sniping?
Bid sniping is simply waiting until the last minute of an auction to place a bid. The idea is to get the your bid in, without giving other bidders the chance to re-bid and raise the auction price. The easiest way to do this is with automatic bidding software like AuctionSniper.
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Posted in eBay | 26 Comments »
Before I started this blog in late 2004, I didn’t know squat about managing my money besides not to spend it all. Although I’m sure I could have done much worse, let’s see where I was 5 years ago:
1) I didn’t max my IRAs out. Even though I was pretty broke and living on less than $20k a year, I should have tried to max them out. I think I only put $500 in my Traditional IRA for the first year, and $1000 the next.
2) Instead, I paid off my student loans. Even though I was still in grad school and therefore was paying no loan interest at all, I put all my excess money towards student loans even at the expense of not maxing out my IRAs. Think of all the tax-free gains I could have earned!
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Posted in Retirement | 18 Comments »
I was doing some business tax research today and ran across this interesting tip for avoiding an audit - don’t E-file. Here’s why. The way the IRS determines if you are to be audited is through a computer algorithm that churns through your numbers for certain red flags, like too many deductions or a difference between what you typed in and what they have on their W-2s and 1099s. Now, 100% of all E-filers are analyzed since it’s all ready to go. But for physical mailed-in returns, the IRS has to hire tons of data-entry people to manually type in each one. This is expensive, so reportedly less than half are actually transcribed. No computer = no audit.
Now, I don’t know if this is true, but it makes a certain amount of sense to me. Of course, this may delay your tax refund. But I’d trade that for a smaller chance at an audit anytime.
Posted in Taxes | 18 Comments »
Recently I opened a business checking account, and also a private mailbox at a UPS Store. Bank of America even offered a $50 bonus in the branch. The box costs $15 a month. This will just about finish my 2006 Q1 goal of separating business and personal finances. Another reason why I am doing this is for my future endeavors - proper treatment will avoid the IRS treating them as hobbies and not businesses.
The mailbox will serve a couple of purposes. It will allow us to receive mail and UPS/Fedex packages even if we are not home, and prevent them from just leaving it on our doorstep or having to drive to their warehouses. Also, we can give out a business address that is not our home address. Finally, both the rental fees and the mileage to and from the mailbox will be a deductible business expense.
Posted in Entrepreneurial | 13 Comments »
A great thing about online savings accounts with no minimum balances is that theoretically you can just move all your money to the one currently paying the highest interest! (If it’s worth it.) But, from e-mails I have gotten and other reports on the web, you might want to leave some more spare change in those accounts. Specifically, ING Direct and Emigrant Direct have closed people’s accounts without warning for having balances of less than $1. On top of that, Emigrant doesn’t pay interest if your account is closed before the end of the month!
But they have no minimum balance you say. Yes, but in their fine prints they can also close your accounts at any time, for any reason. So I’d advise keeping $5+ in your accounts to avoid account closure and lost interest. This way, if the rate leaders change, your options stay open.
Posted in Banking | 15 Comments »
