Archive for September, 2006
Thursday, September 14th, 2006
Everyone’s heard of Priceline.com
and Hotwire.com. In exchange for a great deal on airfare or travel, you give up some flexibility and information. That is, you don’t get to find out which airline or hotel you’re using until you’ve committed your money.
This lack of information spawned sites like BetterBidding.com and BiddingForTravel.com provide. Inside the forums, people share their bids, if they won, and what they won. There are also a few useful tips that novice users may not be aware of, like how to get “free” rebids. For example, maybe you bid $50 for a hotel room and got rejected. With the right information, you can try rebid again at $55 or $60 without having to change your original search parameters. Using this combo of history and multiple bids, you can avoid overbidding and get the best price possible.
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Posted in Frugal Living | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, September 13th, 2006
A few years ago, I commited a few thousand dollars to “play money” with which I was supposed to use to learn to become a stock market wizard. I later increased it to $5,000. I learned some basics like the different types of trades, bid/ask spreads, P/E ratios, growth rates, and started buying and selling stocks in $500 increments ($5/trade, so 1% commissions in and out). I really never got around to learning anything in-depth, as I started reading numerous books that convinced me that it was highly unlikely I could ever beat the market over the long haul. Not impossible, but unlikely. Although I read a lot of various investing sites that talk about individual stocks, none of them have really convinced me otherwise.
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Posted in Investing | 18 Comments »
Tuesday, September 12th, 2006
Time to cross another ocean! I’m going to London for a conference next week. My flight and most of my hotel stay is all paid for, but I’m going to try and tack on a few days for personal leisure. (That’s my cheap travel tip - take advantage of business trips!). I’ve already been there about 5 years ago as a backpacker, so I’ve hit most of the touristy spots.
Similar to my San Francisco itinerary, eating the food is right up there with seeing the sights. My usual thing is to go for small hole-in-the-wall food stalls, simple food like pub grub, and also fancy restaurants that do a nice prix fixe lunch for less than $25. For activites, I like to try off-the-beaten path stuff. I know London is like New York City and even more expensive, but if anyone has been recently and has suggestions please leave a comment!
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Posted in Frugal Living | 16 Comments »
Monday, September 11th, 2006
Despite some last-minute scares, for those keeping track of the Advanced Nutraceuticals reverse split that I am participating in, it looks like there has been some progress. From their most recent SEC filings and more specifically this press release:
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Posted in Investing | 7 Comments »
Monday, September 11th, 2006
I just received some bad news - it looks like Citibank may very soon start to charge balance transfer fees on several of their credit card products. So if you have been on the fence about taking advantage of one of their offers, now may be a good time. I don’t see any changes yet, many still say “no balance transfer fees with this offer”, but I will be updating my prescreened best offers list as I find them.
Posted in Credit Cards, General | 19 Comments »
Monday, September 11th, 2006
On the path to financial freedom, it’s easy to get bored and unmotivated. The thing about goals like an early retirement is that they can feel just too distant. I mean, there are always those articles about how you can still retire even though you’re 50 and broke, right? Why worry now?
When I get that way, I actually try to channel my inner greed. Let’s take a new cell phone that costs $100. In order to justify buying it, I’ll need to somehow generate at least $200 of “new” money - either by making more of it or saving more than last month. That way, I’ll still have $100 to put towards my net worth, but I use my toy fixation to drive me.
My only problem? Recently, I can’t find anything I want that badly. Computer? Nah. Digital Camera? Cell Phone? Clothes? DVDs? Video Games? Nope. What’s wrong with me?
Posted in Frugal Living | 30 Comments »
Saturday, September 9th, 2006
What do you get when you combine the real estate listings on Craigslist and cross-reference them on Google Maps? HousingMaps.com. Only for major metro areas, but it’s still a neat tool.
Craigslist seems to have much more extensive listings for rentals than houses for sale, but more and more real estate agents are putting some of their listings to join the For Sale By Owner crowd. A friend of mine just bought a FSBO house off of Craigslist, and I’m told he got a good deal. Mostly it’s just another way to waste time browsing properties I can’t afford, but who knows, you may get lucky too.
Posted in Real Estate, Tools & Calculators | 3 Comments »
Friday, September 8th, 2006
In my post about the Best ATM or Credit Card For Foreign Travel?, Capital One was a promising option as it had no issuer-based foreign currency surcharges, unlike the 3% charged by Citibank or Chase.
However, it was not entirely clear if they waived the 1% fee charged by Visa/Mastercard. After my trip to China, I am happy to report that the 1% Visa/MC fee was indeed waived, at least for me. I came to this conclusion after using historical exchange rates courtesy of Oanda.com.
Here are some examples for Chinese Yuan on June 6, 2006:
Capital One USD to CNY exchange rate: 7.997 to 1
Interbank Rate USD to CNY rate: 8.01 to 1
And another example for Hong Kong Dollar on June 12, 2006:
Capital One USD to HKD exchange rate: 7.762 to 1
Interbank Rate USD to HKD rate: 7.76 to 1
They were essentially the same, varying less than 0.2% (and sometimes even in my favor!). As you might have guessed, the interbank rate is the rate that banks charge each other and is usually the best rate available. Retail exchange rates are usually more expensive either way by a certain margin. If there was a 1% fee, the exchange rate for CNY would have been about 7.93 to 1 or so, giving me less yuan for a dollar.
This may have been for my specific Capital One card, but I don’t think so. I have a GoGash card that gives me 1% flat cashback, so in addition to avoiding conversion surcharges I even got 1% net back on my purchases. Thus, even though Capital One is weird in reporting their credit limits, I’m still keeping this one around for international travel.
Posted in Credit Cards, Frugal Living | 31 Comments »
Friday, September 8th, 2006
I’ve been too trained to read the fine print on all these offers, and I missed the big bold print on this TD Ameritrade iPod Offer I mentioned yesterday that reads “Open an additional TD AMERITRADE account and receive a FREE Apple? iPod? nano!” So this one will actually work for existing account holder like myself.
You must open with $10,000 and keep it in there for 9 months to get the iPod. Thanks to some research by reader Brandon, one low-risk option is to buy a 9-month CD from Ameritrade paying 5.10% APY. Currently, top 9-month CD yields are at ~5.60%. The 2gb iPod Nano has a retail value of $199. I’d estimate the resale value at about $150 since you will get it in 8 weeks. Overall, this deal has the potential to make the equivalent of about 7% APY on the $10,000, or at least $100 more than putting it in another CD. Not bad if already have $10k you won’t need for 9 months.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 23 Comments »
Friday, September 8th, 2006
Although it’s far from finished, the Carnival of Investing has a fresh new home at it’s own domain. As a collaborative effort between me and another avid money blog reader/friend, there will be two people to make sure it runs smoothly. There are lots of new changes in the works, so please update your bookmarks. Right now the Carnival needs new hosts!
Posted in General | 4 Comments »
Thursday, September 7th, 2006
ING Direct - Eeks up to 4.40% APY. $25 bonus too.
Marsco.com - a new discount broker at only $3.95/trade. I saw an ad for it on CNBC, no inactivity fees, $2,500 to open. That’s $1 more than SogoInvest, but $1 less than TradeKing.
TD Ameritrade iPod Nano Bonus - “Open a new TD AMERITRADE brokerage account by September 30, 2006, fund it with $10,000 or more, and receive an Apple iPod nano!” A 2-giger instead of the 1-gig one offered by KeyBank.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 13 Comments »
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006
It’s peak wedding season again. Since I got married earlier than all of my friends, I have become somewhat of a resource on weddings and such. It took me a while to formulate my opinion on this, but this is basically what I tell people now:
First, let’s get some things out of the way. Yes, diamonds are essentially very organized carbon atoms. Nobody can tell it apart from a lab-created one or even cubic zirconia. It’s a horrible financial investment. De Beers has a virtual monopoly on the diamond trade, and does it’s best to create a false scarcity of diamonds. Those “Diamonds are Forever” commercials are some of the best marketing I’ve ever seen.
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Posted in Frugal Living | 61 Comments »
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006
This week?s Carnival of Investing is up at Pragmatic Finance. Thanks to Jason for hosting.
Next week’s Carnival will be held at GrowYourFunds. Host Larry has decided to do a theme for this week: Alternative Investments for Individual Investors. In his words - “I’m thinking of things like REITs, hedge funds, commodities, etc. Benefits, drawbacks, suitability, timing of each product or asset class are things we might write about.”. So please send your best post on this topic, new or old, to the Carnival!
Posted in General | No Comments »
Monday, September 4th, 2006
Just a quick note while I have some free WiFi on the road - the popular $20 Unwired Buyer bonus will be ending as of Wednesday, September 6th. That means if you want to sign up, do it by the end of Tuesday, September 5th! You just need to register by then, after which you will still have 30 days to complete a phone bid to qualify for the free $20. More details and helpful tips in my original Unwired Bonus info post.
I looks like I might not get back until Tuesday evening, so I’ll be catching up on e-mails then.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 3 Comments »
