Archive for October, 2006
This is just a follow-up my previous post on Scottrade enabling electronic deposits, but not withdrawals. You can get withdrawals too if you (a) can get $5,000 in total account equity (stock holdings + cash), and (b) use an online bank account that allows external links (ING, Emigrant, HSBC, etc.).
No tricks here, if you satisfy (a) Scottrade will give you checkwriting capability upon request. You can then either use the checks themselves or the account and routing numbers on them to link with other accounts. If you use a CashEdge-based system like with HSBC Direct, it’s even built in; Here’s a screenshot. They say that if you go below $5,000 later you may lose checkwriting privileges, but I’ve been under for about a month now with no consequences.
Posted in Investing | 6 Comments »
Although I still like my Fidelity 529 College Rewards card and its 2% back towards a 529 account, there are some hurdles like having to set up recurring deposits and dealing with potential tax issues. But that doesn’t mean you should settle for any of those 1% cashback cards everyone else is offering! The similar Fidelity Investments Rewards Card offers you the equivalent of 1.5% cash back on virtually everything with minimal hassle.
You get one point for each dollar you spend, and 5,000 points is the same as $75 payment deposit into an eligible Fidelity account, including taxable brokerage accounts and IRAs. The beauty is that Fidelity accounts have no annual maintenance fees, so if you don’t already have an account you can just keep the balance at $0 and transfer the money immediately back into your own bank account.
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Posted in Credit Cards | 26 Comments »
How much is your TV costing you even when it’s off? How much money would you save if you powered down your computer every night? You can answer these questions with the Kill-a-Watt Electric Usage Monitor The term frugal gadget is no longer an oxymoron 
In short, you stick it in between the power outlet and any electrical device, and it’ll tell you how much energy it sucks. Many objects keep using electricity even if it’s not turned on. Get how much you pay per kilowatt-hour from your electric bill, and you can easily find out how much you’re paying to run everything in your house. I really want one of these. At about $25-$30 shipped, I’m trying to justify buying one by getting it to pay for itself in energy savings.
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Posted in Frugal Living | 31 Comments »
It’s open enrollment season again, which means it’s time to decide on your benefits and spending account contributions. PayCheckCity has a variety of tools for simulating what your take-home pay would be if you added disability insurance, increased your FSA amount, and so on.
It can also be a good time to check your paystubs and see if you want to make any other changes. Maybe you want to increase your cashflow, or see if you can afford to put more away in your 401k. You can also check if you’ve already paid as much taxes so far this year as you did last year. If so, you could underwithold taxes on purpose and stick the difference in an interest-bearing account to make a few extra bucks. You can then wait until April 15th to pay up what you owe without penalty. Uncle Sam makes millions every year on people who overwithold their taxes - why not flip the tables? Hint: If you want to stop withholding as much, you can put up to 10 allowances on your W-4 without IRS notification. You can put as many allowances as you want, but I wouldn’t go totally nuts.
Thanks to Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge for the PayCheckCity link.
Posted in Taxes, Tools & Calculators | 10 Comments »
It’s time again to predict the upcoming I-Bond rate announcement for November, as the September CPI-U numbers were just announced. We did this successfully for both last October and April, using the information in my How To Predict I-Bond Savings Bond Rates post.
For more information on savings bonds in general, check out my Savings Bond category. Otherwise, let’s get to it:
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Posted in Savings Bonds | 10 Comments »
Got some projects that you do for extra cash? SideJobTrack is an online program that’s designed specifically to help you manage such things. With it, you can send out estimates, track your costs, and invoice clients. I’m currently doing this stuff with Excel, and then making PDFs. I’ve tried out BlinkSale for online invoices before, but I wasn’t really impressed. Now, I haven’t actually done much besides sign up, so I have no idea if this will be better, but it does seem to offer more features, and the price is right (free).
Posted in Entrepreneurial | 9 Comments »
I want to know more about you and what you think of my humble site. Please take 60 seconds of your time and fill out my Feedback Survey, because it will help me make this blog better for you.
It’s only 6 multiple choice and 3 short-answer questions. I promise to read all the submissions and I’ll share the results (and any changes I implement) with you when it’s done. Thank you!
Posted in General | 20 Comments »
WikiHow has a good article on How to Get out of a Cellular Service Contract. While most of the methods involve smooth-talking your way out of the contract, they do point out my favorite way to get out of a cellphone contract: Wait for them to change your contract terms. This actually happens quite frequently, and I’ve done it successfully myself. In my case they raised the late payment fee from $25 to $39 or something like that. They’ll bury this in your statement in tiny print, sometimes on the back of page 6 of 7 or something.
But the law says if they change your contract, you can either accept or cancel within 30 days. Cancel! This is perfectly fair as they are changing the rules on you! Note that they may cancel you that very second, so be prepared. In fact, I remember my conversation with Verizon Wireless like it was yesterday:
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Posted in Frugal Living | 35 Comments »
Why oh why did the Cardinals run the last two plays? Arrggh!
Anyhow, if you missed the last one, Bank of America is again offering an iPod Nano and $50 if you apply for their WorldPoints Platinum Plus card. You need to spend or make cash advances/balance transfers totalling at least $2,000 to get the Nano in 8-12 weeks. Thanks to Lina.
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Posted in Deals & Offers | 23 Comments »
Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last few years, you’ve gotten 124 PayPal phishing e-mails telling you that your account has been suspended, yada yada, gimme your login and password. New variations come out every day. I bet that more people are being fooled than we know of, mostly due to the shame of admitting it.
I was just reminded me of one way to fight this problem by keeping a “firewall” checking or savings account. Basically, if you do a lot of online transactions with payment processors like PayPal or Neteller, or are simply paranoid about identity theft in general, you can set up an separate, empty bank account to act as a buffer. Let me illustrate:
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Posted in Banking | 20 Comments »
Speaking of good local bank account combos, if you have Washington Mutual banks in your area, combining their Free Checking and their new 3.30% APY Savings account (updated rate 5/08, only available online) also makes a great option. You get the convenience of local branches and ATM withdrawals and deposits, plus the high interest rates and online fund transfers of online banks.
I’ve had the Free Checking for about half a year and the Statement Savings for a couple of months now, so I thought I’d post up my experiences with them:
Basics
The WaMu Free Checking account has:
- No minimum balance or direct deposit requirements, open with $1
- Free basic checks for life
- No ATM fees on their end
- One free overdraft per year
- Free outgoing wire transfers.
The Statement Savings account has:
- A competitive 3.30% APY on all balances (as of 5/08)
- Rate is only available online
- No minimum balance requirements, open with $1
- Instant transfer to/from the Free Checking
Opening (and Closing) Process Review
I opened up my initial Free Checking account in-branch, and posted about that previously. However, you must open the savings account online, and in connection with a (separate, new) WaMu Free Checking account. The good thing is that you can open them both in 5 minutes and even fund using your existing WaMu accounts! Here are step-by-step instructions for existing WaMu customers.
If you didn’t already have a WaMu Checking account, you’re all set. But if you did, now you have two Checking accounts. But you have to keep the 2nd one open to maintain that happy 4.00% rate, otherwise it drops to something piddly like 0.25%. So, I decided to close my initial 1st checking account and just use the 2nd one. You know what the paradoxical thing was? I couldn’t close it online or via phone. I had to go into a branch and see a teller. How backwards is that? Be sure to bring all your old checks because they can shred them all for you.
Overall Review
The lack of almost all common fees is great. No minimums, no direct deposit needed, free checks, and so on.
The account is also very convenient. I can deposit checks directly into the savings account at an ATM, maximizing my interest. Can’t do that with an online bank. I can then move money into the checking account instantly online as I need it (limited to 6 times a month I think). WaMu has ATMs all over my area as well so withdrawals are easy too.
The online interface overall is good. It’s simple and it works, so I’m satisfied. The Online Billpay is the same way. I personally like BofA’s system better.
One nice feature that they only added in the past few months in online funds transfer! So now you can link up external accounts using just routing number and account number. They link via the usual two trial deposits. Note that WaMu yanks the spare change back. 
Transfers are free both in and out, making things very convenient.
If you have a good Washington Mutual bank presence in your area, the lack of fees, convenience, and very competitive interest rate make this checking/savings combination very hard to beat.
Posted in Banking | 187 Comments »
Citibank is offering a $100 bonus for opening both a Regular Checking and a 4.75% APY e-Savings account online with at least $5,000. Note that you will get a hard credit inquiry. This bonus is bit time-intensive (you have to wait for an entire year), but it may be worth it if you have Citibank branches near you as this would also be a nice local checkings/savings combo. You must never have had a Citibank bank account to get this bonus. Here’s the fine print:
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Posted in Deals & Offers | 6 Comments »
The SEC has a nicely-written article about how your stock trades are actually executed, and how it may affect the price you buy or sell at. This stems from the fact that usually your broker has to send your order to a market maker to actually do the trade, which may in turn pay your broker a rebate. Critics say this raises questions about whether your order will truly be routed to get the best price, and I would tend to agree. However, many brokers do some form of this, and many rebates are linked to supplying enough liquidity for each market maker.
In looking for a good comparison of trade execution between different discount brokers, I found this recent Barron’s broker comparison of 27 brokers, including many you’ve seen mentioned here:
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Posted in Investing | 5 Comments »
The Big Money by Frederick R. Kobrick, was also sent to me for review. It was good timing because I was looking for books on stockpicking to expand my reading horizons. One can only read so many books on the wonders of index funds before monotony sets in.
I’d never heard of Kobrick before this book either, but apparently he is a long-time mutual fund manager with accolades such as:
- Manager of the State Street Research Capital Fund, which was ranked as one of the top five mutual funds in the country for the entire 15-year bull market in 1997
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Posted in Book Reviews | 5 Comments »
I’m tired of reviewing stuffy bank products. How about some cool urban furniture instead? I was sent both a Fiery Red Omni and Otto Chair courtesy of Andrew of SumoLounge for review, and here it is!
At first glance, it just seems like a bean bag chair. But has your beanbag chair been featured at the Sundance Film Festival, MTV’s Real World and HGTV, and at the same time able to withstand the wrath of a 100-lb Bernese Mountain Dog who likes to dig? I think not.
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Posted in General | 9 Comments »
