Archive for February, 2007
Monday, February 19th, 2007
KeyBank is offering a Canon Powershot A460 camera (5.0 MP, 4x Optical Zoom) for opening a checking account. Specifically, you must
1) Open a new KeyBank personal checking account between February 17, 2007 and March 30, 2007, and
2) Set up Direct Deposit and/or Automated Payments and complete two transactions each of $150 or more by June 1, 2007.
Both of these should be of minimal cost, as they have Free Checking with no maintenance fees or minimums, and you can just do two online transfers of $150 from another bank. Offer available only to individuals in a KeyBank-serviced area and also without an existing checking account as of February 16, 2007. Value of camera will be reported on a 1099-INT as taxable interest.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 13 Comments »
Monday, February 19th, 2007
I’ve always thought of 403(b)s as identical to 401(k)s, just for non-profit and educational institutions. But upon discussing this with a teacher, I found out that they can have their own unique problems: primarily high-priced annuities. Did you know that 80% of 403(b) funds are currently invested in fixed or variable annuities? This is really surprising, considering that annuities are usually only a good idea for high-income people who’ve already maxed out all their other tax-deferred options - why put a tax-deferred product inside another tax-deferred product?
If you’re not sure what you have in your 403(b) accounts, I would definitely recommend reading up at 403bWise.com. Started by teachers, it has a wealth of information about your investment options. Did you know that if you summed up all the various annuity costs you could be losing 3% to fees every year? If you are stuck with a bad administrator, you may be able to do what is called a “90-24 transfer” to a low-cost provider like Fidelity, Vanguard, T. Rowe Price, or TIAA-CREF. There are some upcoming law changes and this transfer ability expires at the end of 2007, so compare your options soon. Another route is follow other teachers and fight for a change from within.
There is also 457bWise for 457(b) holders.
Posted in Investing, Retirement | 3 Comments »
Sunday, February 18th, 2007
SunTrust Bank is offering a free roundtrip ticket on AirTran (16 bonus A+ Rewards credits) for depositing $10,000 of new money into a Premium Money Market Performance Account by March 9, 2007. You must keep it there for 90 days, and the account currently pays 2.25% APY. Doing some rough math, the interest rate difference from an online savings account paying 5% APY for this period would be about $75. That seems like a good price for those that could use it.
You must also reside in AL, AR, DC, FL, GA, MD, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, or WV. Here’s the rest of the fine print:
Read the rest of this entry…
Posted in Deals & Offers | No Comments »
Sunday, February 18th, 2007
I’ve been dutifully recording my expenses for two weeks now. Here are a couple of observations so far.
It really is simple and flexible. Just as I had hoped, this method is much less stressful that when I had to worry about synchronizing accounts online or reconciling debits and credits with personal finance software; Now I just have to dedicate about 10 minutes twice a week and type in single digit numbers into a spreadsheet. Just simple addition!
You can see how much you have left as you go. By setting an goal for each spending category and updating every few days, I notice things like “hey, I already spent $115 eating out this week, I should cut back a bit”. It’s similar to the envelope or bucket method of budgeting, where you can only spend a set amount from each category, but not as strict.
Posted in Budgeting | 11 Comments »
Saturday, February 17th, 2007
Three months ago on November 16th, I started a Make-A-Goal Experiment. I wanted to encourage people to set a six-month goal for themselves, and follow through with tracking it for six months. I even promised a prize for those that checked in half-way through and at the end of 6-months. I was happy to see that over 100 people shared their goals. I believe that simply writing down a specific goal will increase the chance of it happening.
I forgot to remind those 100 people about the half-way mark, so I am extending the halfway deadline to February 23rd. Leave a comment either here or in the original post with the same e-mail address (will not be public) to count. It doesn’t matter what your progress is, as long as you measure it. The prize is going to be a chance at a free iPod Shuffle, so I encourage you to leave a status check. Thanks to the six people who were really on the ball and already submitted updates! Right now you have a 17% chance at a free iPod 
As for myself, the goal was to save reach $50,000 in cash. That meant an increase of approximately $11,610 above my November net worth update (11/8). As of my February net worth update (2/5), I have increased it by $4,602 so far. That’s 40% progress, which is actually better than it looks because we paid over $7,000 in taxes for our Traditional-to-Roth IRA conversion back in December. I am still hopeful that we can reach the $50k mark by May 16th.
Posted in Goals | 37 Comments »
Saturday, February 17th, 2007
Constantly checking up on how many cell phone minutes you have left? The Windows application WatchMyCell logs into your online account page for you and tracks how many minutes you have left. It will even send you an text message or e-mail whenever you’ve reached your chosen threshold. Currently supports Cingular, Verizon, T-mobile, and Sprint/Nextel. They claim that no personal information is stored on their server, and all information sent to your cell phone provider is sent over 1024 bit encryption (also addressed here).
The only time I’ve gone over cell phone minutes was during my wedding, and it was way over. Link via LifeHacker.
Posted in Frugal Living | 6 Comments »
Friday, February 16th, 2007
Here’s something to talk about while you’re out and about tonight - What would be a clever and new T-shirt idea?
CafePress lets people sell their own art and design work without any of the hassle. They handle the printing, shipping, webhosting, payment processing, customer service, and even returns.
It’s free to sign up and start your own store. Then all you have to do is:
1. Make your own unique design or slogan.
2. Upload it as a digital image.
3. Pick the products you want them to be on.
4. Set your own price.
5. Publicize your store and sell them!
They’ve got all kind of stuff - every size and style of shirt, hats, dog clothes, baby clothes, buttons, boxers, thongs, frames, mugs, pillows, bags, coasters, bumper stickers, clocks, steins…
For fun, I whipped up the MyMoneyBlog Gear store in about an hour. Here are some samples:
It definitely helps to be familiar with an image-editing program, but you can still make basic designs easily using free software like GIMP or PhotoPlus. Here are some more image creation tips. Remember, using copyrighted materials is a no-no.
The main drawback to all this is that the products can be a little pricey and your profit margin can be pretty slim. For example, a basic T-shirt has a base price of $8.99, and that includes zero profit to the seller. To get $1 profit, you’d have to sell it at $9.99. I basically just added a $2 profit margin to everything in my store. So if you buy something (ha!), I get two bucks.
If there is enough interest, perhaps I could run a T-shirt designing contest? Off the top of my head, I’m thinking of two categories: Financially-related and Anything Goes. So get those creative juices flowing! Start your own business in 1 hour with nothing but an idea
Added: I found out if you sign up as a seller and use my shop ID as your referral, I will earn 5% of the base price of every sale you make for a year at no cost to you. My shop ID is “mymoneyblog”. Also, another option is Zazzle.
Posted in Entrepreneurial | 24 Comments »
Thursday, February 15th, 2007
After choosing your asset allocation, it is still important to think carefully about where to place each type of investment. After all, what you actually keep is your return after taxes. For example, a stock index fund that tracks the S&P 500 will have low turnover and primarily pay qualified dividends which are taxed at the lower long-term capital gains rate (max 15%). On the other hand, REITs and bonds tend to distribute a significant amount of their return annually as unqualified dividends, which are then taxed as ordinary income (max 33%). Therefore, you should try to take advantage of your tax-sheltered accounts as much as possible by placing the least tax-efficient assets there.
Below is a chart that shows the major asset classes sorted by tax efficiency. It is based on information from the fine books Bogleheads’ Guide To Investing and The Four Pillars of Investing.
Let me clarify the chart above. You should start with the least tax-efficient assets and place them in your pre-tax accounts (Regular 401ks, 403bs, Traditional IRAs) first. Then the next least efficient assets should into the post-tax accounts (Roth IRA, Roth 401k). Only what is left after this should end up in taxable accounts.
In general, bonds should go into tax-deferred accounts, leaving stocks for your taxable accounts. There are even special “tax-managed” mutual funds which work hard to minimize any capital gains distributions and are designed specifically to be placed in taxable accounts.
This article is part of my Rough Guide To Investing.
Posted in Investing, Retirement | 36 Comments »
Wednesday, February 14th, 2007
Key Bank is encouraging people to designate a SaveDay, where “you take what you would have spent.. and don’t.” The idea is to cut out optional purchases on one day of the week, and instead save it. It’s a nice idea. Here’s the commercial:
I guess they saw the news that we are spending more than we make. Note to KeyBank: Give me better interest rates than 0.25% APY, and maybe I’ll save with your bank
Posted in Frugal Living | 14 Comments »
Tuesday, February 13th, 2007
Wells Fargo is now offering 100 free online trades per year if you have $25,000 in brokerage equity, loan balances, or deposits with them (down from $250,000). This seems to be in direct response to Bank of America’s Free Trade program, which requires $25,000 in cash deposits.
Much Easier To Qualify
Although Wells Fargo is offering less trades than BofA (100/year vs. 30/month), it’s easier to qualify at Wells since you can use both brokerage and loan balances:
Wells Fargo accounts used for balance qualification include checking, savings, time accounts (CDs), retirement (IRAs), brokerage, trust (excluding irrevocable trusts), loans, outstanding credit cards and line of credit balances, and 10% of outstanding mortgage balance (certain mortgages not eligible).
I called them and confirmed that you can simply move over $25,000 in existing stocks and mutual funds to qualify for the free trades. You can even have, for example, $12,500 in taxable brokerage and $12,500 in an IRA and get 100 free trades for both accounts. Nice! There are no annual fees if you maintain the $25,000 all in one brokerage account, but if you split it across accounts you may be subject to maintenance fees (fee schedule). You will also need to open a PMA checking account with them.
Free Mutual Fund Trades Too
In addition to the stock trades, Wells Fargo is offering free mutual fund trades. This includes all no-load fund families that they offer, not just the ones on their no-transaction-fee (NTF) list, and includes names like Vanguard, Fidelity, Dodge & Cox, and Bridgeway. This could be great for people who want to consolidate all their holdings from different fund families into one account.
Don’t Have $25k? Try Zecco
Zecco.com continues to offer the lowest requirement for free stock trades, just a $2,500 minimum opening amount including stock equity. See my Zecco feature review for details. Zecco’s hurdles include their young brand and doubt that their business model will be able to keep the trades fee in the long run.
Posted in Deals & Offers, Investing | 41 Comments »
Monday, February 12th, 2007
There’s always a lot of interest for home-based businesses with flexible hours. (Why wouldn’t there be?) Here’s one unique example that I drove past today on a busy local street:
In case you can’t make out the sign, it says “Valentine’s Baskets - Sale”. Sorry for the blurriness, it was taken with a cell phone. I circled around for a second look, but I didn’t stop so I don’t know how much they were. The gift baskets seemed nice, with teddy bears and balloons and such. I wonder if they were from last year’s After-Valentine’s clearance sales, or if they were handmade. There’s a business idea - take advantage of after-Christmas/ Thanksgiving/Easter/Valentine’s day sales, bunch up the cheap knickknacks, and make them into gift baskets for next year. I would probably look into a better venue than selling from your driveway (eBay? local craft markets?).
Although I am skeptical that they will be very successful, I might stop by tomorrow to chat with the entrepreneurial homeowners to see what their motivation was (and maybe suggest they make a more legible sign).
Posted in Entrepreneurial | 11 Comments »
Sunday, February 11th, 2007
Even though the $100,000+ salary club gets less exclusive each year with inflation, it is still considered by many to be a sign of success. According to reports, only about 5% of workers nationwide make six figures. Although it is by no means necessary to make that much in order to lead a fulfilling life and even a comfortable retirement, I think many people (including me) are still curious as to who makes six-figures.
As I approach my 30th birthday, many of my friends are reaching or surpassing this mark as they graduate with advanced degrees or move up the corporate ladder. Here are some examples of people I know who are earning more than $100,000 per year. Keep in mind I live on the West Coast, so salaries are higher overall. (Cost of living calculator) Many of these are expected, but some may surprise you.
Investment Banker - Education needed: Bachelor’s in almost any field, preferably business or engineering/math related. If you love competition and working 100 hours a week, you can easily make much more than $100k per year.
Lawyer - Education needed: J.D. Work hard, schmooze a bit, get a good clerkship, land a job at a respected firm and you’ll be a 6F’er. As an associate you’ll also be putting in 80+ hour weeks. However, if you want to work at a non-profit, your salary will be significantly less, maybe in the $40k range.
Physician - Education needed: M.D. plus 3-10 years of residency. Salary varies wildly for doctors too. Many pediatricians make less than $100k per year, while a cardiac surgeon (10 years of residency) can make $500k+ per year. Keep in mind during residency you’ll be earning $40k a year and also working 80 hours a week.
Small Business Owner - Education needed: None. These are mostly the parent of my friends, who have created successful small businesses worth millions, from restaurants to import/export to service/construction. The common thread between all these people is that it takes enormous commitment and dedication, often at the expense of family life. Be prepared to work seven days a week, all the while knowing that you could easily lose money each month.
Read the rest of this entry…
Posted in Career | 251 Comments »
Sunday, February 11th, 2007
I’m no Casanova by any stretch of the imagination, but I have managed to navigate and survive my share of Valentine’s Days so far. Some were extravagant, some were very simple, but they were all great. Here are five tips from my own experiences, with the primary goal being to improve the experience and any money saved money merely a happy side effect.
1. Food cooked for you by your Valentine is always better than from any restaurant. When someone takes the time and effort to cook you a meal from scratch, how can it not be great? There’s no need to achieve culinary perfection here; Some simple and successful recipes I’ve tried include this pasta with vodka cream sauce, or perhaps grilling up some salmon and asparagus. You can even add a great wine and candles for less than the tip would be at a nice restaurant.
2. The same goes for Valentine’s candy. A $20 box of Russell Stover’s? Yawn. Try dipping your own chocolate-covered strawberries, it’s easy. Rice Krispie treats shaped into hearts. Cookies. If it’s chilly out, I highly recommend making your own hot chocolate. The possibilities are endless. For an added touch, make it together.
3. Movies are a horrible date activity. I love movies, but let’s see, you sit the dark and never look at each other for 2 hours. How is that romantic? Take the afternoon off and go hiking somewhere. Take a walk in the park or along the waterfront. Find a bar or restaurant with a view, and just go for a drink while watching the sunset. All these ideas will cost less than two movie tickets, and you’ll actually be able to talk to each other.
Read the rest of this entry…
Posted in Frugal Living | 20 Comments »
Saturday, February 10th, 2007
ETrade is offering a $25 bonus for opening a Complete Savings account with at least $1. It is currently paying 5.05% APY with no minimum balance and no account fees. For more information, see my E-Trade Bank Complete Savings Feature Review. Expires February 28, 2007.
E-Trade is my financial arch-nemesis. I still have an IRA there with 18 cents in it that I cannot close. I even tried opening one of these savings accounts, filling out the entire application and getting an account number. A week later, they didn’t withdraw my deposit and nothing showed up online. After another week of multiple e-mails and an hour on hold, still no account. I feel like their money-saving model is “ignore them until they give up”. Am I the only one?
Thanks to K via BankDeals via Shraz for the tip.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 21 Comments »
Friday, February 9th, 2007
Ever wonder how the world’s liquid, investable assets are currently broken down by geographic area?
This is based on market capitalization as calculated by the MSCI Global Capital Markets Index. The United States by itself is approximately 45%. It will be interested to see how this graph will change in the next decade.
Posted in Investing | 7 Comments »
