I don’t feel like posting any more articles from the “buy-and-holders“, although I remain one. So how about some commentary from John Hussman, whose fund HSGFX is actually even for the year. I don’t own this fund and am not saying he’s always right, but I think he does a good job of laying out the reasons for his conclusions.

His November 17th weekly commentary is long, but worth the read. Some excerpts:

Our activity as investors is not to try to identify tops and bottoms – it is to constantly align our exposure to risk in proportion to the return that we can expect from that risk, given prevailing evidence.

As for extreme and less likely benchmarks, the 780 level on the S&P 500 would represent a 50% loss from the market’s peak, and would put the market in the lowest 20% of all historical valuations. I would expect heavy demand from value-conscious investors about that level if the market were to decline further, and a decline below that level could be expected to reverse back toward 780 fairly quickly. Further down, but very unlikely at this point from my perspective, the 700 level on the S&P 500 would represent the lowest 10% of historical valuations, 625 would put the market in the lowest 5% of valuations, and anywhere at 600 or below would put the market in the lowest 1% of historical valuations. I don’t expect to see such a level, but there it is. Note that these estimates are unaffected by how low earnings might go next quarter or next year. Stocks are not a claim on next quarter’s or next year’s earnings – they are a claim on an indefinite stream of future cash flows.

As a side note, do your best to filter out comments like “investors are moving out of stocks and into …” or “investors are selling into this decline” or “investors are buying into this rally.” On balance, investors do not sell shares, and they don’t buy shares. Every share purchased is a share sold. The only question is what price movement is required to prompt a buyer and a seller to trade with each other. No money will come off the sidelines into stocks. No money will come out of stocks and onto the sidelines. All such talk is non-equilibrium idiocy. Keep in mind that the “market” consists of different traders with a variety of time-horizons, risk-tolerances, and analytical methods (e.g. technical, report-driven, value-conscious). It is helpful to think in terms of which group of individuals is likely to do what, and when. It is equally important to know which group of investors you belong to. As the old saying goes, if you’re at a poker table and you don’t know who the patsy is, you’re the patsy.

Here’s my attempt at a quick summary: While the present looks bleak, the potential for future returns is looking brighter and brighter for long-term investors. The opposite was true a few years ago. If you’re young and still putting money away, this is a good thing! (Although adequate emergency funds should be your first goal.)

Black Friday 2008 is almost upon us, even in Spain the stores are already in Christmas mode. If you’re doing some early shopping online, don’t forget to try a cashback shopping portal like eBates or FatCash. Both are currently having a holiday promotion where the cashback percentages are higher at many major stores.

eBates has a double cashback promotion at several stores. For example, you can get 8% back at BarnesandNoble.com, 6% back at Overstock.com, and 4% back at Dell. New eBates members can earn an additional $10 bonus for signing up here and making one purchase with one year.

FatCash is also having a Holiday ‘08 cashback sale. I see that you can get 1.9% back from Expedia and Travelocity.

As always, don’t buy stuff that you can’t afford, eh?

Each kit includes a poster of Abe Lincoln made from images of actual pennies. The poster is suitable for framing as is, but with a little effort, some glue, and 846 of your own pennies, you can have a unique work of art that truly shines. (No, really… it shines!)

Here’s the interview:

Where did you get the idea or inspiration?
I read an article online about a father and son who created a giant portrait of Abe Lincoln out of pennies. Their image was 24″ x 36″ and they used two shades of pennies. I thought other parents and kids might enjoy a project like this and went about trying to create an improved, easier to assemble version on my computer. Using four shades of pennies, I was able to decrease the size of the image to 18″ x 24″ (846 pennies) which seemed a bit more
manageable.

Did you set up the website yourself? Do you have previous experience in this area?
I have a background as a graphic designer, but had only created a handful of small sites previously. The trick was to use one of the various free CSS templates available on the web and go from there. For example, the Penny Portrait site is based on this free template. Using a free CSS template allows you to create an impressive site in short order. Some of the graphic
elements took a little bit longer, but the layout was a snap.

Is this your first side business?
This is my first retail business of any kind. I’ve had a lot of experience with service businesses (animator/designer/consultant), but I’d never actually sold anything tangible before. Part of the reason I wanted to do this project was to learn how a retail business works with inventory,
suppliers, sales tax, credit card processing etc. It has been extremely educational from that standpoint.

Who sorts the pennies? Are you using child labor? (You could fund your child’s IRA this way…)
I just sell the kits, so customers are responsible for supplying and sorting their own pennies to glue on the poster. I had considered selling completed portraits, but I think the real satisfaction with something like this is to have something on the wall you created yourself. (That and shipping all those pennies could get expensive!) The sorting part is surprisingly easy if you have a bunch of pennies to start off with. I was able to sort enough pennies watching TV one night for at least two portraits. As far as funding my kid’s IRA, I toyed with the idea of paying him a “talent” fee to be included in the photos, but thought I’d better not push my luck with the IRS - He is only eleven months old.
(My mistake, the buyers provide the pennies. That’s much better!)

Do you construct the kits yourself, or are they put together by a third party?
I have a little assembly line in a spare room where my wife and I put the kits together ourselves. Each tube holds a poster, a booklet with fun facts about Lincoln and coin collecting, an assembly guide and a pouch with a 1943 Steel Penny. At this point, other than marketing, that is really the only time consuming part of our business.

How did you decide on pricing, and not making it too high or too low?
Pricing was one of the toughest decisions to make. I talked to a number of people including retailers to get a general idea. It is a unique product with no competition, so I’m not forced into competing on price - which is nice. My competition ends up being other unique products you can buy for about the same amount. One thing I learned is that brick and mortar resellers of your product typically use “keystone” pricing. This means that retailers expect you to sell them products at 50% off the suggested retail price. So if the suggested retail price is $20, a retailer will want to buy them from you for $10. This only applies to bulk orders, but my suggested retail price needed to be high enough that I could still make a little profit through traditional retail channels in addition to e-commerce.

What other difficult decisions have you had to make?
The toughest decision was how many poster to purchase initially. I wanted a high quality product, so didn’t want to skimp on printing or materials, but printing can be quite expensive. There are online places like PSPrint.com, which will print posters for you at great prices, but the paper quality is lower and when you include shipping, the savings disappear. I ended up going with a respected local printer to avoid shipping costs and to oversee the quality of the product. The trick with printing a poster this size is the initial setup fee is about $1,000 whether you print one poster or one thousand. My fun little “learn about e-commerce” project suddenly got expensive! Of course, the more you order, the cheaper it is, but it was
nearly impossible to guess initially what the demand for a product like this would be.

Another tough decision involved shipping tubes. I really liked the way my product looked in a clear tube, but the cheapest supplier of clear tubes charged $1.40 per tube and had a minimum order of 500 units. Cardboard tubes cost about half that and I could order just a few at a time. I ended up breaking down and ordering 500 clear tubes, but am using those strictly
for retail. Online orders I ship in the more durable white cardboard tubes. It was a tough decision at the time because $700 is a pretty big upfront expense for shipping tubes! (Not to mention I have a garage full of them.) This is one situation where my design sense vetoed my business sense. We’ll see how it works out.

How many hours a week do you spend on this project?
I would guess we spend about 5-10 hours a week on it at the moment. I have a full time job, so I mainly work on this in the evenings or on weekends. At this point, it is simply a matter of assembling the kits, and shipping them out as we get orders. My wife recently left her job to stay at home with our first child, so she is a big help in this regard. The only other thing that takes time is marketing. I’ve found that sales are directly proportional to how much effort we put into marketing. My wife does a lot with marketing as well.

What forms of advertising are you pursuing?
We use Google Adwords which is absolutely fascinating. It allows you to run variations of ads and use different keywords to generate targeted, effective ad campaigns. Google has shown my ads thousands of times and provided me with valuable feedback on who my target market really is. At the end of the day, it is a great business model because their interests are perfectly aligned with yours. They only make money when people click on ads, so it is in their best interest to make sure your ads appear where they will be clicked. I have an advertising degree, and one of the things that stuck with me all these years is that by simply adding the words “free” or “new” to an ad will cause it to drastically improve results. I tried this theory out in Adwords, and sure enough those ad variations were my most effective. Google
Analytics has also helped me in seeing what parts of the site people visit after they hit my homepage. I’ve been so impressed by Google I actually broke my rule of only buying index funds and picked up a little GOOG after the recent market crash.

In addition to Adwords, I’ve also had success advertising in various online forums. For example, I will hop onto a coin collecting message forum and give a free kit to anyone who guesses a number I’ve chosen between 1 and 100. I end up giving away a free kit, but I typically get about 50 potential customers to look at my product and even comment on it! It has been useful as a marketing tool and also for improving my product based on comments.

Oddly, one of the most successful forms of advertising I had nothing to do with! Someone submitted my site to “Stumbleupon” and it immediately received over 1000 hits. Stumbleupon is a very cool social networking application where users give a “thumbs up” to sites they find interesting or entertaining. By installing the Stumbleupon toolbar, you can rate sites you visit or click on “stumble” to have it take you to random sites others with your same interests rated highly. I was pleased to see so many people liked my site.

What other backend tools and/or third-party systems do you use?
I use E-junkie for my shopping cart system and have been blown away by the product and support. It costs me $5 a month for a polished shopping cart system that works flawlessly. I even contacted them about a unique problem I had (Texas charges taxes on shipping & handling, many states don’t) and they were nice enough to add that ability to their system. They also have a simpler version they provide for free if you don’t need certain features.

I went with Google Checkout for the payment processor for a couple of reasons. It was really easy to setup and was cheaper than PayPal. I was worried with PayPal that people would think they needed a PayPal account when in fact, all they need is a credit card. Google charges me 2% of the purchase price + .20 cents per transaction. So I pay Google .60 for every 20 transaction which is reasonable. They have a complete system you log into that makes billing and shipping a snap. The final reason for using Google Checkout was that when I spend money via Google Adwords, they kick me back a portion of what I spend on advertising in the form of free transactions. So if I spend $50 on Adwords in a month, Google will process
$500 worth of transactions free for me that month. PayPal and other merchant processors couldn’t compete with that.

Great. So how’s business?
Business is going well! We’ve sold over 100 kits so far and are really just learning how to advertise via the internet. This week, for example, we are exploring marketing via Amazon and Yahoo in addition to Google. We are also looking at the possibility of getting in some retail catalogs and have been working with local toy and coin shops who are now stocking the product. It’s very satisfying whenever an order pops up in my inbox.

Has your businesss been affected by the economic slowdown, or is it too early to tell?
The product is pretty unique, so I think for the people who want it, the price is not prohibitive. My main problem is making sure people know my product exists! It really doesn’t fit into a traditional product category which makes it a bit tricky to advertise. As the product just launched, I’m going to miss some Christmas opportunities (e.g. catalogs and retailers) but I’m hoping 2009 will be a good year for this product. There will be four new penny designs released next year to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the penny and Spielberg is also making an Abe Lincoln movie starring Liam Neeson. I’m hoping these events might generate some interest in pennies and Abe Lincoln. They certainly can’t hurt!

– End of interview –

Recap
I want to thank Maury for letting me pick his brain and see into the “nuts and bolts” behind PennyPortrait.com. I think there are a lot of us (me included) that have had their own niche ideas but haven’t gotten over the hump to making it happen, and I think he showed us some practical tools and tips to help us along.

Look for a giveaway of these neat kits soon. If you can’t wait, you can get $5 off using the coupon code “MyMoneyBlog” (I get nothing). If you have any further questions for Maury, please leave a comment below. If you’re an entrepreneur with a unique story and would like to be interviewed here as well, please feel free to contact me.

Past Entrepreneur Interviews:

• Irina Patterson, Balloon Art Entertainer
• Dennis, sells custom Greek apparel online and locally
• Dan, sells titanium money clips online

You must complete five (5) round-turn trades in your new FXCM Micro account, and your account must be in good standing before you are eligible to withdraw any funds from your account. Existing FXCM account holders are not eligible to receive the promotion.

Thanks to reader Andres for the tip. I’m still in Spain so I haven’t tried it myself. I’m just happy the Euro/USD conversion rate is much better than a few months ago! (I’d just gamble with the $25 and cash out, personally.) Please share any experiences or new discoveries in the comments.

The Vanguard® Individual 401(k) plan is a retirement plan for self-employed individuals. This plan is available only to sole proprietors or partners in business who have no common-law employees. The only other participant allowed in this plan would be a spouse of the business owner if he or she works for the business. Business owners should not establish this plan if they have common-law employees, including their children.

There is some confusion as to whether this includes the sole owners of an S-Corporation, but I’m betting it does as it is a passthrough entity and we are essentially self-employed. Here are some more Vanguard-specific details, along with some comparison with the Fidelity Self-Employed 401(k) which I currently have:

• Seems like you can buy any Vanguard fund with no commissions, and there is “no minimum initial investment required to open most funds” (emphasis mine). It doesn’t seem like you have the option to buy ETFs through their brokerage service. At Fidelity, the Fidelity funds are also free, but I am subject to minimum initial investments. However, I do have the ability to buy any ETF with a $12-$20 commission, as well as buy individual bonds.
• The Vanguard Individual 401(k) will accept three types of employer and employee contribution sources: individual employee salary deferral contributions (pre-tax money), traditional employer contributions (pre-tax money), and Roth salary deferral contributions (post-tax money). Roth is available! Fidelity does not have this.
• Employees can move money between different Vanguard funds by phone or in writing only. This is kind of a pain. I can manage my Fidelity Self-Employed 401(k) online like a regular brokerage account, with limit trades and everything.
• There are no set-up fees charged to the employer for a Vanguard Individual 401(k) plan. Vanguard charges employees a $20 annual account service fee for each mutual fund held in an account within the Vanguard Individual 401(k). If you like to own multipole funds, that can add up quickly! (Note: If at least one participant in a Vanguard Individual 401(k) plan qualifies for Flagship™, Voyager Select™, or Voyager™ Services, the account service fee will be waived for all participants in the plan.) Fidelity has no setup fees, and no annual account fees at all.
• Rollovers are permitted out of the Vanguard Individual 401(k), but not into it. Not sure why this is the case.

This is only a superficial review, but so far I’m not planning to try and open one. It turns out that I am quite happy with my Fidelity Solo 401k, as it provides a lot of flexibility, great customer service, and reasonable costs. Vanguard has a wider array of index funds, but I can also buy the equivalent Vanguard ETFs at Fidelity. If I buy in large enough chunks, the commission is balanced out by the lower annual expense ratios. Besides, if you are at not at least Voyager ($50k in assets), the $20 fee per fund from Vanguard costs as much as two trades anyway.

The main thing going for Vanguard is the Roth option, which I must admit should be very attractive for most people. But for us, our current tax bracket is high enough that I prefer pre-tax contributions.

Via Guzzo the Contrarian and Bogleheads.

From the fine print:

To receive a $50.00 Target GiftCard (a “Gift Card”), eligible individuals must (a) open a new account under the ScholarShare Plan (a “ScholarShare Account”) within 30 days of registering for the Gift Card offer between August 15, 2008 and December 31, 2008 and (b) establish an automatic investment plan for the ScholarShare Account of at least $50 per month, with the initial $50 automatic investment contributed and invested within 90 days after the ScholarShare Account is opened. Limit: two (2) Gift Cards per person. Each ScholarShare Account must have a different designated beneficiary and be individually owned (no trust, custodial or other ownership arrangements).

The Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Savings Plan is currently offering a $25 refer-a-friend bonus if you open an account and deposit at least $25 by December 15, 2008. You can be a resident of any state, and there are no application or annual fees.

Is This Ohio Plan Any Good?
After doing some research on the best 529 plan for those without an in-state tax break, my opinion was that the two best overall 529s were the Ohio CollegeAdvantage and the Illinios BrightStart plans. Illinois uses Vanguard, has a decent variety of low-cost index options (average ~0.20% total annual expense ratio), and has one of the lowest fee structures around. Ohio is similar - they use Vanguard, are a bit more expensive (average ~0.30% total annual expense ratio), but have a few more investment options like inflation-protected bonds. So yes, it is a solid plan.

Collecting 529 Bonuses
We don’t have kids (yet), and yet I’ve opened a bunch of different 529 plans in different states for their bonuses or in-state resident tax advantages. The nice thing is that you can usually roll them over into another 529 plan, although some states do a tax recapture. (Oregon didn’t.) So open an account, get the bonus, and just see if you like it. If you don’t have kids yet, simply list yourself, your spouse, or even your parents as the beneficiary. You can always change it later.

For the curious, I am currently in a New Hampshire plan run with 0.50% expense ratio by Fidelity because I have a grandfathered-in 2% cash back card that deposits into the 529. Given how good the Ohio account is, one day I might be rolling everything over there.

Referral Bonus Instructions
Both the referred and referree get $25, and I’d love for you to help fund my future kid’s college. Here are the easy instructions:

1. You can enroll online or via mail. The online process was quick and easy, and I didn’t have to mail in anything.
2. The first step is to input your personal info and choose a login/password. Next, you’ll verify your e-mail and complete the application.
3. After that, you’ll choose your funding amount and select an investment fund. Your initial deposit must be a least $25, and is funded using the account/routing numbers of your bank account. At the bottom, you will need to enter a referral code to get the bonus. Enter 2439350.
4. In 1-3 days, your initial deposit will be sucked out, and in 5-7 business days you will get your $25 bonus. The $25 will be deposited directly into the 529 account, and will be invested in the same thing as your initial deposit.

I opened the account last week and got my $25 bonus successfully and as promised:

Surprisingly, every single card issuer seemed to have a specific protocol to handle such concerns. I was either forwarded to some sort of Fraud Specialist or asked to fill out a form outlining where I was traveling to and the exact start and end dates. It seems like their fraud monitoring systems are getting quite advanced. All of them thanked me for calling ahead of time, which made me feel like they’ve probably had to deal with a lot of angry (stranded?) travelers.

Oh, and they also told me the international toll-free numbers to reach their customer service from abroad. Using them is easy. Go to a pay phone, reach the operator, and call the number collect. I decided to simply write these numbers on the signature panel on the back of the cards. I’m glad I called!

For more information, see my other post on this subject: Travel and Money: Best Way To Get Cash, Best Credit Cards, and Safety Concerns. It includes why I hate traveler’s checks, why I use my Capital One NoHassle Rewards card exclusively while traveling, and emergency numbers for Visa and Mastercard.

Example scenario: If you drive 12,000 miles per year and your car gets 25 MPG, that means an annual fuel bill of $1,920 with $4 gas. But with $2 gas, your annual bill is now only $960. Makes sense, a doubling of price from $2 to $4 again will lead to a doubling of cost - nearly $1,000 per year.

Now let’s say you buy $1,000 of one of the two major oil ETFs tracking crude oil prices, USO or OIL. (Use a broker with free trades.) If crude oil prices jump again, then the value of these stocks should roughly rise to compensate. If $4/gal comes back, your annual fuel bill would rise by $1,000, but your oil futures stock should also rise by $1,000. You’re virtually fully hedged this way, even if gas goes to $6/gal or higher.

So I suppose being fully hedged means buying as much oil ETF annually as you spend on gasoline in that time. Effectively, you are buying a year’s worth gasoline ahead of time and locking in that price. If gasoline wasn’t so difficult to store for long periods, you could do this manually.

Now, there is no free lunch here. If gas prices drop even further, then you won’t be able to benefit from cheaper gas either. A drop to $1 gas would leave you missing a savings of $500 per year, although I have a hard time seeing it drop that far.

Cost of hedging. Don’t forget, you could have invested that $1,000 somewhere else. If you assume an annual return of 8%, that’s a missed opportunity cost of $80 per year. Of course, we all know now that assuming stable 8% returns is not good. If it would have been held in a bank instead (a more likely scenario), then a 3.5% APY leads to an annual cost of $35, or $3/month.

Hedging is about having a price that you are comfortable paying, so that you don’t have to worry about unexpected price swings. Usually, it is also the case that you are more afraid of a potential rise than a potential drop. Gas prices have been one of the more volatile parts of our budget, and we could use this period of lower prices to build your hedge. Is it worth paying $3/month for such a hedge? I’ll let you decide.

Skype While Traveling Internationally?
I’m preparing for my trip to Spain, and have the following plan for keeping in touch. All calls are routed to my cell phone, which doesn’t work abroad. I am bringing my laptop, so with WiFI I can use SkypeOut to call and check voicemail once a day, at 2.1 cents/minute. I can then make more calls to the US as needed. According to the Skype FAQ, it only matters where I’m calling to, not where I’m calling from. I can even call places in Spain for 2.1 cents/minute.

Am I missing anything with this plan?

My Experiences with Skype
I have used Skype for a few months during a remote work assignment when I had to take long calls that my cell phone plan wouldn’t support. I simply bought a SkypeIn number, which allowed me to take regular phone calls and participate in conference calls. The phone quality was good, but I used it only for a a few months, and always for scheduled calls and with a headset. I never used it with a regular phone, and never had to respond to incoming calls.

Cheap PC-to-Phone Plug Adapter
Here is a D-Link DPH-50U Skype USB Phone Adapter that only costs $10 after rebate ($20 before). It connects to your computer’s USB port, and creates two regular RJ-11 phone jacks that you can plug in traditional landline phone systems. Only works with Windows. The reviews seem to be positive overall. For those with problems, the general consensus seems to be that you need to install the newest Windows Vista drivers from the D-Link website (even if you run XP).

Anyone with experience using this product? I know there are other cool but expensive stuff out there like the Skype WiFi Phone.

If it works, you could replicate a landline for $8/month including taxes. SkypeIn is $60/year ($5/month) and gives you a phone number and unlimited incoming calls, and SkypeOut is $2.95/mo for unlimited calling to US and Canada. Just get one of those combos with multiple handsets and you can still have phones all around the house. (My favorite are Panasonics which take generic NiMH AAA batteries - cheap to replace!)

Cons are that you’d have to connect it to a computer that is turned on all day. Another disadvantage would of course be the inability to make emergency calls. With Skype, you will not get any 911 service - not even the e911 available with some VoIP providers - nor will it work without power and internet access. Not a big deal for the many of us who have already gone cell phone only.

Which would you rather do:

A) Work 40 hours/week for 15 years, and then not work at all for the next 15 years, or

B) Work 20 hours/week for 30 years?

If you were to ask me a few years ago, I would have picked A. Now, I’d much rather have B. Of course, it’s not as simple as just picking one or the other. Some sample considerations:

• At most jobs, you can’t simply decide to work less hours and get pro-rated pay. A job change or some clever negotiations with management might be necessary. Self-employment may be better suited to option B.
• Even if you can work half-time, often you lose your healthcare benefits. This might be reasonable if you are single, but for a family with kids the costs can be pretty high. Might need to investigate alternative ways to get group coverage (professional association, creating your own small business insurance group).
• For option B, you have less money coming early on, but you have more time for compound interest to occur before taking withdrawals. The opposite is true for option A - more money upfront, but you’ll need to start spending sooner.
• The (historically) optimal investing asset allocation might be different for both situations.
• With option B, depending on timing and desire, you would have more ability to spend time with your children when they are young. Is time upfront worth more than time later? Quite possibly.
• I think it would be hard for me not to work at all. For one, there is the stress of trying to live off a finite amount of money. Second, one would need to find another purpose in life to fill all the hours. Others might find it really easy…
• Option A gives you a bit of leeway if investment returns don’t pan out as you’d like. Maybe you’ll work a bit longer than 15 years. Trying to make up lost savings when you are older may be more difficult (ageism) and/or tiresome (just age).
• Lower annual income with option B might leave you with lower overall tax hit.
• Behaviorally and psychologically, it may be easier to spend less if you force yourself to make less.

I need a better name than “semi-retirement”. Downshifting? Half-retirement? Half-working? Working 9-1?

The $10 holiday bonus offer ends 12/07/08. Offer valid at participating Coinstar Centers in the U.S. only and excludes Puerto Rico. Consumer will receive a $10 gift card or eCertificate for the same brand that was originally cashed in for. Please expect 6-8 weeks for delivery. Offer good on qualified transactions made between November 7, 2008 and December 7, 2008. Transactions occurring before of after these dates are not eligible for this offer. Offer is only valid on coin transactions. Limit one per name or household.

Directions:

1. Use the Coinstar machine locator to find one that dispenses eCertificates, as not all of them do.
2. Cash in at least $40 in coins, and choose to convert to an Amazon.com gift certificate. There are no fees with eCertificates.
3. At the bottom of your receipt, there will be directions for you to mail in the “rebate”.
4. In 4-6 weeks, they will e-mail you a code for another $10 GC.

The especially industrious could combine this with buying $1 coins from the US Mint to get credit card points.

People have called EmigrantDirect and DollarSavingsDirect clones of each other. I mean, your money is at the same bank - Emigrant Bank, FDIC Certificate #12054 and the home pages look very similar. But man, they truly did a cut-n-paste job. Check out the identical internal interfaces, down to the color scheme:

The application was straightforward and efficient - completely online, no paperwork to sign or print out, and your deposit is done using only routing and account numbers. Took less than a week to get up and running. I would pick your funding account carefully, because adding additional bank relationships does require paperwork.

As noted, the major difference is that with DollarSavings you need to maintain a $1,000 minimum balance to get the 4.0% APY, unlike Emgirant with no minimum. Good news is that there are no fees at DSD if you drop below $1,000 though, just a lower 1.0% APY.

On Tuesday, November 11, 2008 from 6am to 6pm (pacific time), MyCorporation is offering a special promotion titled FREE FOR A DAY. For one day only, MyCorporation will process a new Corporation or Limited Liability Company for FREE. That’s a savings of $149 off regular service fees (note: document shipping, state fees, publication fees, and additional product fees are additional). This is the first time this promotion has ever been offered!

MyCorporation is owned by Intuit, of TurboTax and Quicken fame. (And more recently, of free Quicken Online.) These types of pseduo-legal services are a middle ground between filling out the filing paperwork all by yourself and hiring a lawyer to do it. They perform services like checking your name to make sure it is not violating any other trademarks, making sure you filled out the forms with no common errors, and helping you start out with all the additional paperwork obligations of a separate legal entity.

Although the standard advice always seems to be “go with a lawyer”, I ended up incorporating my own home business in 2006 with one of their popular competitors, LegalZoom. I was very satisfied with their service, and even talked to a real person on the phone about some details. (They do a lot of cheap wills and trusts too.) I think I paid about $200 + filing fees. A lawyer would have cost around $1,000 + filing fees.

The decision to incorporate is not always simple, but I wanted to throw it out there so interested folks can think a bit about good reasons to incorporate, whether to go LLC or corporation, possible available names, and other details. One book that I recommend is from Nolo Press is LLC or Corporation? How to Choose the Right Form for Your Business. I chose to go the S-Corp route primarily to reduce self-employment taxes. The window for this promotion is small, but you still have to pay $50+ in state filing fees, so don’t take it too lightly. Offer is supposed to show up on the website on Monday.

• He is from a middle-class family in a rural area. She is from an upper class family in the posh area of town.
• He currently earns $30,000 a year. In a couple of years, he will probably make double that. She currently makes around $30,000 per year, with limited upside potential.
• She has stated that she needs a $20,000 engagement ring, as that is what all her friends are getting. He’s been saving for a while…
• She will not let her kids go anywhere else but the same private school that she attended. Current annual tuition: $15,000.
• How rich is her family? She recently “found” 1,000 Euros laying around in her room (lives at parents’ house), and is now taking a trip to Europe to spend it.
• His dream wedding is a backyard bar-b-que. Her dream wedding is going to cost $100,000. Her parents will pay for most of it.

When I first heard this story, I thought I was hearing a pitch for a new movie with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. But this is their reality, and they do seem in love. Still, I don’t understand it from either side. How can he think they can afford such a lifestyle? How can she think they can afford such a lifestyle? Something’s got to give, and I hope they can work it out.

Is it possible in the real world for love to overcome completely different financial tastes? As I get older, I feel more and more that compatibility in this area is simply too important not to have.

(On a related note, I just have to say that adult allowances have been working great for us as a way to reduce judgments on discretionary spending.)

The pitch: “Cash with better interest”. You get the safety and stability of principal found in a money market fund, but with the higher returns of an intermediate bond fund. Here is a graph from 1990-2006 via the Stable Value Investment Association website (yellow is money market, blue is stable value, and red is bond fund):

How? In essence, stable value funds invest in intermediate-term bonds and similar investments, but the usual day-to-day fluctuations are smoothed out by the guarantee of an insurance company. For example, the insurance company guarantees that a certain amount of interest will be paid. If the actual return from investments fall short, the insurance company makes up the difference. If the actual investments outperform, then the insurance company keeps the difference.

This insurance guarantee also keeps the per-share price (NAV) at $1, much like a money market fund, even though the assets being held are riskier. Because they are limited to qualified retirement plans like a 401(k) or 403(b), they are allowed to use “book value accounting” instead of the more strict daily “market value accounting” required of most retail mutual funds.

What are the risks? In most cases, even if investments perform poorly, the insurance company will eat the loss rather than face the bad publicity. This is similar to money market funds. However, the danger is when things go so bad that the insurance company goes bankrupt. An example is the Trust Advisors Stable Value Plus fund which failed, as outlined by this NY Times article. Although technically the investors eventually recovered all their principal, it took over a year for everything to settle. There have been other isolated instances where investors have lost a portion of their principal.

To invest or not? Stable value funds are pretty popular, and found in 2/3rds of all 401(k) plans. Who wouldn’t want a fund with hardly any volatility that pays high interest? The fund in my wife’s 401(k) is “guaranteed” to earn 4.55% for all of 2008. Be careful though, because they are not all made the same. According to this study by JP Morgan Chase, returns from good/bad stable value funds can differ by up to 2% per year.

As for safety, I would treat it like a money market fund in that you should only buy if you trust the insurer and learn about the actual holdings. Otherwise, buy a bond fund somewhere else if you smell something fishy. Unfortunately, if you really want a “safe” holding place inside your 401(k), many times you don’t have much choice. Finally, I would also point out that in the end they are still bonds, and are subject to the risk of having their modest returns eaten up by inflation. If you are a young investor, stocks still provide the best long-term growth prospects.

Get a $20 Discover® Gift Card when you make $200 in purchases with your Discover Card at a participating mall between 11/01/08–01/04/09, while supplies last. Original receipts and the Discover Card used to make the purchases must be presented to a participating mall’s Customer Service by 01/04/09. Limit 5 Gift Cards per account, while supplies last, during the promotion period. Gift Card is valid through July 31, 2009.

Basically, you can get up to 10% back if you spend an exact multiple of $200, with a maximum $100 off $1,000 per Discover card account. (Additional cardholders seem to count as a separate “account”.) Not a bad deal if you’re gonna spend that much anyways. Mmm… Macbook…

During a previous year, a reader happened upon a loophole: If you return your purchase, there is no requirement to return the gift cards. Maybe you found something cheaper elsewhere. This brought up some ethical problems. Keep them? Or try handing them back to the Customer Service clerk? But be careful, because if you end up deciding to buy more stuff again later, you won’t be able to participate again since they don’t have any official mechanism to return the gift cards.

New Discover Card Sign-Up Promotions: $50 to $100
This would go nicely with the Discover More card which now offers a $50 cash bonus after spending $500. 1% cash back on most purchases, and 5% back on rotating special categories. 0% APR on purchases for 6 months.

The Discover Miles card also offers 12,000 Miles (1,000 miles per month with any purchase for a year). This can be redeemed for $100 cash credit towards any travel purchase put on the card (air, hotel, car rental), or you can get a $50 gift card + $25 cash.

As a long-term investment, a 0.7% real yield makes I-Bonds a poor choice, as you can buy TIPS with much better yields. As of yesterday, a 5-year TIPS had a 3.66% real yield.

As a short-term investment, it depends on how you think inflation will turn out in the near future.

If you buy now in November, you will earn 0.7% fixed + 4.94% based on inflation = 5.64% for the first 6 months. The second 6-month rate will be 0.7% + a variable rate based on inflation from September 2008 to March 2009. So far, the markets seem to suggest that there is a decent possibility that there might even be deflation for this period. Reminders: You must hold for at least a year (or 11 months and a day if you buy on the last day of the month). If you hold for less than 5 years, there is a penalty of the last 3-months interest.

Worst case scenario, there is deflation of worse than 0.7% which makes the total rate zero for the 2nd six months. Earning 5.64% for 6 months with an 11-month holding period gives you only an effective 3.07% APY. If say, inflation is 1%, you’d get an effective 3.54% APY for the minimum 11-month hold. Even if this is exempt from state taxes, the tax-equivalent yield won’t be far above 4%. You can do better with bank CDs.

The only scenario where I-Bonds may be better than what you can get from a bank is if you think annualized inflation will be higher than 1.5% over the next 6 months. Personally, combined with the lack of short-term liquidity, I don’t think I’d take that bet right now.

For more background, see my last post on savings bonds.

Starbucks - Free coffee
On November 4, 2008, Starbucks will give voters a free tall brewed coffee at participating U.S. stores. After voting, voters must go to a Starbucks store, where they’ll be given a tall (12 oz) cup of brewed coffee at no charge (limit one per customer). [source]

Krispy Kreme - Free star-shaped doughnut
Krispy Kreme will celebrate National Election day by offering all retail customers with an “I Voted” sticker a free star shaped doughnut with patriotic sprinkles. [source]

Ben & Jerry’s - Free ice cream
Come to participating scoop shops on November 4th from 5-8pm, and you’ll get a free scoop of ice cream. [source]

Chick-fil-A - Free chicken sandwich
At participating stores, bring in your “I voted” sticker into your local Chick-Fil-A on Tuesday, November 4th and get a free chicken sandwich. Man, do I miss living near a Chick-fil-A and their sweet tea refills…

Books-A-Million Bookstores - Free coffee
Wear your “I voted Sticker” to Books A Million on election day and recieve a cup of Joe on us! [via e-mail].

Some of these offers may make you turn in your “I Voted” sticker, so if you want to go to more than one, try to grab a few extra stickers at the polls. Early and absentee voters… you might want to print out the image above on glossy paper.

Resources: Dealnews, SlickDeals

Credit Card Debt
If you’re a new reader, let me start out as usual by explaining the credit card debt. I’m actually taking money from 0% APR balance transfer credit cards and instead of spending it, I am placing it in high-yield savings accounts that actually earn 3-4% interest or more, and keeping the difference as profit. I put together a series of step-by-step posts on how I do this. Please check it out first if you have any questions. This is why I have credit card balances - I am not accumulating more consumer debt.

Retirement and Brokerage accounts
Well, it’s time to uncover my eyes and peek at my financial statements. My retirement accounts have lost another $15,000 (14%) over the last month, in addition to the $12,000 from last month. I did not make any further investments besides the $5,000 in early October.

However, I am still planning to max out my 401k salary deferral by the end of the year, and will still be buying stocks according to my previously set asset allocation plan. I still believe that stocks are the best bet for inflation-beating returns in the long run.

Cash Savings and Emergency Funds
I remain a big proponent of emergency funds held in safe cash or cash-equivalent accounts. We now have approximately 7 months of our actual monthly expenses saved up. Increasing this is a lower priority than the 401k contributions, though.

Home Equity
I am testing out a new way of estimating our house’s value. First, I take the average estimates provided by Zillow, Cyberhomes, Coldwell Banker, and Bank of America. Then, I shave off 5% to be conservative and subtract 6% for expected real estate agent commissions (11% total). I use this final number as my estimate for home value.

I know that each of these sites can be inaccurate, but I am primarily looking for overall trends based on recent comparable sales, and this should take care of that with minimal effort. Feedback is welcome. The mortgage amount is taken directly from my loan statement. Which reminds me, I might need to see if I can argue with the tax collector about my property tax appraisal.

We are still socking away about half of our take-home pay each month, but this looks like the worst drop ever in our net worth. Let’s hope it stays the worst!

You can see our previous net worth updates here.

How to Survive and Succeed Through a Bear Market
This letter to shareholders is written by John Montgomery, founder of Bridgeway Funds, which are a group of actively managed mutual funds with a reputation of high ethical standard and putting shareholders first. It provides his insights into investing and reminds us that there is also a risk when we only invest in safe investments. An excerpt:

This is my fourth* bear market as an investor, three of which have happened since I founded Bridgeway Capital Management in 1993. Even before the last three bear markets, I studied stock market data in detail going back to 1926. I spent quite a bit of time focusing on the downturns and thinking about how to survive them and why stock market investing is still very attractive even when predictably it doesn’t feel that way. From this research I formed five principles of long-term investing that became part of Bridgeway’s investment philosophy and are interwoven into our investment process. […] I thought I’d share what I learned with our investors.

When should you change your asset allocation strategy?
This post on the Bogleheads forum was written by Rick Ferri, investment portfolio manager at Portfolio Solutions and author of several good books on index and passive investing (including All About Asset Allocation). As a portfolio manager, of course he’s been fielding a lot of phone calls recently. Here are his thoughts for the general investor. An excerpt:

Significant changes to your stock and bond asset allocation strategy is a major decision and can be compared to changing careers. There are several good reasons to change your asset allocation strategy along life’s journey. Below are three reasons I believe a person has a legitimate reason to make an asset allocation change:

1) Your target retirement goal is well within reach.
2) You realize that you will not need all your money during your lifetime.
3) You have realized that your tolerance for risk is not as high as you once thought.

Why stock picking is a losing game
This article on CNN Money is by William Bernstein, another well-known portfolio manager and author of investment books such as the Four Pillars of Investing. Here he tries to remind us that just because the indexes are dropping, it doesn’t mean it’s time to switch to something that sounds better.

I’m sure you’ve heard that while it’s fine to ride the market’s gains when times are good, you need an expert stock picker when the bear roars. Wrong: Active money managers do not suddenly gain an extra 20 IQ point advantage over the rest of the market just because the Dow is falling. The record shows that their funds have trouble competing with the index in the bad times too.

Includes:
# 6 Days Food (60 Servings) for 2 Adults
# Food is 100% Vegetarian with a 20 Year Shelf Life
# Fruit & Vegetable Dietary Supplements
# Water Filtration System (100 plus Gallon Capacity)
# Crank Flashlight/Radio/Cell Phone Charger
# Survival Multi-Tool
# Cooking Supplies/Stove/Fuel
# First Aid Supplies
# Sanitizer/Matches
# Emergency Blankets
# Compass/Whistle/Thermometer
# 2-N95 Safety Masks
# 4 Ready-to-Eat Meals (No cooking required)
# Duct Tape
# Plastic Sheeting (100 square feet; 3mm thick)
# 2 Nylon Ropes (20 feet each)
# Tube Tent
# Hygiene Kit
# 4 Hand Warmers
# 8 Water Pouches
# 2 pairs Leather Work Gloves

I know I might be able to gather most of this by myself, but I also know that I’ve been living on my own for a decade and haven’t actually done so. $100 for something that should last at least 10 years is just $10 a year. However, I am also afraid that this kit has a bunch of cheap crap thrown in it, of which I won’t realize until way too late. Right now, I just have a store of canned food and a case of water that I rotate.

Anyone else considering this? Anyone actually bought one and have a review?

Why care? The Discover More Card is just about the last credit card with a 0% APR balance transfer for 12 months, as well as a $75 balance transfer fee cap. This is important because you may have noticed that nearly all other 0% APR cards have an uncapped 3% fee. So if you transferred $10,000, the fee would be $300. On a $20,000 balance, that’d be $600!. The cap saves you lots of money, and these offers have only gotten more scarce with time.

Even though I don’t carry a balance, I have used this card to make some extra money off credit card arbitrage.

Getting Your Money
You can usually request a balance transfer to be sent directly to a card with a balance on it. (Or you could send it to a Citibank card without a balance on it, and request a refund check.) However, a reader wrote in last week to say that you can also call them up afterward and request a balance transfer check to be sent to you directly from Discover. You’ll still get the 0% APR until November 2009 and the $75 fee cap.

In addition, the card has a 5% cashback bonus program on a rotating spending category - for October to December 2008 it is grocery stores, restaurants, and movies. From July to September, it was gas and hotels. So it has the potential to be useful even after the 0% promo period.

More Options
There are few different flavors of the Discover More card if you’re looking to apply for a second one. Check out the Discover More Sealife edition, Discover More Wildlife edition, and the Discover More American Flag edition.

If you’ve been thinking about applying but putting it off, now would be the time to do it! According a Discover CSR, if you apply now to lock in the offer, you have until February to request your balance transfer.

The main point of the article is that you may need to replace a lot more than just 70-80% of your pre-retirement income after you stop working.
Here’s the chart of average replacement rates from an Aon study:

However, I am agreeing with the authors of Spend Til The End on this one - using replacement rates and averages for this sort of thing is dangerous. One should always look at their own unique situation. It’s you, isn’t it? For example, I don’t see why a household earning $100k or even $500k a year can’t get by on spending $40k per year, especially if their mortgage is paid off.

But after looking at the chart some more, something else caught my eye.

Let’s just say that your spending in retirement requires income of $40,000 per year. This is the same as assumed for a household earning $50,000 pre-retirement according to the study. Even though we earn more than that, I know that we can easily run on $40k per year outside of housing costs.

The graphic suggest that 50% of that, or $25,000 per year, will be covered by Social Security. That only leaves $15,000 per year to be covered by your pension or investment portfolio. Assuming no pension and a 4% withdrawal rate, that means you would need a nest egg of $375,000 in today’s dollars. That is much less than the multi-million dollar figures usually being thrown around.

Now, how much would you need to save to get that $375k? If you save $5,000 inflation-adjusted dollars per year, and they earn a 4% annual real (above inflation) return, every year for 35 years - you’d end up with a little over $380,000. In essence, you’d just have to max out your Roth IRA each year and call it a day. (The contribution limit is $5,000 this year, but the cap rises with inflation.)

Of course, this is all rough numbers and you’ll still have to work until the full Social Security retirement age. Most young people like myself are skeptical of Social Security, but I have come to believe that SS will be with us for a long time - it is just too critical a piece of the retirement puzzle for much of America. And hey, the solution