http://www.mymoneyblog.com Personal Finance and Investing Blog Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:31:28 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Still not much action in interest rate land, but here's another update. Reward Checking Accounts These are checking accounts, usually through local credit unions, that pay a very high interest rate if you jump through some hoops each month. However, if you make a mistake you'll forfeit virtually all your ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/savings-account-interest-rate-updates.html Just a quick note that Sprint conditional call forwarding is now free of charge. This means that Sprint customers can now forward all busy and unanswered phone calls to Google Voice without incurring the previous $.20/minute for conditional call forwarding – normal minutes usage still applies. ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/follow-up-google-voicemail-now-works-with-sprint.html After having some more issues with our 15-year old car, we may be in the market for a new or lightly used car. We were looking at the Honda Fit (the newest gen looks even better than the previous one), and went to a local dealer for a ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/costco-auto-buying-program-experiences.html Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK) recent announcement that it was buying railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI) also included a provision for a 50-for-1 stock split of B shares so that smaller shareholders of BNI would be able to be converted to Berkshire shares and avoid capital gains. Warren Buffett ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/berkshire-hathaway-stock-split-sp-500-index-funds.html I've written about Kiva before - They allows individuals to make loans starting at $25 to low-income entrepreneurs in the developing world, also known as microcredit. By doing so, you can provide affordable working capital for the poor (money to buy a sewing machine, livestock, etc.), hopefully empowering them to ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/what-kiva-is-not-really-person-to-person-lending.html Speaking of LendingClub, I saw that they now offer a IRA with no opening fees and no annual maintenance fees. Previously, there was a $250 annual fee. However, it does now require an increased $15,000 minimum opening balance, which essentially restricts it to a ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/lendingclub-offers-no-fee-ira.html Over at Bogleheads there was an interesting thread which explored how finance professor Moshe Milevsky has been pushing the concept of human capital as an additional variable to the traditional ideas of net worth, portfolio construction, and asset allocation. These are explored in this this trade magazine article ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/human-capital-are-you-a-stock-or-a-bond.html Need to check your credit score? Here's a new coupon for 26% off real FICO scores and all other credit products at myFico.com. Use the promotional code NOVEMBER26 to get 26% off and a FICO score for less than $12, the best discount currently available: The code is good until ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/over-25-off-real-fico-scores-at-myficocom.html Benjamin Roth was a lawyer in Youngstown, Ohio during the Great Depression and kept a regular diary of his impressions during the era. The diary was required reading for his son who also became a lawyer at the firm he started, in order to understand what their ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/the-great-depression-a-diary-book-review.html Coin-changing machine operator CoinStar is running a promotion where if you change $40 in coins into a gift card, you can receive an additional $10 gift card by mail. They offer to exchange coins into gift cards with no fee for several stores, the most popular probably ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/coinstar-promo-get-10-more-with-40-in-coins.html BBVA Compass Bank is offering a free 8gb iPod Touch when you open a checking account with $100 and set up direct deposit for 6 months. Unfortunately, there are a lot of restrictions. For one, you must reside in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, or ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/free-8gb-ipod-touch-offer-from-bbva-compass-bank.html California has come up with another "creative" way to get some money from its residents. First, I had to figure out how to redeem my California IOU. Now starting back on November 1st, the state increased the income tax withholding on regular wages by 10%. ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/california-increases-income-tax-witholding-by-10.html Hawaiian Airlines is celebrating their 80th anniversary by giving out 80 free miles to anyone who registers, or every 80th person will get an $80 eCertificate. As usual, this is a free way to reset miles expiration. Ends today (11/11)! Register here. All of us here at ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/free-80-hawaiian-airlines-miles.html In case you missed this on the front page of Google today, they are offering free WiFi at 47 participating airports and on every Virgin America flight from now until January 15, 2010. Many other airports already offer free internet, so give it a try when traveling. From ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/google-offers-free-internet-in-47-airports-until-115.html Online broker TradeKing has extended their $50 sign-up bonus for new accounts another month, until November 30th. You must open with $2,500, fund within 30 days, and make a trade within 180 days of account opening. 4) To qualify for this offer, new accounts must be opened and ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/tradeking-50-bonus-extended-to-november-31st.html Mentioned previously, the cash rebate promotion offered by Prosper person-to-person lending has been extended to December 31st. Original promotion - Invest $1,000 to $4,999 by November 15, and you will still receive your 1% cash bonus by December 4. - Invest $5,000 or more by November 15, and you will still receive your ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/prosper-cash-rebate-promotion-extended.html Just got an e-mail from MicroPlace that they are running a gift certificate promotion where if you buy a $20 GC, you get another $20 GC free. The gift recipient can then lend out the money to a poor entrepreneur and receive interest + $20 back later. ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/microplace-buy-a-20-gift-certificate-get-one-free.html Here's a nice credit card offer for those interested in international travel. The Chase British Airways Visa Signature card is offering 50,000 BA Executive Club miles for new cardmembers with first purchase, and another 50,000 BA miles after spending $2,000 within 3 months, for 100,000 miles total. ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/british-airways-credit-card-100000-miles-offer.html I recently watched the film Story of Stuff, which is a film about the lifecycle of material goods. While the video has its biases and has thus become politically controversial, I still think the video is worth viewing with a critical mind. There is some good debate on ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/planned-vs-perceived-obsolescence.html Click below or on the thumbnail above to see the whole thing. Credit to Scordit. http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/should-i-buy-this-gadget-heres-a-helpful-flowchart.html Prosper.com was the first big name in the person-to-person lending space. Things have been quiet recently, as they took a while getting SEC approval for their investment notes. In addition, the problems with "old" Prosper included the fact that they let just about anyone apply for ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/prosper-p2p-50-for-new-lenders-up-to-2-rebate-bonus.html The new fixed rate for Series I Savings Bonds ("I Bonds") was announced on Monday to be 0.3%. This is a follow-up to the ~3.07% inflation rate previously calculated based on CPI-U data. As a long-term investment, a 0.3% real yield makes I-Bonds a slightly worse choice than ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/savings-i-bonds-november-2009-fixed-rate-03.html Here's a timely offer, at least for me. New-ish online broker OptionsHouse is offering 100 free trades when you open a new account with at least $3,000 with the promo code FREE100. The 100 free trades work for both stock and options trades, and are good ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/optionshouse-promotional-code-295trade-100-free-trades-to-start.html Schwab just sent me a press release announcing their new series of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that have low operating expense ratios and passively track indexes. The most commonly-noted drawback of ETFs is that you must buy them like a stock and thus pay trade commissions. However, ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/new-schwab-etfs-indexed-low-cost-no-commission-with-schwab-account.html Credit Card Debt In the past, I have taken money from credit cards at 0% APR and placed it into online savings accounts, bank CDs, or savings bonds that earn 4-5% interest (much less recently), and keeping the difference as profit. I even put together a series of step-by-step posts ... http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2009/11/monthly-net-worth-goals-update-november-2009.html