After my parents learned of my interest in personal finance topics over Thanksgiving, my mom just sent me her last 401k statement and asked me what I thought. She is 55, and works for a small firm and therefore her 401k is serviced by a small company with limited fund choices. I won’t reveal total amounts, but here is the breakdown:
Dodge & Cox Income Fund (DODIX) [Bonds]- 26%
Amer Funds Washington Mutual (RWMEX) [Lg Cap Value]- 18%
American Funds Growth Fund (RGAEX) [Lg Cap Growth] – 18%
Royce Total Return (RYTRX) [Sm Cap Value]- 9%
Columbia Acorn (LACAX) [Sm Cap Growth]- 9%
Amer Funds EuroPacific Growth (REREX) [Lg Cap Int’l]- 13%
AIM Real Estate (IARAX) [Real Estate]- 7%
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Archives for November 2005
Evaluating My Parent’s 401k Portfolio, Part 1
November 29, 2005 By 18 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.Last updated: August 5, 2006
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned. MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.
Saving Bonds Revisited – Rate Comparisons and Thoughts
November 28, 2005 By 14 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.(Please also see the previous discussion of Savings Bonds)
The end of November has snuck up on me, and I’ve been putting off until now deciding whether to buy more I-Type Savings Bonds. I already did the math to see the rates for the worst case scenario (deflation), but that is pretty unlikely. The CPI-U, which is what the inflation component of I-Bonds is based on, only rose 0.2% in October. Instead of trying to predict inflation rates, let’s just see what the overall rate will be for different rates of inflation. I will compare rates for holding the I-Bond for 12 months and then redeeming them with the associated penalties, in order to compare it with a 1-Year Bank CD. I will also assume that you can buy at the end of the month to shorten the actual hold time to 11 months.
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Last updated: October 10, 2011
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned. MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.
How To Get Around The $100,000 FDIC Limits
November 28, 2005 By 6 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.Most people have seen the notices online or in your physical bank that your deposits in an FDIC Insured bank account are insured up to $100,000. But what if you find yourself with more than $100,000 in cash? Say, in between home selling and buying? Well, one easy way is to simply open another account at another bank (You can verify that they are indeed FDIC Insured at this FDIC webpage.)
You can also get around those limits all at one bank if you notice that accounts in different ownership categories, like individual and joint accounts, are insured separately. I found a handy chart [pdf] explaining this from Emigrant Direct’s FAQ Page:
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Last updated: April 29, 2014
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned. MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.
How Much Did You Spend Over Thanksgiving Weekend?
November 27, 2005 By 11 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.I haven’t eaten out and shopped this much in a 4-day span in my life. Multiple Outlet Malls. Multiple fancy seafood restaurants. I don’t know the totals, but I’m sure it’s over $500. According to this IBD article ‘Thanksgiving take totals $28 billion’, we are above average (not sure about per-person though):
The average amount spent over the long weekend was $302.81, up from $265.15 last year, and accounted for almost 36% of buyers’ holiday shopping. In addition, one in 13 people already finished shopping for the holidays.
So, I made a little poll to see how you all compared:
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Last updated: October 10, 2011
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned. MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.
Sorry
November 26, 2005 By 4 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.To all the people being dragged to all the outlet stores and shopping malls within a 100 mile radius this weekend… Sorry. I’ll be the guy keeping a spot in line while various women pile items in my sore arms.
Last updated: November 26, 2005
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned. MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.
Thanks
November 24, 2005 By 2 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.
I have countless things to be thankful for today. One of them is you – the readers. Not only have I learned a lot from y’all, but having readers helps me blog, and blogging has helped push me towards my new career path. And then there’s the bloggers, from whom I’ve also gained knowledge and inspiration. Finally, I am thankful I’m not a turkey. So… Thanks! =)
If you haven’t seen it already – Black Friday Ads 2005.
Last updated: November 24, 2005
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned. MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.
Giving In To The Credit Cards
November 23, 2005 By 8 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.(Typing quietly while the parents are still asleep, shh…) I’ve decided to take advantage of two recent credit card offers:
1) The Citi Professional Card for it’s 3% back on restaurants, $100 bonus, and save-able 0% balance transfer, and
2) The Discover Miles Card for it’s no-fee 0% balance transfer for 12 months.
I was going to apply for another Citi Card, but I decided that would be redundant since you can move credit limits around with Citi and simply put all your credit limit onto the one card you are using for 0%. I am going to apply for both at the same today, hopefully today. I’ll post more on why later, but it’s basically so the credit agencies won’t be able to see I applied for the other card, maximizing my credit limit and chance at acceptance for both cards. Now to figure out exactly how to cook a turkey.
Last updated: March 13, 2014
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned. MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.
Buying T-Bills: Can’t Back Out After Rate Announcement
November 22, 2005 By 10 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.
One bad thing about purchasing Treasury Bills at TreasuryDirect is that you don’t know the exact return of the T-Bill before you buy it. An interesting idea around this was presented by commenter Dan when I first posted about buying T-Bills:
You don’t have to commit until you know the price. 1. Schedule the transaction. 2. The auction will be on Monday for 3- or 6- month T-bills and Tuesday for 1-month T-Bills. 3. On Wednesday, look at your pending transactions. … At the bottom of the page, you have two button options. … “Delete” (which I assume means cancel the transaction, though I haven’t done it myself).
Last updated: August 5, 2006
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned. MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.
XBOX 360 Flipping: Failure
November 22, 2005 By 14 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.
I failed in my Xbox 360 flipping mission. Apparently people are just crazy over this Xbox thing. I went at 6:45am (store opened at 7), and the people who camped out had already gotten the vouchers and wanted to sell me one for $1,000. Madness. Prices are still mega-inflated on eBay, but you can find the occassional auction for $500 or so if you are lucky. Although I wouldn’t get this thing for my kid anyways.
Microsoft is wicked. Wicked smart! Dec 26th and these things will be on every shelf.
Last updated: August 5, 2006
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned. MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.
Carnival Time!
November 21, 2005 By Leave a Comment
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.This week’s Carnival of Debt Reduction #10 is up at Boston Gal’s Open Wallet, and the Carnival of Personal Finance #23 is up at Frugal For Life!
Last updated: December 29, 2014
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned. MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.
If You’re Gonna Buy Online, Get Cash Back
November 20, 2005 By 9 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.
Oh, the smell of wallets opening is in the air. My parents have already directed me to find the most direct route to the nearest outlet malls. I’m so sad that I will be forced into the writhing frantic mass that is Black Friday shoppers. I like shopping online so much better.
If you’re gonna shop online, don’t forget to use Cash Back portals like Ebates and FatCash. If you carefully click through their link and then buy something, they’ll give you a percentage back as a rebate on your purchase somewhere down the line. This is in addition using a properly chosen cashback credit card. I always manage to forget to use them, so I’ve actually put a Post-it on my monitor with EBATES written on it. Check both to see which is offering the best cash back rate.
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Last updated: December 29, 2014
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned. MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.
Xbox 360 Flipping
November 19, 2005 By 11 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.
I don’t even play video games, but I am going to try and buy an Xbox 360 early on my way to the airport before my parents’ flight lands since it coincides with the official release date. I used to flip gadgets in college, so why not start doing it again? If they don’t have it when I stop by, I’m just going to give up, no camping out here. Some of the prices on eBay are mind-boggling.
And it isn’t even out yet! People are bidding on vapor-xboxes.
Last updated: August 9, 2018
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned. MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.
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