The Sun's Financial Diary

Partially. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that Scottrade, my long-time stock broker is about to launch its own flexible dividend reinvestment program, which the brokerage firm says will be different from the traditional dividend reinvestment program (DRIP) that automatically reinvest dividends after they have been received without investors’ intervention. In fact, none of [...]

This time last year, I wrote that Scottrade, a discount online stock brokerage that I have been using since 2001, was about to launch its own free dividend reinvestment program. I was really excited when I first heard that the program might be available in the fall of 2012 because that’s what I have been [...]

I’m about to do something that I rarely do.  Admit that I made a mistake.  I’ve lamented before about how credit scores can be a notoriously fickle thing and can begin to drop rapidly if you start missing payments.  With a slight bit of shame, I’m about to give you a personal case study in [...]

Airline tickets are getting more and more expensive these days. A few years ago, I could a round-trip to China in September for something like $800. But now, the cost is 50% more for flying even in the off-peak season and more than doubled in the summer. And this doesn’t just happen to international flights. [...]

Online discount broker OptionsHouse is currently running a promotion which will give away Google Nexus Tablet for free to new customers when certain conditions are met. In order to get the free Google Nexus Tablet, you will need to satisfy the following requirements: Open an OptionsHouse brokerage account using promo code FIRE during the promotional [...]

I have been a Scottrade customer for years and whenever I need to add fund to my brokerage account, I use an external bank account linked to the Scottrade brokerage account to transfer money before buying stocks (see my post on how to fund Scottrade brokerage account). It is quite convenient actually, though the system [...]

It looks like buying ETFs without commission is getting a lot easier these days. Late last week, Charles Schwab, the brokerage firm that introduced no-transaction fee mutual fund supermarket 20 years ago, announced the creation of the equivlant of ETF supermarket, called Schwab ETF OneSource. The online ETF trading platform allows Schwab customers to buy [...]

In the past, when it was time to enroll our medical insurance plan, we always selected the option with the least amount of premium and usually it was the HMO plan. For us, the decision was rather easy to make: Both of us are in good health and the only time of the year that [...]