The Sun's Financial Diary

Unlike our taxable investments which consist of quite a large number of mutual funds, ETFs, and stocks, I try to maintain a small number of funds in our IRA accounts and use mostly Vanguard index funds to keep the expenses low. Among the total of 10 funds in our IRA investments, we own Vanguard Total [...]

Our second daughter is more than 4 months old already, yet I waited till yesterday to set up an 529 plan account for her. I wasn’t really waiting for anything. It has been on my mind since she was born, but I kept delaying it with no good excuses. If I didn’t read Lazy Man’s [...]

CompUSA has TRENDNet 54Mbps Wireless Firewall Router (802.11b/g) for free after $40 mail-in rebates ($20 CompUSA rebate plus $20 TRENDNet rebate). The product is sold-out for delivery, but seems to be available for in-store pickup. Rebates expire August 4, 2007.
If you are willing to pay a little more, they also have TRENDNet 108Mbps Wireless Firewall [...]

Globguru at Money, Matter and More Musings has 10 simple steps to becoming wealth. However, you have to let the money work for you as well.
Ben at Money Smart Life talks about gambling for fun and profits. Investing and gambling, some rules apply for both, but you are not gambling when investing.
Silicon Valley Blogger [...]

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Vanguard launched a new international equity ETF on July 26, 2007. The latest offering, Vanguard Europe Pacific ETF (VEA), tracks Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Europe, Australasia, Far East (EAFE) Index. The index comprises 21 developed economies (PDF file) outside of North America, including Japan, United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, [...]

Last weekend I emailed Emigrant Direct to close my account. While there isn’t really additional issue that prevents me from shutting down the account immediately, I did get a notice from Emigrant Direct early this week, warning me that if I close the account right now, the interests earned so far this month will be [...]

It was just two weeks ago I was all smile when the Dow gained 283 points in one day on its way to the 14,000 mark, which was reached exactly one week ago today. That gain, however, was all but gone as the index lost 527 points in the past 5 sessions. Markets in earning [...]

As I stated before, my investment objective is to generate passive incomes from investments. To reach that goal, I am trying to build a portfolio with dividend-paying stocks and mutual funds/ETFs. Among my dividend generators, one that I particularly like is Alpine Dynamic Dividend Fund (ADVDX). I started investing in ADVDX in April 2006 [...]

My wife’s employer started to offer Roth 401(k) plan through Fidelity this year. While it’s good to know that there’s a new saving vehicle available, we decided not to participate after examining the pros and cons of the plan at that time. The main reason was that it doesn’t offer more benefits than the traditional [...]