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TradeKing $50 Bonus Ends Tomorrow

Sun — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 17:27:07 PST

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Just a quick reminder: TradeKing’s $50 bonus for a new account promotion will end tomorrow, November 30th. This offer has been extended once, but there’s no sign it will be extended again. So, if you want to get the $50 free money, you have one more day to grab it. Check out my original post on requirements for this offer as well as the link to open an account and get the bonus.

BTW, did you participate in the Firstrade Black Friday Early Bird special?

Regular Mortgage versus Reverse Mortgage: A Comparative Study

Sun — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 07:41:05 PST

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Regular Mortgage versus Reverse Mortgage: A Comparative Study

This article is written by mortgagespecialist, a member of mortgagefit.com. She has been writing on different mortgage related topics like refinancing, second mortgage, foreclosures, etc.

A regular mortgage refers to that mortgage loan which you take in order to buy a home of your own. But, the reverse mortgage is the loan which you take by cashing out the equity locked up in your home. Reverse mortgage dose not hold the exact opposite meaning of regular mortgage, though the term implies so.

In order to find the actual differences between regular mortgage and reverse mortgage, you can check out the following points:

An individual can apply for a regular mortgage loan irrespective of his age. But, for getting a reverse mortgage loan, you have to be at least 62 years of age.
In case of a regular mortgage loan, you require to make a downpayment for getting the loan advance. After receiving the loan amount, you start making monthly payments for repaying the loan. But, in case of reverse mortgage loan, you are not required to repay the loan, until you sell your home or move to another house or pass away.
The purpose of taking a regular mortgage loan is always buying a real estate property. But, in case of reverse mortgage loan, you can use the loan amount for any purpose.
Your credit report can influence your regular mortgage loan. In fact, the interest rate that you will be paying for the mortgage loan is determined on the basis of your credit score. But, for getting a reverse mortgage loan you so not require an impressive credit report.
In case of a regular mortgage loan, you always carry the risk of foreclosure if you miss your monthly payments. You can even lose your home if you become unable to repay the loan. But, in case of reverse mortgage loan there is no chance of losing the roof over your head.
Once, you repay the regular mortgage loan, the mortgaged home is returned back to you and after your death it naturally becomes a possession of your heirs. But, in case of reverse mortgage loan, after your death, your home is not passed on to your heirs. They can own it by repaying the loan amount charged by the reverse mortgage lender.
In case of regular mortgage loan, you start with zero equity and 100% debt and as you make payments every month, gradually, your debt amount decreases and home equity rises. On the contrary, in case of a reverse mortgage loan, you begin with zero debt and 100% home equity and with the passing time, your debt burden rises with a falling home equity.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sun — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:18:18 PST

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Happy Thanksgiving!

There are a lot things to be thankful for on this day of giving thanks, family, friends, colleagues. But here on this blog, I’d like to thank everybody for their participation, reading, commenting, or simply stopping by. Without your the reader, it would be impossible for the site to exist fore more than two years. So on this Thanksgiving Day, I wish everybody a happy one.

The economy is bad, but we still have a holiday to celebrate

Why You Should Make Room for Charitable Giving in Your Budget

Sun — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 07:23:03 PST

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Why You Should Make Room for Charitable Giving in Your Budget

Following is a guest post written by Jonathan from Master Your Card.

You already know you should have a budget. It’s likely that you also know how to set the budget up: categorize your spending, allocate your income, yadda yadda yadda. What you may not realize is that when the time comes to figure out where your money should go you’re probably missing one very important category: Charitable giving.

You might be thinking, “Wait just a minute here. Everyone else already wants my money, and now I’m supposed to make room in my budget to give money to people who aren’t going to give me anything in return?”

Well, yeah.

You don’t have to give a ton of money to charity, although it would be nice if you could. You should plan your charitable giving to correspond with how much you can comfortably afford to let go. Even if it’s only ten dollars a month, that’s still ten dollars that might help a charitable organization do a lot of good for someone who needs help.

So why should you give away your hard-earned money?

You’re fortunate. If you’re sitting there reading this on your own computer, with a coffee by your side, then you’re probably already richer than a good portion of people throughout the world. Money might sometimes be tight for you, but will a bout of diarrhea send you to your deathbed? Do you spend nights listening to your children whimper in their sleep because they’re so hungry? There are some people in this world who have no options and no way out of the cycle of poverty except for when an organization comes along and gives them a helping hand.

You have a cause. What are you passionate about? Are you an animal activist? Do you attend a church that you adore? Does your political party make you ecstatic? These organizations – and others – can only exist because there are people who are willing to give money without receiving anything in return. You will feel like more of an owner of a cause when you actually contribute to it.

You can deduct charitable donations on your taxes. If you need financial incentive for giving money away, consider the fact that most charitable giving is tax deductible and may reduce the total amount you owe when tax time rolls around. Be sure to keep the receipts you get for your donations.

It’s nice. If no other reason tugs at your heartstrings (or purse strings), give money to charity because it’s the nice thing to do. After all, you never know when you might actually need a little help. Charitable organizations don’t solely work to help people in faraway countries. Imagine a natural disaster flattening your neighborhood, but no funding for the Red Cross to come in and assist you.

Give what you can, when you can, and as cheerfully as you can. Don’t feel bad if you can’t give a bunch of money. The point is to set aside some money each month to go to a charitable cause you believe in. You’ll quickly find that the organization is just as grateful for a $20 donation as it is for a $200 donation.

Quarterly GDP Down 0.5% in Third Quarter - Chart of the Day

Sun — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 20:43:10 PST

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Quarterly GDP Down 0.5% in Third Quarter - Chart of the Day

The Commerce Department released revised quarterly GDP data yesterday, showing that the nation’s economy contracted in the third quarter. The 0.5% annual decline in domestic gross product from July to September is worse than the initially estimated 0.3% and it’s the severest since the third quarter of 2001 when the economy shrank 1.4%.

Since the crisis began last summer, we have seen two negative GDP figures (the first one was the fourth quarter of 2007), but no consecutive declines, which means the economy is not statistically in a recession yet. The general definition of recession is “two consecutive quarters of negative growth (or contraction) of gross domestic product (GDP).” Looking at the above chart, there were no two consecutive quarterly negative GDP growth from 2000 to 2002 when the dot com bubble burst either, but everybody knew the economy was in a recession, just like how everybody is seeing the economy now.

Given what happened in October and so far in November, we may have an official recession when the data for the fourth quarter comes out.

*Data source: Bureau of Economic Analysis

Firstrade Black Friday Promotion: Get a FREE iPod Nano

Sun — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:27:34 PST

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Firstrade Black Friday Promotion: Get a FREE iPod Nano

You should put this on your Black Friday shopping list if a low-cost brokerage account is also what you have on your mind.

Firstrade (my Firstrade review), an online discount broker that I talked quite a lot on this blog, is going to have a Black Friday Early Bird Promotion from November 28th 7:00 AM ET to 1:00 PM ET. If you among the first 200 applicants to open an account with the broker, you will receive a free 8 GB iPod Nano.

Terms & Conditions of this promotion include:

Be one of the first 200 to open an account from November 28th 7:00 AM ET to 1:00 PM ET;
Use promotion code EARLYBIRD08 to while opening your new account;
Fund the account with at least $3,000 by deposit or account transfer;
Make one trade within 30 days after opening the account;
Receive your free.

From the picture, it looks like it’s a 4th generation Nano with market price around $150 (Amazon.com sell 8 GB 4th generation Nano at $135). To get and keep the Nano, you will have to keep your initial deposit in the account for at least nine months. Otherwise,

If the initial deposit is withdrawn or the account is closed or transferred, the value of the Promotion Reward ($150) may be deducted from the account.

Interested? Get up early and grab your free Nano using this link

BTW, speaking of broker promotion, the $50 bonus from TrakeKing is still available. You can get the bonus if you open an account before this Sunday, November 30.

Get Your Free EASEUS Partition Manager Pro

Sun — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:53:49 PST

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Get Your Free EASEUS Partition Manager Pro

If you are looking for a good software to manage your hard drive’s partition, here’s your chance to get the EASEUS Partition Manager Pro (short review on PCWorld) for free (Source: LifeRock2.0). For a limited time, WinVistaClub is giving away free unlimited download of the software, usually priced at $39.99. To get your copy, go to WinVistaClub to get the free download link and user name and password.

Hurry up! The offer could be gone in a day or two

FDIC Problem Bank List Now Includes 171 Banks

Sun — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:31:03 PST

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

FDIC Problem Bank List Now Includes 171 Banks

In just three months, the number of problem banks has gone up from 117 to 171, an increase of 46%!

When the FDIC released its second quarter bank profile in August, the agency said it has 117 banks on its watch list, a record number at that time. Today, in the third quarter FDIC bank profile report (PDF file), the number of troubled banks surged to 171, while assets at these problem banks also saw a big jump, growing from $78.3 billion in the second quarter to $115.6 billion at the end of the third quarter. According to the FDIC, this is the first time since 1994 that assets at problem institutions have exceeded the $100 billion mark. The report also includes some disturbing numbers regarding the health of the nation’s financial institutions:

Bank net quarterly income at $1.7 billion, a decline of $27 billion, 94%, from the third quarter in 2007, the second lowest since 1990;
Loan loss provisions surged to $50.5 billion during the third quarter, more than three times the loss during the same period a year ago;
73 institutions were absorbed during the third quarter in mergers;
Nine banks failed in the third quarter, the highest quarterly failure in 15 years, with the failure of Washington Mutual being the largest ever in the agency’s 75-year history (9 already in the first two months of the fourth quarter).

Yesterday, Citigroup again has to be rescued by the government when it received another $20 billion bailout money on top of the $25 billion it already got. Not sure whether Citi will be put on the problem bank list next quarter. If it is included, then you can expect another leap in troubled assets when the FDIC releases its fourth quarter report.

*Photo from Digitaljournal.com

Safest Cars from Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

Sun — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:54:46 PST

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Safest Cars from Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) today released its top safety picks for 2009. The reward is given to vehicles that

do the best job of protecting people in front, side, and rear crashes based on good ratings in Institute tests. Winners also have to have electronic stability control (ESC), which research shows significantly reduces crash risk.

For 2009 model year, a total of 72 vehicles won recognitions from IIHS after going through vigorous tests that are designed to evaluate how drivers and passengers are protected in crash from all directions, front, side, and rear. According to IIHS, winners of this year’s awards come from all car categories and the number of vehicles getting the nod is twice as many as that of last year, a sign that automakers are improving the safety of the vehicles they build. Actually, that’s what this reward is all about: “providing incentives for manufacturers to offer safer vehicle designs that go far beyond basic federal standards.” For example, more cars now have side airbag as a standard safety equipment and electronic stability control (ESC) is also more common now than before.

Among the auto manufactures participating the test, Ford and its Volvo division won the most rewards at 16 while Honda and its Acura brand received 13 top picks. Chrysler, on the other hand, is the only major automaker that failed to receive a single reward.

Following is the list of 2009 model year cars receiving IIHS top safety pick. More details can be found in the status report (PDF file).

Large cars

Acura RL
Audi A6
Cadillac CTS
Ford Taurus
Lincoln MKS
Mercury Sable
Toyota Avalon
Volvo S80

Midsize cars

Acura TL, TSX
Audi A3, A4
BMW 3 series 4-door
Ford Fusion with optional ESC
Honda Accord 4-door
Mercedes C class
Mercury Milan with optional ESC
Saab 9-3
Subaru Legacy
Volkswagen Jetta, Passat

Midsize convertibles

Saab 9-3
Volkswagen Eos
Volvo C70

Small cars

Honda Civic 4-door with optional ESC (except Si)
Mitsubishi Lancer with optional ESC
Scion xB
Subaru Impreza with optional ESC
Toyota Corolla with optional ESC
Volkswagen Rabbit 4-door

Minicar

Honda Fit with optional ESC
Minivans
Honda Odyssey
Hyundai Entourage
Kia Sedona

Large SUVs

Audi Q7
Buick Enclave
Chevrolet Traverse
GMC Acadia
Saturn Outlook

Midsize SUVs

Acura MDX, RDX
BMW X3, X5
Ford Edge, Flex, Taurus X
Honda Pilot
Hyundai Santa Fe, Veracruz
Infiniti EX35
Lincoln MKX
Mercedes M class
Nissan Murano
Saturn VUE
Subaru Tribeca
Toyota FJ Cruiser, Highlander
Volvo XC90

Small SUVs

Ford Escape
Honda CR-V, Element
Mazda Tribute
Mercury Mariner
Mitsubishi Outlander
Nissan Rogue
Subaru Forester
Toyota RAV4
Volkswagen Tiguan

Large pickups

Ford F-150
Honda Ridgeline
Toyota Tundra

Small pickup

Toyota Tacoma

American Express $20 Cashback for Shopping at Walmart

Sun — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:27:51 PST

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

American Express $20 Cashback for Shopping at Walmart

American Express, together with Walmart, is offering its cardholders a $20 statement credit when spending $40 or more twice at Walmart stores or online at walmart.com (Dealsea.com).

The cashback is offered via American Express Network. To receive this $20 credit, you will need to enroll your AMEX card (I enrolled my AMEX TrueEarnings Card) by providing necessary card information such as name, card number, expiration date, etc. Once you are done with the registration, a confirmation page (it’s always a good idea to print out the confirmation, I usually save it as a PDF file) will show that you are going to get the $20 credit when shopping at Walmart and spending at least $40 twice. The fine print of this offer says

You will be charged in full at the point-of-sale and your savings will automatically be credited to your statement within 5 days after you spend $40 or more 2 times from November 18 through December 18, 2008.

Not a bad deal if you are going to Walmart on Black Friday

Use this link to enroll and get the free money.

Quicken Online New Features and Demo Video

Sun — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 12:08:20 PST

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Quicken Online New Features and Demo Video

A little over a month ago, Quicken made Quicken Online free for everybody who wants to use it. Quicken Online is a online tool that allows you to perform some basic money management functions such as tracking you expenses, making a budget, reminding you unpaid bills and checking your financial goals, etc. I have been using a stand alone version of Quicken for years and feel it’s a quite convenient tool, though I only use it to track my investments.

Since the launch of free Quicken Online, some new changes have been made, including new features such as:

What’s left until your next paycheck: Now Quicken online can show you how much you still have in your account before your next payday. It can also give your a visual forecast of how your balance will go up and down day by day.

How your bills affect your balance: Quicken Online can also remind you how much time you still have before a bill is due. This new feature shows you alerts for all your linked account, with one reminder for each account. With this feature, you easily see all the bills that need to be paid soon.

I wrote a short Quicken Online review before. If you are not familiar with the tool, check out the new Quicken Online demo video to get an idea of the tool and the new features.

Update on DollarSavingsDirect Account

Sun — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:42:17 PST

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Update on DollarSavingsDirect Account

It has been two weeks since I opened an account at DollarSavingsDirect. Since the account has been verified and it’s up and running. Here are a few updates on the account.

Trail Deposits

I opened the account on Sunday, November 9th. During the application process, I was told that the two small trail deposits will be posted to the external account (Bank of America checking account) I want to link to on the following business day. However, those deposits didn’t show up in my BoA account until November 12th, three business days later. So you can expect some delays in verifying your external accounts. Once the account is verified, I was able to make another deposit.

External Account Link

After linking to my BoA checking account, I also tried to link my savings account at Capital One to it because I have most of my cash with them right now and I’d like to move cash directly between savings accounts in stead of going through my BoA checking. But two days passed without seeing anything happening. Then I noticed this on my DSD account:

Please write your DollarSavingsDirect account number on the memo line of the voided check and mail your voided check along with your completed Account Verification Authorization Form to: DollarSavingsDirect, Attn: Account Fulfillment, 13 Croton Avenue, Ossining, NY 10562.

After we receive your voided check and verify ownership of the requested funding account, two small deposits and matching withdrawals will be made to the new linked account. You are required to verify these amounts as you did for your initial funding account before you can perform any transfers to or from the newly added external funding account.

So basically it says I have to send in a voided check to get my Capital One account linked to DSD. But that’s not the case when I setup my initial external link.

I called the bank later and was told that only the first external bank account can be verified electronically, as they did with my BoA checking account, but after that any external link will have to be verified by paper, as I was told to do above. When I told the CSR I don’t have a check for the second account because it’s a savings account, she reminded me that only checking account (their disclousure) can be linked to DSD, not savings account, not money market account.

What I decided to do is to link to DSD from Capital One, not the other way around, because they don’t have such a restriction and all verifications are done electronically. Now I am still waiting for the trial deposits to show up in my DSD account.

External ACH Transfer Limit

I was trying to find out the ACH transfer limit on DollarSavingsDirect website, but couldn’t. So I asked the CSR and was told that the daily ACH transfer-out limit is $1,000,000, but it has to be done in two transfers, which means each ACH transfer can move a maximum of $500,000 out of the account. There’s no limit on how much you can tranfer to DollarSavingsDirect, but the ACH transfers is part of the six monthly withdraws limit.

Are you using DollarSavingsDirect? Share your experience with us

Weekend Linkage - November 23, 2008

Sun — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 07:42:00 PST

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Weekend Linkage - November 23, 2008

Market Recap

U.S. stocks fell for the third straight weeks this week as concerns over the fate of Citigroup and Detroit’s Big Three weighed on stocks. On Thursday, the S&P 500 index even closed at its lowest level in 11 years after a report from the Labor Department showed weekly jobless claims rose to the highest level since 1987. Even though Citi announced another 52,000 job cut last week in an effort to cut costs, the move by CEO Pandit failed to win investor confidence. The stock dropped to below $4 a share on Friday, a price not seen since 1982. The stock of General Motors, the largest U.S. automaker, once touched $1.70, the lowest since 1940. After two consecutive days of decline, stocks rallied on Friday after news reported that the president of New York Federal Reserve Bank is to be tapped as the next Treasury chief, removing one of the uncertainties.

For the week, the Dow dropped 5.3% to 8,046.42, the S&P 500 lost 8.4% to 800.03, and the NASDAQ declined 8.74% to 1,384.35. As global economy slowed down dramatically, demands for oil plunged, sending crude oil price to $49.93 a barrel, a loss of 11.63% for the week. Gold, on the other hand, went up 6.58% to close at $791.50 an ounce, while silver went to the opposite direction, downing 0.52% to $9.505/ounce.

Weekend Links

Carnivals

Rich Life Carnival #20 @ Rich Life Carnival
Money Hacks Carnival #39 @ Moolanomy
Carnival of Personal Finance #179 - Smile Edition @ Money Ning
festival of frugality #152: affected by recession edition @ Financial Fitness Project
Money Myths, Madness, and Mayhem - The 85th Edition of the Carnival of Money Stories @ Ask Mr. Credit Card

Citi Closed My Dividend Platinum Select Card

Sun — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 13:27:39 PST

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Citi Closed My Dividend Platinum Select Card

A couple of days ago, I received a letter from Citi, informing me that my Dividend Platinum Select card will be closed soon due to inactivity after a routine account review.

It’s true that I haven’t used that card for a long time. In fact, I didn’t even active that card since they decided to upgrade it to Dividend World MasterCard one and half years ago because I don’t like the rewards program that comes along with the new card and I don’t plan to use it again. So I don’t really care whether they close that card or keep it open. However, there are a couple of things I’d like to do before the account is officially shut down.

Impact on Credit Limit

From the credit report I obtained last weekend when I took advantage of the Equifax free credit watch offer, the card is shown with a $13,000 credit limit. When I closed some other cards before, I always asked if it’s possible to move the credit limit of the card being closed to other cards with the same issuer. The reason is, while I don’t need the card any more, I don’t want see a drop of my total credit limits which will cause an increase of the debt-to-credit ratio. If I can move the credit limit to other cards, the ratio will be the same even when one card is closed. From my experience, the card issuer usually has no problem reassign the credit limit to other cards for me.

Impact on Credit History

Whenever a card is closed, the length of the credit history will always affected, and the older the account, the bigger the impact. The original Citi Dividend card was opened in August 2004. That’s a little more than 4 years old, not that long. The Equifax credit report says my average account age is nearly seven years old. So closing the Dividend card won’t have any significant negative impact on my credit, especially given that I have a total of 18 revolving accounts.

The bad thing about credit cards being closed because of inactivities is that the cards are likely to be old cards. I have several cards that I opened a long time ago, but abandanded because I got cards with better rewards later. If the Dividend card is older than the average account age, I will definitely keep it open.

The Growing List of Failed Banks

Sun — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:56:21 PST

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

The Growing List of Failed Banks

I am not really worried about Citi right now, despite that investors who question the bank’s ability to sustain mounting losses from toxic loans and bad investments have pushed Citi stock to below $4 a share on Friday, the lowest in 16 years (hope you didn’t buy Citi stock). Citi has raised some $70 billion since the sub-prime led crisis began last summer. A few weeks ago, it received another $25 billion bailout money from the government. But now the once-largest bank in the world only has a market value of $20.5 billion. I guess the government should wait till now to buy the entire bank, so nobody worries about their cash position. BTW, the bank is reportedly talking to the government to get another round of capital injection (Reuters).

While Citi is still hanging in there, there are smaller banks that are not so lucky, falling victim to the financial crisis. FDIC today announced that three more bank and thrifts have failed:

PFF Bank and Trust, Pomona, CA
Downey Savings and Loan, Newport Beach, CA
The Community Bank, Loganville, GA

Downey is the 23rd largest bank in the nation and PFF ranks 38th.

So far this year, a total of 22 banks and thrifts have been taken over by the government. And the pace of bank failures has accelerated in recent months: 4 in October and 5 in November. With one more month to go, expect more to be added to the growing list.