The Sun's Financial Diary

Since Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity started the best and worst money moves last Monday, many have shared their stories with us and a lot can be learned from their personal experience. Looking back the road of our investment of the past five years, if the best or worst is measured by the size [...]

Since I found out that I can directly purchase stocks from issuing companies (not all listed but still quite a large selection) last month, I didn’t waste too much time before getting into action. After going through DRIP stocks offered at Computershare and some research, I opened accounts with Computershare (ComputerShare reviews) to buy shares [...]

An article in yesterday's USAToday prompted to check the fees I paid for those funds in my 401(k) plan. Unlike mutual funds holding in my taxable accounts, in which I have the flexibility to choose from perhaps hundreds of funds in the same category from as many companies, the number of funds in my 401(k) [...]

According to DealUniveristy, you can get a free PUR On the Go water bottle by filling out a very short form, including your name, address, email address, month and year of birth, and three multi-selection questions. I just filled out the form and it seems the bottle is still available. The whole process takes about [...]

Last month, I spent more than $300 on stuff that I have no intention for my own use. The ten items purchased on Buy.com throughout October are all buy-and-sell electronic devices (flash drives, wireless adapters, router, hard drive enclosure, and headset, etc.) Except a Bluetooth headset that I later found that was excluded from regular [...]

And we have the following entries (the projected change was based on the closing value of the Dow on November 6th, at 12105 points):

Trent
12304
Up 199 points

Fiance Buff
11989
Down 116 points

Binary Dollar
12105
No change

Jonathan
12247
Up 142 points

everysec
12232
Up 127 points

Robert
12313
Up 208 points

Dave
12200
Up 95 points

Michelle
12178
Up 73 points

 
It seems that we are very optimistic about the market. Let's wait till November 22nd [...]

I came across an article on MarketWatch today, which named CIBC Water Growth Deposit Notes the Stupid Investment of the Week. While the article’s main focus is on the CIBC notes, which are issued in the form of principal-protected certificates and the money raised will be invested in water companies, it does make me think [...]

In my yesterday’s post, So How Many Credit Cards Can You Have and Still Get a Good Credit Score?, I said that at one time back in June I had nearly $51,000 balance on four credit cards, all due to 0% balance transfers. I LOVE (yes, LOVE) to take free loans from credit cards (new [...]

If you look to add some mid-cap funds into your portfolio. Here's the good news. According to Morningstar.com, Vanguard Strategic Equity Fund (VSEQX) (a Mid-blend fund with an EP of 0.82% and YTD return 10.31%, 3-year return 14.89% and 5-year return 14.50%), which was closed to new investers in April 2006 due to asset size [...]

Have some spare money to spend on high-tech toys this holiday? How about a mirror? A talking mirror?

This mirror, invented by Hollywood special-effects expert Craig Barr and named one of the Best Toy Inventions of 2006 by the Time Magazine, is not an ordinary mirror that we would hang in our bathroom or in the [...]