Archive for 2006

Mozy Online Backup just announced they are upgrading their pay service to unlimited storage for only $4.95 a month! Their free services still offers 2gb of storage for (you guessed it) free.

I’ve been using Mozy for about 6 months now, I actually thought I had wrote a previous post about them but apparently not. The backup software is excellent – the footprint is extremely small and I love that it will allow you to set it to backup your files once your computer has been idle for X minutes. The only thing I worry about is the strength of the company, but its not like it costs a ton of money, and hey if it goes down you can always find another solution.

So now seems like a good time to start with that backup routine you have been meaning to do. For those worried about the security of storing your files online, they let you provide your own private key which they won’t know for encryption.

Signup Here

Popularity: 1% [?]

Taxable Accounts:

$5,054.03 – Liquid Savings – 5.05% APY HSBC Savings Account
$13,969.38 – Stocks – Misc. Direct Investments
$5,289.00 – Stocks – Ameritrade Izone
$595.35 – Stocks – Scottrade
$2,479.34 – Stocks – Zecco
$2,523.18 – Bonds – TreasuryDirect

$29,910.28 TOTAL

Retirement Savings:

$13,500.38 – ROTH IRA – Vanguard
$1,842.70 – ROTH IRA – Scottrade
$34,134.23 – 401K – T. Rowe Price

$49,477.31 TOTAL

Debts

$3,525.70 – Student Loan – AES (3.625%)
$7,970.00 – Credit Card BT – Discover (0%)

Popularity: 1% [?]

There are a lot of sites up with information about the upcoming Black Friday sales. I subscribe to the RSS feed over at bfads.net so I know when a new ad has been posted. You can often find extensive discussion on individual stores over at the Fatwallet forums. There are few ads up now like Sears, K-Mart, Harbor Freight, and Best Buy.

Personally I will most likely go to Sears for a few items there, and possibly try to pick some other stuff up online. I will never step foot in Best Buy on Black Friday again, as the ones here consistently have 2 hour lines that day.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Taxable Accounts:

$4,094.88 – Liquid Savings – 5.05% APY HSBC Savings Account
$13,507.26 – Stocks – Misc. Direct Investments
$5,600.01 – Stocks – Ameritrade Izone
$633.61 – Stocks – Scottrade
$2,479.49 – Stocks – Zecco
$2,523.18 – Bonds – TreasuryDirect

$28,838.43 TOTAL

Retirement Savings:

$13,201.27 – ROTH IRA – Vanguard
$2,483.75 – ROTH IRA – Scottrade
$32,604.46 – 401K – T. Rowe Price

$48,289.48 TOTAL

Debts

$3,591.01 – Student Loan – AES (3.625%)
$8,324.00 – Credit Card BT – Discover(0%)

Summary

Once again I was bailed out by a good month in the stock market. My emergency fund has been hit hard and is almost reaching a dangerous level. I also haven’t reached my goals of selling most of my individual direct investment stocks which I’ve decided to wait until next year to do now for tax reasons.

Monthly Goals

Hopefully this will be the month everything turns around and I start building back up my emergency fund. My fiance is finally getting paid at her new job, and is able to kick some money in towards the bills once again. My goal is to get the fund back up to about $6500.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Citi is offering their Citi Diamond Preferred credit card with a new offer – 0% for life if you make 2 purchases a month. There is a 3% balance transfer fee… $5 min / $75 max.

Its 0% on balance transfers straight until 5/1/07, then after that you need to make 2 purchases a month to keep your 0%.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

Was able to sign into my Zecco trading account for the first time. The look of the trading interface matches that of the homepage. Everything seems very quick so far (granted I have a high speed connection and moderately fast computer). I’ve posted some screenshots and more analysis below.

Zecco.com

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Popularity: 1% [?]

I signed up for the Zecco.com brokerage service on Monday. Just received an email that my account was approved. I have yet to be able to actually login to the account though, and the email states:

Please note that it may take up to three (3) hours after account approval before your Trading Key is activated.

So I am anxiously awaiting funding my account and getting started trading. Will keep you guys posted when I’m actually able to login and perhaps post some screen shots.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Per the WSJ, Bank of America is rolling out a new brokerage service that will offer 30 free trades a month. This deal works in NY (and should be live in all of the Northeast right now) and will be available nationwide by spring 2007.

The catch? You have to have $25k in non-brokerage accounts at BOA to qualify otherwise it is $5 per trade.

APPLY HERE

Popularity: 1% [?]

As previously posted I ordered 50 prints from PhotoWorks for free plus $3.85 shipping. The pictures came this weekend (pretty fast imo) and I just wanted to comment on the quality.

I would clasify it as ok. Not as bad as some of the posters over on FatWallet had made it sound in my batch, but not even close to the best quality I have received from online print shops. I would characterize the photos as being dull, the colors just didn’t seem to pop. It was worth it for the $3.85, but unless there was another increadible deal I wouldn’t order there again.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Zecco just sent me a an email that their free trading interface is now up! I quickly went over and went through the account signup process which was pretty standard. I think I beat the rush because the server seemed very quick. Have to mail in my signed documents (which I also emailed to them) so hopefully my account will be ready for trading in the next few days. Will let you guys know how everything goes.

Zecco.com

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Popularity: 1% [?]

Pretty sad story about the winners of last years HGTV Dream Home Sweepstakes are about to go broke because they actually decided to live in the house they won instead of selling it like all the other past winners. They ended up having to take out a loan to pay off a $672,000 tax bill that came with their prize.

Some of the story makes you cringe though, $5,000 on Christmas presents; $2,000 for scuba lessons; an $1,800 go-kart are some of the purchases they decided to use their money on. And the fact that they own 7 vehicles! Definitely a sad story of poor money management.

Popularity: 2% [?]

If you want to get some early Christmas shopping done Yankee Candle has a buy 1 get 1 free sale on select Housewarmer candles. To top it off there is a $15 off $45 coupon: CAT610A (expires 10/29).

Combining these 2 sales you can get 4 of the 22oz Housewarmer candle jars for under $10 each. These normally go for $22.99 each!

Just ordered 4 myself, total with tax was $38.50.

Popularity: 1% [?]

GMAC has raised their Money Market account rate to 5.25% APY. So much for others following Emigrant and lowering their rates. I personally do not have an account there but have heard a lot of good things. They have very fast ACH pushes and pulls at GMAC which many people like.

GMAC Link

Popularity: 1% [?]

Trying to plan our wedding for next year has been quite a stressful process. Somehow my fiance convinced my that we couldn’t do it for the budget I had in mind, and that since her sister was getting married right before us she knew based on how much they were spending. Well, last night her sister told us in conversation that her total wedding budget was right where I originally wanted ours to be. I think steam almost blew out of my ears.

So as it sits right now we are about $8k over budget with little room to cut back. I guess I’ll have to be a little more active in the planning if I want to get it under control.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Yahoo Finance has an article up about the old 80% rule for retirement. The basic premise of the article is that the rule is hogwash and you don’t need that much to retire comforatably.

That’s a ridiculous figure, pulled out of thin air.

In truth, they may spend more than that in the first couple of years after they stop working, but they’re likely to spend far less, on average, over their entire retirement period. By the time they are 75, they’re likely to be spending about half of what they did when they were 50, according to the Labor Department’s survey of consumer spending.

Personally I am so far out from retirement (30 years hopefully) that its hard to predict with inflation how much I need. I would rather to save too much than too little at this point, but nice to know that 80% is not the hard and fast standard.

Popularity: 1% [?]