Archive for October, 2006

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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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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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.

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

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.

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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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.

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.

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

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.

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.

If you’re like me you have a bunch of digital camera pictures sitting around waiting for a deal to be printed. PhotoWorks has a bunch of coupons out including one for 50 free prints, plus shipping which was $3.85 for me. There is some questions on the quality from what I’ve seen, so I’ll let you guys know how they turn out. Depending on the quality I might try one of the free compact photo books as well.

Sign Up Here

Then use the following one of the following codes at the checkout:

50 Free Prints - Code: C688-38-5181-81 Exp: Oct-01-06

Free Compact Photo Book - Code: C440-38-5161-81 Exp: Oct-01-06

Taxable Accounts:

$9,496.19 - Liquid Savings - 5.05% APY HSBC Savings Account
$12,921.56 - Stocks - Misc. Direct Investments
$4,805.25 - Stocks - Ameritrade Izone
$615.76 - Stocks - Scottrade
$2,523.18 - Bonds - TreasuryDirect

$30,361.94 TOTAL

Retirement Savings:

$11,684.78 - ROTH IRA - Vanguard
$3,135.27 - ROTH IRA - Scottrade
$30,020.17 - 401K - T. Rowe Price

$44,840.22 TOTAL

Debts

$3,631.66 - Student Loan - AES (3.625%)
$8,239.00 - Credit Card BT - Citi (0%)

Summary

The numbers are a little deceiving. I have a nearly $4000 tax bill due today that hasn’t been taken out of my account yet so the savings numbers are a little inflated. Overall I was helped by a strong month for the stock market and limited spending.

Monthly Goals

This will be another tight month. My fiance only gets paid monthly at her new job, so I have to pay most of the bills alone for this month as well. This was all foreseen though so isn’t a huge inconvenience. Plan once again is to be thrifty with my spending to get the emergency funds back up to a decent level.