Archive for January, 2009

This winter has been pretty brutal here in the Northeast. So the best investment I made for myself last summer was purchasing a snowblower.

Okay… so maybe a depreciating item isn’t an investment (that would be like thinking of your car as an investment). However those of you who saw my 2008 recap know I didn’t make too many positive investments last year, plus the time and strain I have saved this winter has more than made up for its purchase price.

It used to take me over an hour or more to shovel out my driveway when we got a moderate snowfall. Now with the snowblower that has been cut down to about 15 minutes.

Getting A Good Deal

Instead of purchasing a new snowblower, I decided to buy used. I used Yahoo Pipes to craft a custom Craigslist search that included some different terms (snow, snowblower, snowthrower…). I was then able to keep track of this search through Google Reader so I would be updated when a new one went for sale.

I eventually found one over the Summer from someone who was moving South. It was only a few years old, still under warranty, and they were asking less than 1/2 of the price of a new one.

Of course it took me a month or 2 of waiting to get that deal. I often find with Craigslist if you are looking for something immediately then you usually end up overpaying – but if you are patient, the right deal will come.

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Sad news from my favorite free online brokerage. While their homepage is still touting free trades for balances of $2,500, once I logged into my account the following information appeared.

Effective March 1, 2009, you will need to a $25,000 balance to get your 10 free trades with Zecco. Otherwise they will credit 10 free trades for every 25 trades.

At only $4.50 per trade under this balance, Zecco is still pretty cheap in the land of online brokerages. But its hard to go up from free.

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I finally decided to link The Finance Journey up with the social networking revolution. I have created an account on Twitter which you can keep up to date on all the postings here and also my random thoughts, interesting links, and other items that do not make it to a full post here.

Follow Me On Twitter!

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For those of you like me wondering when you can expect to receive your refund direct depot or check once you efile the IRS has a handy publication 2043 with this information.

The table below shows when your federal tax refund should be deposited in your bank account or your check mailed if you efiled and your refund was accepted within certain dates.

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TaxAct is one of the cheapest options out there for filing your taxes. They offer FREE federal filing, and then charge $13.95 for a state efile if you chose to do so (you can chose just to efile your federal taxes through them for free if you wish).

However, if you use the link below you will get 30% off your purchase making it only $11.90. This is the best deal I’ve seen out there for both Federal and State Efile. I’ve used TaxAct in the past and their website is pretty good… maybe not quite as good as TurboTax but the price difference is worth it in my opinion.

TaxAct – 30% off

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Last month I was disappointed by the decline in interest rate on my Countrywide Savings Account (which is now all the way down to 1.75% now) . I decided to switch to Dollar Savings Direct who was offering a 4.0% APY online savings account.

Well, last week Dollar Savings Direct lowered their rate to 3.5% APY.

While disappointing, I can’t say it was unexpected. Its still just about the highest savings rate out there even after dropping half a point. Seems like I made the right move switching when I did as their rate is 2x what Countrywide is currently at, whose rates became uncompetitive when their banking division was swallowed by Bank of America. I plan on continuing to use Dollar Savings.

Dollar Savings Direct

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It seems like every time I try to use Quicken or MS Money to track my expenses I always end up giving them up after a few weeks. I always find that they can’t automatically update some of my accounts and I have to manually import the data in. That combined with having to open yet another program always makes me go back to just using Yodlee Moneycenter to track my finances.

In the past I always just used Yodlee to see what bills were due, what the balances on my accounts were, and what transactions I had made. This year I decided I would try out some of the budgeting features on the website and see how well I could track those. I know they won’t have all the bells and whistles of the standalone programs, but I have been using Yodlee for about 4 years now almost exclusively so I know I won’t be getting rid of it anytime soon and that it can handle all my accounts.

Using Sub Categories For Custom Budgeting

When I dug into it I actually never knew after all this time that you could setup custom sub categories. This helps me to align some of the default categories with things more in line with my lifestyle.

However, when it came to the actual budgeting of these things became a bit confusing. I setup 2 custom categories under General Merchandise – one for my discretionary spending and one for my wife. However when you go to the budgeting like in the below image… do I put the budget at the sub category level or the category level? The category level does not update with the totals from the sub category (I put that in).

After digging into it more, I realize you have to setup both the category goal, and the sub category goal which is the way I have done it above.

Overall Impressions

I only started this week so I’m not sure. There are some things you obviously lose when you go to a web interface, like I wish I could customize the look of the chart in the budget vs actual screen (my mortgage budget is so high that it makes small budget goals hard to read since it expands the scale so much). Overall though I think I am more likely to stick with it since I know I will keep using Yodlee.

If you want total control over the look and expenses, then its probably not for you and you should stick with Quicken, MS Money, or your Excel spreadsheet with 500 tabs and 20 pivot tables. But I think its a pretty good alternative to those pricier software packages for the average user who doesn’t want to be so methodical or doesn’t want to track down their financial information in 20 different spots.

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For a limited time, Intuit is offering their TurboTax Business software via download for FREE. This software normally costs $109.95.

This version of TurboTax is for your business taxes – so great if you have a corporation, partnership, or LLC (note: this is not for your personal taxes). It also says it includes a free E-File with the software. This is for the Federal version only, if you need to do a state return you are on your own for that (or you can pony up $50 for the TurboTax Business State).

You have to register on their site below to download it. I downloaded and installed it myself this morning and it was pretty painless.

Download TurboTax Business FREE

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Started your return early this year but stuck on a section of your taxes?

From now until the end of January, Intuit’s TurboTax is offering a special promotion. If you go to their site via FreeTaxQuestion.com (which links up to the TurboTax site) between 7am-7pm Pacific time an actual human tax expect will call you within 24 hours to discuss your question.

The catch? They will only answer 1 question per phone # for the duration of the promotion. If you need more hep you will need to pay up. They also will only answer Federal tax questions for forms 1040 (personal) and 1065, 1120, or 1120S (business) – no State questions.

Seems like its at least worth a shot if you have one thing you are stuck on with your taxes.

FreeTaxQuestion.com

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It was quite an up and down ride in 2008… mostly down for my finances.

It was a tumultuous year for the stock market that saw the Dow Jones drop 34%. It also has seen a credit crisis that is making it more difficult to borrow. Here are some of the ugly highlights for my finances this past year.

ASSETS

• Cash (-7.15%)
  My cash reserves did go down a bit but in my opinion are still in an acceptable position. In this economy I think that is a pretty good stockpile in case either my wife or I lose our jobs.
• Stocks (-36.15%)
  I took an absolute bloodbath in the market this year. I took (in hindsight) a terrible position in Citigroup at $22.96 and failed to bail out of my position in NovaStar Financial when I should have seen the writing on the wall. I did have a couple bright spots, but its definitely made me realize I need to have an earlier exit strategy for my investment.
• Retirement (-22.19%)
  This one is probably the most disheartening of all. I made almost $16,000 worth of contributions to my retirement accounts in 2008 and still was down $16,519.37 from January. So in reality this is more like -44% in actual performance if you remove the contributions.

DEBTS

• Mortgage (-2.18%) & Student Loans (-15.45%)
  I pretty much just made standard payments on my mortgage and student loans this year. I thought about refinancing my mortgage when rates were down in early 2008 but didn’t pull the trigger. Now with rates plummeting again hopefully 2009 I can lock in some more savings.
• Credit Cards (-3.60%)
  For years I have been unconcerned with this debt as the abundance of 0% credit card offers have made it easy to just bounce this around. However now with the looming credit crisis its getting harder to find those offers. I think I should have focused a bit harder on paying some of this down to get it to a level where I could bounce it around on 1 card instead of needing 2-3.

FINAL TALLY

So here are the actual numbers for 2008. Here’s to hoping for a better 2009!

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This year my new years resolution is to write more on the site. I have been extremely busy the last few months at work and have neglected this site for far too long.

Since I stopped writing so often as well I have been less in tune with my finances. This year I will try to put aside time to update the site 3 times a week at minumum.

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Summary

The end of the year brought a little joy to my plummeting net worth. I was able to stock up some cash reserves this month (though some of that will be eaten away by the upcoming property tax bill). I also switch over my savings account from Countrywide to DollarSavingsDirect. The rate at Countrywide fell all the way to 2.4% and I decided to make the switch since Dollar was offering 4%.

Loyal readers may also notice I have changed the format of my net worth update. I did this so that its easier to read, easier for me to track and update, and falls more in line with the overall design of the site. I hope you find it less cluttered.

Monthly Goals

I have been watching the mortgage rates closely to see where they are going to fall to. I failed to pull the trigger last week when they were 4.5% with no points at IndyMac and they have risen since then. I am hoping they make it down there again so I can refi.

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