Archive for February, 2009

The rates of savings accounts have been plummeting lately. Only a handful remain over 3% APY and some of them have dropped 1% or more in the last couple months. I am currently with Dollar Savings Direct, which has plummeted as of late and has me thinking of switching.

I thought I would take some time to look at the interest rates of some of the top as well as the more popular savings solutions.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Quizno’s is giving away one million free subs by just registering with your name and email address at the link below. You will be emailed your coupon to print:

Quiznos Million Sub Giveaway

The coupon reads:

“This online certificate entitles you to: ONE FREE SUB, Free Small Signature Sub or Small Every Day Value Sub”

It also says “Valid only at participating locations” and some people have reported that their location is not accepting there, so you may want to call ahead.

Popularity: 3% [?]

From February 16th through February 19th, discount gift certificate website Restaurant.com is offering 70% off their regular prices. $25 certificates which normally sell for $10, are now just $3.

Be sure to check the fine print on the gift certificates for each particular restaurant you are interested in. Some of them include minimum purchase amounts, exclude other coupons, and are only valid on weekdays.

The code is PREZ

Restaurant.com

Popularity: 3% [?]

For Valentines Day all the local stores in my area jack the prices of flowers up 100%-300%. It hardly seems worth it when I can get them next week for a significant discount, but it is tradition.

So if you are looking I have found in previous years that Aldi’s market has the cheapest prices on flowers for the occasion. This year they have Dozen Premium Long Stemmed Roses for $16.99, and then assorted other flower bouquets for $6.99.

I have gotten flowers from there each of the previous 2 years on v-day and have always been happy with the quality. At least I can see them here instead of just getting whatever some dot com sends (which I have always had back luck with).

Aldi’s Store Locator

Popularity: 3% [?]

For the third time in 2 weeks Dollar Savings Direct is lowering their interest rate. This time they are going down to 3.05% APY.

Its been quite a plunge the last few weeks, almost half a point reduction in the rate. I still am holding my cash reserves in this account, but probably one more significant drop and I will seriously be considering transferring. In the meantime I will keep my eye out for the higher rate accounts out there that hopefully are more stable.

Dollar Savings Direct

Popularity: 2% [?]

The United States Postal Service has announced that effective May 11, 2009 it will be raising the price of first class postage from 42 cents to 44 cents. This is an increase of almost 5%.

Not entirely unexpected as the USPS has increased the cost each of the last 3 years. They lost $2.8 billion in 2008, and unless there is some kind of dramatic turnaround they are expected to post an even larger loss this year. They have even asked Congress to take away the legislation that requires them to deliver mail 6 days a week.

You can continue to buy forever stamps at 42 cents until May 10, which will still be good when the rate increases with no additional postage.

Below is a look at how the prices have stamps have increased over the last 20 years. As you can see, the updates have been more frequent but generally have been less dramatic than they were in the past.

AP Article: Stamp prices to go up 2-cents in May

Popularity: 2% [?]

This week my employer sent out notice that they are pulling back some of our existing benefits. So far they are saying its just a preventative measure, and no layoffs are planned.

I can’t say its a big shock to me. Seems like every workplace is cutting back, and I would rather have them take these measures than take more drastic ones in the near future. And our CEO has been saying since the beginning of the year that things will be tight with the way businesses are spending this year.

• No More 401k Match – Our company has always had a 4% match on our 401k contributions. As of this week they will no longer be matching anything. This has me thinking about starting up a standard IRA since without the match there is no incentive for continue to fund their plan which has limited choices (at least until I get over the $5,000 limit).

• No Performance Based Raises – We will not be getting any raises based on our yearly evaluations, so my pay will be flat this year. This is probably the most disappointing change for me since I am one of the stronger members of my team and usually get a pretty good raise each year.

• No Vaction Rollover – Previously we were allowed to roll over 5 vacation days a year (non-accumulating, so not 5 this year, 10 next, etc). I’m actually not really sure how this saves the company money, but it just means I have to use 5 more vacation days this year. Personally I think they have been wanting to get rid of this for a couple years and are able to use this as an excuse.

They say they are hoping these changes are temporary and they will be able to reinstate them for next year.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Less than 2 weeks after lowering their interest rate from 4% to 3.5%, Dollar Savings direct has done it again. This time they are going down to 3.2% APY.

While disappointing, the only other bank I see offering a significantly higher rate is Broadway Federal (4.08% APY) – however that appears to be a promo rate which won’t last. There are some other rewards checking accounts with higher rates, but you have to jump through too many hoops for my taste (10 debit card transactions a month, direct deposit, sacrifice first born…).

So I will be sticking with Dollar Savings for the time being.

Popularity: 2% [?]

I am a self confessed bank rate chaser. What that means is that if there is a higher rate at another bank for my savings account, I will switch all my deposits to the new bank. All that within reason though, I am not going to switch because one bank’s APY is 0.1% higher… my cutoff is around 1%.

Most of the time I do not close my old accounts in case the rate goes back up there. However I have found that usually when it goes down a significant amount, it never comes back up. So in the interest of simplicity I have decided its time to go through my checking and savings accounts and weed some of them down.

Accounts I’m Keeping

• Charles Schwab Investor Checking (1.00% APY) – While the rate has plummeted since I first opened this account last year I am using it as our main checking account. It would be a huge headache to switch this one over to a different bank. Plus it has some pretty decent perks which keep me around – ATM rebates, free checks, free prepaid envelopes for deposits, and a pretty good website.

• Dollar Savings Direct (3.5% APY) – This one has also dropped a bit since I opened it, but remains one of the higher savings accounts out there. It will remain my main savings account.

• HSBC Free Checking / Online Savings (0% / 2.45% APY) – I like to have a local bank just for certain situations. Since Schwab doesn’t have a local branch I will keep HSBC around as a backup.

Accounts To Close

• Countrywide Bank SavingsLink (1.65% APY) – This was my latest main savings account, but the rate dropped like a rock when the credit crisis started. I don’t see this going back up anytime soon.

• Emigrant Direct (2.40% APY) – This is one I had quite some time ago. The rate has not been competitive in years so I think its time to abandon ship.
• KeyBank Express Checking (0% APY) – This is another account I haven’t used in years. I no longer have any checks from here, just haven’t gotten around to closing it out.

Debating

• ING Direct Orange Savings (2.20%) – This is another account that has not been competitive in quite a long time. However they have a great website, and also a pretty good referral program I may use at some point.

My goal is to have these accounts closed out by the end of the month.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Summary

After deciding to keep closer track of my budget this year, I setup some budget tracking in my primary financial software – Yodlee. Since this is my first month I wasn’t really sure how realistic some of these numbers were so might need to do some tweaking.

We were $345.40 over budget this month. The majority of that came from 4 categories.

• Restaurants/Dining ($277.34) – We went WAY overboard with eating out this month. Something I think we really need to work on in the coming months. It certainly adds up quickly.
• Loans ($109.58) – We had a quarterly student loan payment due this month. That number should average out throughout the year.
• Gasoline/Fuel ($87.77) – This number may need to be readjusted depending on how the next few months go. Not much we can do here… still need to drive to work
• Personal Spending ($86.54) – Slightly overspent here. This is another area that will require some discipline to keep in check.

Other than the restaurant spending I’m pretty pleased with the first months budget. I think as we continue to watch and stick to it we will be closer to our goal. The complete numbers are below:

Popularity: 1% [?]

Summary

The continued decline of the stock market has continued to take quite a toll on my net worth. I was able to build up my cash reserves a bit but that improvement was all wiped out by stock loses.

I keep telling myself it will turn around eventually.

Monthly Goals

With the impending credit crisis I think its wise to save up more cash to pay off some of my credit cards even though they are 0%. It looks like its going to be harder to find these offers in the future and I don’t think I can continue to rely on being able to move this around once a year to different cards.

Popularity: 1% [?]