Archive for the 'Personal Finance' Category

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 the dates listed.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Summary

Happy New Year everyone! December was a pretty interesting month financially for us with some large swings.

First off, the refinance on our home was complete and our interest rate is now 4.875% which is pretty exciting. The mortgage total went up because we rolled the closing costs into the loan rather than paying them out of pocket. By my calculations the refi should pay for itself in about 18 months. Also, due to the timing of the close we ended up not having to make our December mortgage payment which is part of the reason for the cash reserve increase.

The market was also up this month which bumped up the retirement portfolio a bit. Was also to pay down a bit on the credit cards so overall I was pretty pleased with the month.

Monthly Goals

Going to have to pay off the holiday bills which is always tough. We kept it somewhat under control this year. Would like to increase my cash reserves up to about $18,000 which is where I like to see it at.

Popularity: 2% [?]

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% [?]

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% [?]

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.

Popularity: 1% [?]

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.

Popularity: 1% [?]

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.

Popularity: 100% [?]

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

Popularity: 1% [?]

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

Popularity: 1% [?]

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.

Popularity: 1% [?]