Record Of Special Events

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Another Casualty Of The Recession: Child Support

Family courts around the country are reporting an increase in the number of people can no longer afford to pay their child support or alimony. In Connecticut, motions to modify payments filed by people divorced or divorcing grew by more than 50 percent last year.

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Do You Work Better During a Certain Time of the Day?

Do you work better at night or during the day? Does it even matter? For me, it doesn’t really matter as long as it’s nice and quiet because there are no distractions. Since I work at home, day time seems to work best for me but I can work well late at night too.

Why I am Asking

For those that know when they are most comfortable with concentrating, use that time to work on your finances! It could be entering data on your budget, it could be reading the most awesome financial blog (I’m talking about that one named Personal Finance Blog by MoneyNing), or it could even be talking to your family about your finances. Whatever it is, find a time that works and stick to the schedule. I bet your finances will be better in no time.

My Two Dollars believes that buying a hybrid shouldn’t just be about the savings but also about doing the right thing.
Bargaineering wished us a happy weekend by putting a refreshing piece together about the secret to money.
Mr Cheap at Four Pillars reveal another negotiation tactic and advised people not to use it. I totally agree. It works, it’s unethical and it sure won’t generate long term business.
I gave a beginner’s intro to options trading at Investing School. Check out why it could reduce your investment risks if handled with care.

Carnivals

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Friday, April 3, 2009

LegiStorm 4| Join in the Fun

How-to guide for the site

Maxine Waters

Now that I have hopefully intrigued you with tales of LegiStorm’s expert sleuthing abilities, it is time for you to learn to make the most of this trove of information.

The next few articles in this series will walk you through different parts of LegiStorm.com as a tutorial for how to use the site to find the information you want. Whether you want to read about a Senator’s personal loans or Agriculture Department salaries, it’s all there.

Home page

When you first log on to LegiStorm, the front page contains political news that shows how LegiStorm has been used recently. I recommend that you do not skip past this part, as it contains tidbits of entertaining, and sometimes infuriating, news about political figures looking like fools.

In hot water

For instance, the front page at LegiStorm.com today reveals that Rep. Maxine Waters owns stock in OneUnited Bank. Furthermore, her husband has been a director there. Based on this, it is not surprising that Waters has defended the company in many cases. Conflict of interest much?

Congressional pay scale

The first section of LegiStorm is dedicated to Congressional salaries. You can browse using the following categories: Staffer, Representative, Senator, Committee, Leadership Office, Admin Office and State. Once you pick a category you can search for names and titles. It lists current and former office holders.

Six figures

The base salary for a state senator right now is $174,000 per year. If you check out an individual it will also show to the total salary paid to that leader’s staff. If you click on a time period, you can find out the pay for everyone who works for that leader, from the scheduler who makes about $5,000 per year, to the legislative director who makes more than $120,000. ... click here to read the rest of the article titled "LegiStorm 4| Join in the Fun"

Are You a High-Yield Interest Rate Chaser?

Over the last decade, on-line savings accounts have grown into prominence, first with new internet-only banks offering high-yield accounts thanks to their low overhead costs, and followed by old-fashioned brick-and-mortar banks offering on-line accounts to give the newcomers competition. For more than one year, I’ve been tracking and charting interest rate changes for a number of the more popular high-yield savings accounts to detect trends and help determine where to deposit my own cash.

With the proliferation of easily-accessed information, simple account opening processes, and almost-immediate deposits through Automated Clearing House (ACH), switching from one bank to another and moving all of your cash takes only a few days. When the economy was in a different situation and interest rates were higher, aggressive savers maximized their earned interest by transferring their balances from one bank to the next bank whose rate leapfrogged past the previous leader.

I’ve never been a fan of chasing rates, and here’s why.

1. There is more to a savings account than the interest rate. You want to find and stick with an option that provides high interest rates, but you also should seek good customer service, a comfortable website, corporate ethics, and security. This is the primary reason many people stick with ING Direct despite their comparatively low interest rates. ING Direct has a great reputation, a website that hasn’t garnered many complaints, and friendly customer service. (This bank did receive some flak surrounding their Electric Orange checking account when surprise credit checks resulted in account closings.)

2. You lose interest income in the transfer. When you transfer money from one bank to another, you may lose several days in interest, negating a portion of the bump you’re hoping to see when you move to a higher-yield account. Some electronic transfers can take three days. The initiating bank debits your account one day for the transfer. The receiving bank receives your money through ACH the next business day, but doesn’t credit your account. The bank keeps your money for a day or two, earning interest for the bank on the “float,” and finally credits your new account sometimes several days later. Some banks are worse than others in this regard; E*TRADE Bank reportedly offers one of the fastest transfers.

3. Banks will often hold your deposits for several days. ING Direct will hold initial deposits for five days. Keep in mind that one of the features of savings accounts — the reason you accept interest rates lower than what you could possibly earn in certificates of deposit (CDs), bonds, or stocks — is that they are liquid. You should be able to access and withdraw your money at any time. If your funds are held hostage for five days, you could find yourself in a predicament without access to your emergency fund. Banks often hold subsequent deposits, too, particularly when you deposit a check.

4. Past performance is not an indicator of future results. This is illustrated by the tables of historical interest rates. Here is an example: A few months ago, a “new” on-line high-yield bank arrived. DollarSavingsDirect is a division of Emgirant Bank in New York, re-branded from a Spanish language-focused branch-based bank to an on-line cousin to Emigrant Direct. This bank, like Emigrant Direct when it started years earlier, came on the scene with a high interest rate to attract new customers. Shortly after gaining attention in the media and the blogs with its stratospheric initial interest rate offering, these interest rates began to fall. When they did, the rates decreased much faster than those at other banks. Banks that were once on the top of the list of interest rates are now in the middle of the pack.

5. Most people don’t transfer enough cash from bank to bank to make the effort worthwhile. If you move $5,000 from one bank to another to take advantage of a 0.05 percentage point yield increase, you will earn at most $25. This amount may seem like a good deal for thirty minutes of work, but that’s not an income source that is repeatable.

If you have $100,000, seeking the highest interest rate may be worthwhile, but I wouldn’t suggest keeping that much in savings accounts unless you’re saving for something specific and you’ll need to access the money in less than six months. While transferring $100,000 from one bank to the next may result in worthwhile income, you should consider finding high-yield certificates of deposit and earn even more than you would with savings.

My recommended approach still involves keeping yourself informed of the best interest rates and the best overall savings accounts. However, rather than switching your money continually from one bank to another depending on who is king of the hill at any one time, I suggest depositing new money into your choice of savings account. We get into habits, thanks to the wonders of automation and direct deposit. But the choices we made years ago may not be what’s best for the present and the future. When you receive checks, consider which banks are offering you the best deals right now. Without moving your money around, you can still take advantage of the highest interest rates.

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Thursday, April 2, 2009

No Need for a Cash Advance if you Properly Balance Your Checkbook

Properly Balance Your Checkbook

There are just as many reasons to balance your checkbook each month as there are opportunities to secure a same day cash advance. I'll begin by sharing five excellent reasons why you should consider balancing your checkbook.

Five Good Reasons in a Nutshell

Mistakes do happen, especially if you forget to post a transaction in your register. These mistakes — or bounced checks — could cost you $25 or more in incurring fees for each “mistake.” I'll reiterate: bounced checks could cost you $25 + in incurring fees for EACH bounced check. That's a good enough reason to balance your checkbook, isn't it?
When your records are balanced and in order, you're more assured that your record's match the bank's.
Remember that banks are susceptible to mistakes as well, but with their advanced technology, it's more likely that you'll make a mathematical error in the register of your checkbook before the bank does.
If you do find a problem (or the bank does), you don't have to forage through months and months of transactions to decipher the issue.
Become a consumer minority. Research shows that a whopping 87% of consumers forget to reconcile their checking accounts.

This is How:

Record Everything

The first step is to record everything into your checkbook register: deposits, withdrawals, checks, debits, any charges at all. ... click here to read the rest of the article titled "No Need for a Cash Advance if you Properly Balance Your Checkbook"

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

I Won the Lottery!

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but I actually hit a pretty big jackpot in the New York Lotto! The only problem was that the way I accomplished this was to buy a ticket for every possible number combination that could have been drawn. I haven’t actually done the math yet, but I don’t think I’ll come out ahead… oh well!

FNBO Direct Will Drop its Interest Rate to 1.9% APY, Considering SmartyPig with 3.25% APY?

Savers continue to be punished. Tomorrow, Thursday, April 2, 2009, FNBO Direct will lower the interest rate offered on its on-line savings account from 2.15% to 1.9% APY.

A little over a year ago, I introduced SmartyPig to Consumerism Commentary, a savings account with a higher rate. Their current rate yields 3.25%, by far the highest among high-yield online savings accounts. Accounts held with SmartyPig are fully backed by the FDIC. SmartyPig’s philosophy is designed to focus on goal-oriented saving, and the bank encourages redeeming (withdrawing) your funds only when the goal is reached, and preferably in the form of a gift card offered by one of several retailers partnering with the bank or of a prepaid debit card.

If you opt to redeem your account in the form of a gift card, SmartyPig offers a bonus above the value of the cash you have saved, but keep in mind that where legal, many of the gift cards “expire” if not fully redeemed after a period of time. Is the higher interest rate worth the hassle?