Laundry Room Savings

The following is a guest post from Kimber Chin (http://businessromance.com/) who writes romance novels based in the business world. Her book, Breach Of Trust, is available now. She also blogs at http://www.nolimitsladies.com/.

Do you remember the theme song from that 1980's movie The Neverending Story? I sing that each week about laundry. The neverending laundry. I shouldn't complain. There is only the hubby and I. My Mom had 6 kids. She did laundry, several loads, every single day.

That can add up. So how to save money?

I'm very choosy about the clothes I purchase, avoiding dry clean only material. Dry cleaning seems to be mostly a North American phenomena. Europeans hand wash their suits. Unless the outfit is ultra expensive or sentimental, I try to do the same. Yes, I've ruined clothes that way.

I also stretch the amount of time between washing. I wear shirts under my blazers. If I have a choice between a sweater and a cardigan, I wear the cardigan with a tee underneath.

I use less. I use less than the recommended amount of laundry detergent. A washing machine repairman once told me that if you see bubbles in your final rinse water, you're using too much soap. Too much soap can leave residue on your clothes and damage your washing machine.

I use cheapie shampoo to get rid of the hubby's nasty ring around the collar and pit stains. Yeah, gross. Shampoo is specially designed to remove oil. Very effective (and gentle) on clothes too. If you travel a lot, use the tiny bottles of shampoo left in your hotel room. Any self respecting hotel discards these after each desk (for fear of people tampering with them).

I always wash in cold. I come from the farm. We didn't have running water, we drew our water from wells and the nearby river. We certainly didn't heat the water up on our wood stoves to wash clothes in. If cold water is good enough to take stable muck out of farm clothes, it is good enough to wash my city folk clothes. If there's a stain, I'll leave it to soak overnight.

I usually hang my laundry. That lint in the dry lint trap? That's your clothing, eaten away by the dryer. Dryers are very hard on your clothes. They also cost money to run. Hang drying doesn't take any more time than using the dryer. If I do have to use the dryer, I only use half a fabric softener sheet. I haven't seen any difference.

Finally, the nasty part, ironing. I save up all my ironing for one big iron-athon. I blast music, I dance around, I save money. Why? Because much of the cost of ironing is heating it up. Oh, and I save time because I only have to set up the once. Very efficient.

I'm always looking for some great tips on how to save time and money in the laundry room. What are some of yours?

Start planning for your final expenses now

I know this post topic is kind of morbid, but this issue is very important. Recently, Mr. Dimes and his family had to bury his grandmother, who died suddenly but not unexpectedly right around Christmas. She had a modest funeral and burial, and her final expenses clocked in around $8,000. My mother-in-law fronted the money and will eventually be reimbursed when the estate has been settled, as the grandmother did have some real estate and other assets which could be sold to cover the expenses. Not everyone is so lucky, though.
I recently had a client whose mother died unexpectedly who was requesting over $16,000 in funeral assistance. Her mother owned no property, had no life insurance, and had done nothing to prepare for her final expenses in advance. While the client has siblings, neither individually nor collectively can they afford the costs of the burial. Their mother desired to be buried in the family plot in an area where real estate is very pricey and the burial costs are over half the cost of the funeral. I had to help a grieving client find an alternative to the burial she wanted in order to have something she could afford. This was not a particularly fun experience. Please, for the love of your survivors, do not do this to them. Plan for your final expenses now and let your family members know where they can find any information about plots, policies, final wishes, etc. Deaths are difficult enough without creating financial stress and trauma for a grieving family.

Here are a few ways to ease the financial burden on your survivors:

• Consider prepayment of funeral expenses: If you know where you want to be placed upon your death, consider buying a plot in advance, and make sure your survivors know where it is. You can also prepay for the funeral, casket, and other mortuary services rather than requiring your relatives to front the expenses at the time of your death.
• Have a life insurance policy specifically for funeral expenses: Both my client's mother and my husband's grandmother had small ($10K-$25K) whole life insurance policies to pay for their funeral expenses, but for one reason or another had let them lapse and when they died, there was no money. If, however, you make sure that you (or someone else) is paying on them and don't let the policies lapse, they can be sufficient to cover burial and funeral costs.
  
• Consider less expensive methods of body disposal: Burials are getting to be insanely expensive, and so are funeral plots. Cremation, on the other hand, is a more frugal alternative to standard burial, and is less harmful to the environment. Some people don't like the idea of cremation for religious or other reasons, but it definitely costs less. It also has the added benefit of allowing for portability of remains; for example, if you want to be buried a great distance away from where you died, ashes are much easier to transport than an intact corpse.
  
• Have a specific set of assets designated for funeral expenses: This would definitely require either a will or a joint account with a person most likely to survive you, but it could solve the problem of a family member having to front expenses and then wait for reimbursement. If you create an account specifically for funeral expenses, then a family member or the executor of your estate should be able to access those funds in order to pay for your funeral. If you're going to do this, you might as well make your wishes known as well as what should be done with any money that remains, in order to keep your relatives from donating your body to science and then flying off to Cancun with your funeral money.
  

While not fun, death is an inevitable (and expensive) part of life, and you can help your family tremendously by making provisions for what to do when it happens.

Lehman Brothers Getting Ugly

At the end of last week we saw something of a bear run at Lehman Brothers, with traders pushing the stock down 6.2% on Friday. Options traders bought heavily in out of the money puts, including some heavy buying in some really far out of the money options that bet the stock will drop at least another ten dollars.

This morning both Bank of America and Sanford Berstein slashed their earnings estimates for Lehman. Many investors now expect Lehman to post a loss for the quarter. The price of default protection on Lehman debt blew out to 246 basis points.

Some are now saying that Lehman will have to engage in another round of capital raising to shore up its balance sheet and reassure investors that it won't face a liquidity crisis. At the more extreme end of the bearish outlook, some are saying that Lehman might already be talking to the Federal Reserve about emergency measures.

"With the sinking dollar, my bet is that these guys are already talking to the Fed in a similar bailout that was fashioned for Bear Stearns," an anonymous market watcher tells Christopher Cruden, the founder of Swiss hedge fund Insch Capital Management.

That's some pretty wild speculation coming from a totally unknown source. But these are wild times, and unknown sources have made some pretty spectacular and spectacularly right calls in recent months. We just thought we'd pass it along.

Avoiding the Vending Machine

Ladies and gents, I'm happy to say that I've received my first reader question to which I can actually provide an answer without having to look a bunch of stuff up or call on a smarty-pants friend/expert resource. Neat-o. (It's the small things that keep me happy, really.)

Anyhoo...this question comes from Sarah over at My Dainty Dollar, who seems like could use our collective support. She's having a hard time living within her means in New York while trying to pursue her passion for performing. She writes:

" I am a slave to the vending machines at work. Every day I get at least one thing. These snacks are never healthy and are 80 cents each. I'm sure over time that's going to add up. I think part of the reason I snack at work is because I'm so bored and my job is unfulfilling. Do you have any tips for staying away from this money taking calorie machine?

Thanks,

Sarah"

OK, I'm going to answer the question about vending machines for now and leave the career management bloggers to advise you about the job. But before I begin dispensing my snacking wisdom, I will say that life in general can seem pretty crappy if you hate your job and don't know what else to do. A lot of people find themselves totally bored out of their mind at work, feel stuck in jobs that are unfulfilling and develop bad habits to compensate. But remember that life is all about decisions, and that you are never a passenger in your own life. You are the driver. You get to choose where you want to go. That is the beauty of life. So, you know, drive. Make a turn or stop and ask for directions or something.

Ugh. This driving analogy's making my head hurt. Onto snacks.

Snacks, indeed... I love them. Every day at like 3:00 p.m., I start thinking about cookies. Big, lovely, sugary, chocolate-chipped yumminess. Or Doritos - a bag of cheesy, crunchy heaven. Or just about anything I ran past on my way to work in the morning or got a whiff of on the bus. Suddenly at 3:00, it's all I can think about.

Luckily, I have the good fortune to work with dietitians, personal trainers and other nutrition specialists at my job. And I have pumped them for information, well, like it's my job. So without further ado, here are my tips for staying away from the vending machine at your office.

1. Plan ahead. My best days are those when I manage to pack sandwich bags or Tupperware with enough snacks to get me through the day. The sandwich bags are key, because in my opinion, they give me the illusion I'm eating something sinful. So into my sandwich bags I pack dried berries, wheat crackers, baby carrots, cut-up red peppers, trail mix, pistachios and other fruits, vegetables and grains to get me through the day. When I feel like I need a bag of Doritos, I go for the crunchy carrots. When I need a cookie, I eat my dried berries.

2. Keep healthy food at your office. For days when you can't plan ahead, keep a few supplies at your office. I usually have an apple or orange, a packet of oatmeal and a can of soup at my desk in case of emergency. Trust me, they come in handy.

3. Buy in bulk. If you can buy granola or dried fruit in bulk, and then bag it, you'll save some cash. I don't really know where to buy healthy versions (without preservatives, sulfates or additives) of this stuff in bulk for cheap, unfortunately, since I don't really have cabinet space. Whole Foods bulk always seems really expensive. So let me know if you find a better alternative. People with cabinet space will thank you.

4. Fill up with fiber. To stay full, keep your energy levels high and help with your daily calorie count, eat foods that are high in fiber. You can find a great list of high-fiber foods here. I also have been known to use a fiber supplement (I like Metamucil Pink Lemonade) to tide me over for days when I'm really hungry.

5. Keep a box of low-sugar, high-fiber cereal at your desk. This is a no-brainer. See the above note. (I like Kashi Good Friends.)

6. Drink decaf green tea. I read the book "Skinny Bitch" and one of the best tips I got was to drink decaf green tea to conquer cravings and provide a non-caffeinated energy boost. I drink Celestial Seasonings because it's typically the only decaf green I can find. It's also yumtastic.

7. Drink enough water. I also read that most of the time when people feel a craving for snacks, they're really dehydrated. So for a while, I required myself to drink a full 12-oz. glass of water before I had any snacks or soda. It was a punishment back then, when I used to drink cans of soda every day. But now, practically the only thing I drink is water.

As a sidenote, have you ever actually tried to drink 64 oz. of water in one day? I have. My stomach was so full that I couldn't fit any snacks in.

8. Go easy on yourself. All food costs money, especially the healthy variety. So don't beat yourself up over spending 80 cents per day on snacks. It's not like you're buying two $5.00 lattes every day. If you're trying to cut costs, take Suze Orman's advice and look for the bigger expenses first (expensive cable, two phone lines, etc.).

And in general, don't be so hard on yourself. You're doing an amazing job by just recognizing where you are in life and trying to do better! Congrats on taking your first steps towards financial fabulousness! Good luck and remember the little people when you get big and famous.

Making a killing on travel containers

As Mr. Dimes and I are going out of town in a few days, I went to Target and purchased our airplane toiletries. We're only going to be away for about a week so there's not much point in bringing a full-sized shampoo, conditioner, body/face washes, lotion, contact lens solution, and toothpaste. Target has a little aisle full of "trial and travel-sized" toiletries, which is convenient, most of which are priced right at $.97 apiece. Doesn't seem like too much, does it?
Well, as luck would have it I also needed to buy a regular bottle of conditioner and a family size tube of toothpaste, both of which were considerably larger than one ounce, and each of which cost about $3.00. For my money, the bigger bottles provided a much greater value. I spent around $12 on our toiletry needs for a single week in travel-sized containers in order to be compliant with FAA requirements.
A lot of people advocate buying once and reusing your containers, which is not a bad idea when they are something that can actually be reused. Toothpaste tubes, for example, aren't refillable, and even though our current tube has less than three ounces in it, because it was originally a six-ounce tube, it would be confiscated by TSA officials. Same thing with contact lens bottles and lotion tubes.
It seems to be a necessary evil of modern travel that you either have to drop a small fortune on toiletries or pack them in your checked luggage, adding heft and increasing the risk of an in-flight bottle explosion. I'm sure the manufacturers of these small containers and their contents love these new regulations, as they are able to sell more product. But I am unimpressed.

Harmony Cafe in Georgetown

One sentence: Inexpensive and extremely tasty vegetarian Chinese eats.

Admittedly, I didn’t eat vegetarian there. They were out of the veggie tempura I wanted so I went with Singapore Curry Noodles because good ones are hard to find on the east coast and I miss them from my lunch days in San Francisco.

I had the chicken satay appetizer and the noodles as the main course. The satay wasn’t the best. But my friend had the crispy tofu steak appetizer. They were nicely puffy and crispy. I loved them! My friend also had the General Tso’s Chicken, but with not-chicken ‘tofu’ chunks. But they were decidedly not tofu. Soy-based maybe, but not bean curd. They were fibrous and meaty, and mighty delicious. Very satisfying with some fresh steamed broccoli in a satisfying bright green color and deliciously crisp.

The noodles were good. The dish is made of very thin noodles, a little chicken, shrimp and egg, and lots of onion, but sadly it wasn’t quite as curry as I like them. That’s ok because it was only my Plan B order. The main thing is that this restaurant does vegetarian Chinese and the price for two appetizers and two entrees was about $23 excluding tip. Not too bad for a meal in Georgetown.

Though I am raving about the vegetarian food, they will make any of their dishes with meat or soy products. And if it’s not on the menu, just ask. We didn’t try asking about thousand layer tofu crisp, but I really miss that dish from Kowloon in San Francisco and I might actually ask for it next time.

ps- This place is a few doors down from The Rhino, THE PLACE in DC to watch the Red Sox. (My old G’town roomie was a BC grad and loved going to the Rhino to watch games.) You can’t miss it. They have a new BoSox banner hanging on M Street. Gotta love it!

Hey, where did those 4 cents come from?

I logged into my Sharebuilder account to get my latest balance, and noticed that there were 4 little cents hanging out in the money market fund there. I wondered where those came from, since all of my money should have been invested in various stocks already. Or so I thought. A couple of clicks gave the answer.

Dividends.

I'd forgotten about dividends.

Which is kind of silly, since many of the stocks I bought do pay dividends. Oh well, it was a pleasant surprise to receive a dividend, even if it was only a 4 cent surprise at this stage.

That did get me thinking though, what are the tax consequences of receiving dividends? Do I have to track them specially? If I reinvest them, are they treated differently? I hit up the IRS web site, which told me that I'd essentially just better keep track of everything about them so that I can report them correctly. Here are the links I checked, if you're interested:

Dividend Reinvestment

Topic 404 - Dividends

Time to set up some more file folders for tax purposes.

Join the business, drink the koolaid!

During the first meeting, I learned that I was talking to a sort of affiliate marketer.? I also learned that there was a startup fee, as well as a monthly fee for the program.? Once you are in the system, you can make money in two ways.

First, by selling stuff and collecting an affiliate fee.? Secondly, you can recruit others to sell the junk and collect a referral fee.? And it's only going to cost you a set up fee of $126 and a monthly fee of $50 to keep your website running.? I don't know about you, but this has bad idea written all over it.? Especially when I got to the second meeting.

This time there were two people involved in selling me this system.? The same person from the previous meeting, and someone higher up the food chain came to talk to me.

They began talking, and half an hour later they were repeating themselves profusely; however, their circumlocutory speech was not the real issue.? They mentioned that setting up your business, and getting sales would pay for itself in the first month.? “Okay,” I asked, “So how do you get sales on your site?”

The two looked at each other, then at me before saying, “Well, how would YOU get sales?”

I mentioned I would find some relevant keywords and bid on them in Google Adwords to direct people to my targeted pages.

The two looked at each other, then at me.? They had no idea what I was talking about.? So I asked again what they did.

The way they get products sold from their site is to buy it themselves.? Now at 10% to 50% commission that means they are buying somewhere between $100 and $500 on their sites each month.? All this was to gain some sort of PV (or Point Value in their strange little world) witch somehow gets transformed into cash back.

The money with this is made of course once you get enough noobs under you to buy their own products.? Then you will get a small chunk of change from their sales.

I asked to see the backend of one of their sites.? I wanted to take a look at how much control the pupetmasters gave them.? But of course this must lead up to another meeting!? So I'll let you know what happens if this meeting ever does.

I feel bad for all of the people who drink the koolaid without knowing what they are getting themselves into.? Which sounds like a lot of people are doing with their ‘pie in the sky' wishful thinking.

Getting A Bit Worried

The stock market is doing great and I'm a big bull but I'm getting a bit concerned. As we enter another silly season of presidential politics the Dems are making noises about taxes. Bush's tax cuts disappear in 2010 if nothing is done to make them permanent and the Dems, sorry to say this, rarely show much sense when it comes to taxes and the economy.

If the tax cuts disappear, you can probably bet on a recession. The stock market will smell this out before the fact and the market could tank, big time, in 2008 or 2009.

Never happen? Maybe but let's look at some tax facts courtesy of Investors Business Daily. Tax cuts are fairly far and few between--Coolidge in the 1920s, Kennedy in the 1960s, Reagan in the 1980s and Bush in 2003.

Here are the facts--since the Bush tax cut in May, 2003, real GDP has grown 13%, about 3.2% a year. Pretty good. Compare that to Clinton's last year in office-1.5%.

But not just Bushie. After Coolidge cut taxes, real GDP rose 59% from 1920 to 1929. After the Kennedy tax cut, real GDP rose 42% from 1961 to 1968. Real GDP rose 31% during the Reagan boom.

Other factors? Of course. But tax cuts work and tax increases don't. So all the rumblings on the campaign trail are starting to make me a bit nervous.

Everyday Finance Portfolio Update and Market Commentary May 2, 2008

It was another good week for the Everyday Finance portfolio, roughly doubling the return of the S&P500. The portfolio returned 2.7% vs. 1.4% for the S&P500. Standouts were Google and Focus Media. The Financial sector continued to benefit the portfolio, with the leveraged ETF breaking through recent highs.

What's next on the docket? I'm eyeing China Finance Online (JRJC) given the beating it's taken of late, Vision China (VISN), which may be the next Focus Media (with better performance, at 88% YTD), and Banco de Columbia (CIB) up 25% YTD. Each of these are extremely volatile, but carry the ability to double or triple during the next year as they've done in prior periods of strong performance. I need to research these a bit further before fully endorsing and purchasing shares, so here's your change to provide your opinion prior to the next portfolio purchase.

For some mid-week updates on my exit from Gold/Platinum and the Synthetic Option Play on Oil, feel free to visit (full article here).

www.everydayfinance.blogspot.com

The window replacement story

Our house was built in the late 70's. Part of its 70's-fabulous look included a pair of windows that weren't even glass. (They were made from two thin sheets of decorative plastic.) But even the windows that were glass had issues: They were practically falling out of their ugly aluminum frames, and they allowed water to leak in and air conditioning to pour out. They actually shook visibly when it was windy out, and they were difficult to open & shut. So we had to do something.

We started the process with some research. Our goal was to determine what types of windows would be the most energy-efficient. The U.S. government's Energy Star web site has a nice primer on what makes a window energy efficient. The other sites that we read on the subject agreed, and we knew we wanted the most efficient windows possible, so we moved on to the next step.

Should we do it ourselves or have someone install them for us? That question was pretty much a no-brainer. Normally I'm a big DIY person, but I draw the line at doors and windows. I've helped install exterior doors in the past and did not enjoy the process one bit. I might have considered installing windows, if my Dad or Grandpa had been here to help, but...eh, not by ourselves. My husband does not enjoy DIY, and I drop things way too frequently to risk breaking expensive windows. We'd also learned that doing an excellent job on the installation plays a huge part in how efficient the windows actually end up being.

So we began researching window companies. We gave several of them a call and had them give us estimates. About two-thirds of them also did impressive demonstrations involving hair dryers, heat lamps, and BTU meters. There were hard sells, soft sells, and everything in between, but since we were just in the information gathering stage, we passed on them all. No was the magic word at that point. If I remember right, we got prices ranging from about $5000 to $26,000 for 7 windows plus one oversized sliding door.

That was a pretty big range. The most expensive company offered a lifetime warranty where “lifetime” meant “as long as you own your house”. The least expensive company just gave me a bad vibe. We eliminated both those companies. We checked references on the remaining companies, checked with the BBB, and checked against their state contractor's license for complaints. We checked for other discounts that might be available, but the only one we came up with was the energy credit that was in effect at the time from the federal government. (Although that was no longer in effect for the last stage of our project.)

I tried to do research on the different brands of windows available as well, but I have a hard time judging that because it seems like there are always both complaints and praise for each brand. I saw samples of each in person too, and they seemed about the same. In the end, we went with Milgard windows, which seem just fine. For ordering and installation, we chose a lower-priced local small company which had a great reputation, very few (or was it no?) complaints and good references. They also had no problems doing the job for us in stages, and they accepted my cash-back rewards card. Since we'd decided against replacing the sliding door, we paid just under $4000 for the 7 dual-paned, tinted, low e, argon-filled vinyl windows (including installation, gas surcharges, and taxes.) Two of our windows also included decorative rain glass, which is more expensive.

We're Moving

Moving this week which I hate but....

Back when the computer comes to life again, whenever.

Write-Offs: 05.09.08

$$$ Did Microsoft Overpay for Its Facebook Stake? [DealBook]

$$$ GLG Hits Investors With Exit Fee [Times Online]

$$$ The Only Election That Matters [Globe And Mail]

$$$ GOOG [WallStrip]

Everyday Finance Portfolio Update and Market Commentary March 24, 2008

Given the recent market turmoil and some time since a portfolio update, I thought I'd share the latest holdings, trades and outlook on the market:

The most notable recent trades were the plunge into the financials last Monday with the leveraged 2X Financial Sector ETF UYG. I can't take credit for stellar performance this year, but in this case, I called the bottom spot on (here). On Monday 3/17, I recorded the following transaction for a 1 week 35% return:

3/17, Bought 100 UYG @ 26.069

Today, Sold 33 UYG @ 35.0206



I'm still holding the remainder with the thought that the Financials are undergoing a sustained recovery, but this is a rather bold statement, so I took 1/3 off the top.

Elsewhere in the portfolio, I sold the gold ETF GLD and bought the 2X leveraged ETF DGP. I believe gold's going to hit 1200 before it hits 800 per ounce. The dollar has staged some temporary strength, but I don't think it's going much higher given further cuts and a long way to go to true stability in the economy.

On a bit of a whim, I bought Sirius Satellite when I caught wind of the merger announcement with XM. I'm kicking myself for this one. It's been a year that this routine, logical merger should have been approved and the action was awaiting finalization. I should have bought in months ago, but following a random conversation in the office about the news, I bought in at $3.19 per share and in after hours, it's at $3.26 for a nominal gain as of now. I envision as the relief sets in and terms and conditions are fully recognized (along with requisite regulatory approval), the shares move up from here, not down.

Below is a full snapshot of the trading portfolio:

BIDU

CHL

DGP

FMCN

GOOG

KTII

SIRI

SU

TKC

UYG

VIP

To highlight a few notables...

• Baidu.com was up 15% today. I think BIDU has been overly punished during this downturn in Chinese stocks, as it is the leader in an increbible market with real earnings.
• I'd sold off about half of the holdings in FMCN and CHL, both Chinese stocks, after runups of over 150% each. Unfortunately, the remaining half of each position has declined significantly this year. I'm holding both through the Olympics this year in anticipation of strong demand for both advertising with FMCN and continued growth in cellular service with CHL.
• A stock I've been especially pleased with is the little-known K-Tron (KTII). It has held up quite well in this downturn and is virtually recession-proof. Full background here.
• I also expect to see the other emerging market telecom stocks VIP (Russia) and TKC (Turkey).

www.everydayfinance.blogspot.com

5 Cents

As I was doing my taxes this weekend, I thought about a post I wrote long ago to commemorate the first interest payment I received from my very first savings account: a whopping 15 cents.

Though I didn't know it at the time, that 15 cents, that tiny step, was symbolic of a huge shift in the way I approached my finances. It was the start of my savings, the start of what will soon be a downpayment on a house or condo, and the start of a wave of financial learning that I hope will bring me stability and security for the rest of my life.

This year, I made more than $500 in interest from my savings account. It may not seem like a ton, but when you remember that it all started with a 15 cent interest payment, it's a sign of huge growth both personally and financially.

As I reflected on this growth, a nickname from my childhood flashed into my mind. When I was born, my grandfather couldn't pronounce my name. Every time he said "Nicole" it sounded like "nickel." My mom tried again and again to correct him, but he was simply baffled by her. To him, the pronunciations of Nicole and nickel sounded identical. So family, in all their sarcastic glory, began calling me "five cents." As in "Hey! Five cents! What's happening?" It's a nickname that stuck with me throughout my childhood.

The irony, of course, is that a girl who grew up with the nickname "five cents" grew up to become "The Budgeting Babe." In retrospect, I wonder if it was meant to be. Regardless, I know my grandparents - all of them - are looking down and laughing right now.

Thanks guys. You set me on the right course :)

Prosper.com Investment Return Update; Other Passive Income

It's been a while since I've updated with the Prosper.com investment returns. For any of the uninitiated, I've posted a few articles on this peer to peer lending site that is a true Financial Innovation that offers returns not correlated with the general market at 8-12% annual returns, inclusive of defaults. (Full Background Here)

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Here are my current stats from the site:

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Active loans: 81

Principal loaned: $4,711.67

Avg. interest rate: 14.95%

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Loans default over time of course; I just received my first notice that a lender has declared bankruptcy, so I can officially write that one off. In order to account for current defaults, late loans that are likely to default, and the likelihood that current loans will default in the future, there are various independent sites that tabulate the returns of all borrowers.

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Eric's Credit Community has me at a 6.2% projected return for the life of the portfolio, which is decent, given the -4% return of the Nasdaq over the past 52 week period. I made a few rookie errors early on, which have summarily defaulted, but once we get through this credit crisis and we come out of this mild recession, I can see myself starting up a bit more heavily.

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It is worth mentioning that new members can get the $25 signup bonus through this link since I'm and existing member. You can then sign up friends and family for the same signup bonuses.

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Cash Rewards from Credit Card Companies - The Easiest Tax Free $1,000 per year

Elsewhere in the world of passive income, both my wife and I cashed in our most recent credit card rewards of $150 each, which goes right into our kids' college accounts. Someday, I'll tell them I paid for the first year of college on the tab of the credit card companies. I've posted a few articles here on what the best options are for taking advantage of these cash rewards programs.

www.everydayfinance.blogspot.com

Thursday, May 8, 2008

The Key To Finding Cheap Car Insurance

The costs of car insurance, as with all things car related, have gone up in recent months for any number of reasons. Car insurance companies give all sorts of reasons for that, and most of them are complete garbage. Although we’ve all been taught to take everything with a pinch of salt, it doesn’t help you when you have to fork out for it after buying a new car! However, if you are with Tesco insurance you can save a lot of money.?

Tesco insurance insurance really can helps its customers in a number of ways. The choice of car insurance products is fantastic so you get the deal you need at the price you want to suit you perfectly. In fact, Tesco insurance can be the answer to your prayers. Obtaining a quote takes but a few minutes and is a decision that you will never regret!

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Welcome Readers of Frozen Tropics!

Greetings and welcome! Thanks for reading my post on Napa 1015. It really was very delicious and I encourage everyone to come on down to H Street and give it a try.

A shoutout to Inked for making a real post out of it. I am truly honored.

New readers can subscribe to my feed

I’m so sorry that my site looks crappy in MS Internet Explorer 7, but you really should use Firefox anyway. (Truly frugal types go with open source software.)

Also, I am not a web guru so you can’t easily search the archives. I recommend the category links to the right. That’s probably better anyhow since things are linked topically, rather than organized by what was on my mind that month.

Please feel free to leave a comment. I just have a few basic rules that boil down to these two:

1) Please try not to be anonymous. Even if you say something like ‘W.L.’ for a name, that helps clear up conversations that anonymous has with anonymous in the comments section.

2) Please try to be courteous. Rule of thumb, if you wouldn’t say it to my face in person, don’t say it here or to my other guests.

Thanks and welcome!

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

The Art of Deception - By Kevin Mitnick

I recently finished reading ‘The Art of Deception - Controlling the Human Element of Security' which is a book written by Kevin Mitnick. In case you haven't heard of Mitnick before, he is the most famous social engineer ever.

Social Engineering is basically using the social skills of influence and persuasion to get whatever the the persuader wants. It relies heavily on the reliance and exploitation of basic human trust. It's quite similar to being a conman, only usually it's done against a company rather than an individual.

Mitnick talks about various workarounds in security systems that can be bypassed by anyone using the correct lexicon who sounds like they know what they are talking about. He explains different methods of attack and ways to get a hold of information using different scenarios.

A good portion of the book is about shielding your company from attacks from social engineers and possible policies that you might want to employ. This portion of the book is done very well and I would recommend checking it out, espicially if you have never heard of social engineering before.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Me And My SEP

So I just set up an SEP-IRA for myself, partially because then I can contribute for last year, and knock a good chunk off the taxes I owe, and because I came across this wonderful bit of logic from Five Cent Nickel:

As I noted above, you can contribute to your SEP-IRA as either the employer, the employee, or both. In the case of the latter, it counts against your annual IRA contribution limit, so it reduces the amount that you can contribute to a traditional or Roth IRA. But in the case of the former, there’s no effect on your annual IRA contribution limit. Thus, it seems that you can use employer contributions to your SEP-IRA as a way of legally exceeding the IRS contribution limits.

Brilliant!

See, an SEP can't be set up as a Roth, but you can still deduct it from your taxes, and you can contribute up to 25% of what your business makes each year. So I can contribute my money to either the SEP or into my workplace accounts, and it doesn't make any difference. This is attractive because depositing into my workplace accounts can't exactly be done when I have a bit of spare cash - I have to fill out a form and hope they process it before my next paycheck. ALSO, I could roll it over into a Roth whenever I pleased, and I'm not limited to waiting until I leave this job. So I could have my 403b, my 457b, my Roth IRA, AND my SEP IRA.. drool. (I'm definitely in the savings-is-addictive club.)

Legendary Sequoia Fund to Reopen to New Investors...A Cause for Jubilation or Avoidance?

I noticed a piece today on the reopening of the Sequoia Fund (SEQUX), which for the prior investing generation, was the pinnacle of mutual fund excellence. The fund was started by Warren Buffet's stockbroker Bill Ruane, now deceased. For years, it outperformed the indices in stellar fashion, besting the S&P500 by a factor of 3 between 1970 and present. As legend has it, Morningstar used to view any research study that didn't rank Sequoia at the top as inherently flawed. So, the news that the fund is reopening to new investors should be met with jubilation, right?

Not So Fast...

First of all, why would a famed fund that closed its previously be opening its doors now? Redemptions? Lack of fund inflows (Assets once stood at $5 billion, now they're at $3.8 billion)? Is it even the same fund now that the founder has passed? Based on its recent performance, I don't endorse the fund.

The recent performance has been unacceptable. As shown below, the 5-year performance stands at a paltry 8% compared to the S&P's return of 56%.

In very recent history, the fund suffered terribly during the December market swoons with the past 6 month period resulting in a decline of -17% vs. -9% for the S&P500.

If you're considering an actively managed fund, check out this Diamond Hill Fund that bests the indices in all relevant timeframes, including the recent market mayhem; note the YTD performance of 4% up vs. 5% down for the S&P500 (full writeup here).

I think the Sequoia one is more nostalgia and name recognition than prudent investing. Following the herd and yesterday's winners has proven painful enough for individual investors. Following the prior generation's winner with no rational benefit could be similarly dangerous.

Morningstar now ranks it as a 3 star fund and its expense ratio is 1.0%. A Vanguard S&P500 Fund or major index ETF can be had with better performance and a tenth the expense ratio to boot.

www.everydayfinance.blogspot.com

Sunday, May 4, 2008

How To Flub A Job Interview--Follow This Advice

Personal finance columns drive me up a wall. Here is a doozy of bad advice. We'll take it point by point.

Five Ways to Flub a Job Interview

by Penelope Trunk

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