by Guest Blogger on July 29, 2010
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Hardly a hot financial topic, but always an important one –- saving for retirement is often relegated to the back burner. The following five reminders are here to help you keep things simple and steady as you save for retirement. That way, you’ll never have to be concerned about what to do after you retire, except enjoy yourself during your golden age.
5 Golden Rules To Save For Retirement
Golden Rule #1: Start Saving If You Haven’t Done So Yet
I remember when I first heard about IRAs, 401Ks and thought…”boring! I’m too young to save now”. Then when the NASDAQ crashed in 2000, I remember how my boss at the current PR firm I was working at came screaming down the stairs saying “save as much as you can when you’re young!” I’ll never forget how insistent he was then. Right there and then, I vowed to start saving as much as possible.
Besides apathy, I think fear of not knowing how to invest your money can really get in the way. Don’t let it –- start socking the money away right now, and get help from your online stock brokerage to find an investing plan. You can start with a safe and basic money market account first, if you’re worried about what to do. Just start getting the money in there.
Golden Rule #2: Save As Much As You Can, When You Can
Ah yes, the daily addictions of Starbucks, your favorite and expensive Whole Foods products, and your love for movies. Or whatever your “vice” happens to be. Chances are, you can cut out all but your most favorite of life’s little pleasures and just put the money you save away for a rainy day, or for those “golden days” when you retire. Not to say that you can’t indulge yourself in a few luxuries, but pay attention to how often and how much you are spending. Perhaps you’ve got a Netflix subscription you aren’t using, or magazines you don’t have time to read; or perhaps you really aren’t using all those cell phone minutes you thought you would. So cut them back.
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by The Smarter Wallet on July 28, 2010
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For an online brokerage that has great pricing as well as great ongoing promotions, check out OptionsHouse. Their services are for the active stock and options trader and investor. You can take advantage of their top-notch suite of tools (including Virtual Trading) and they’ll give you 100 free complementary trades when you open a real trading account, if you decide to get started with trading. They also have a few other promotions that make signing up for this stock and options trading brokerage worth a look. Remember that their pricing is some of the best around for stock brokers, with a flat rate of $2.95 per stock trade, and $5 for up to 5 contracts (or $8.50 plus .15/contract).
OptionsHouse Free Trades & Other Promotions
Note that some of the offers can’t be taken together when you sign up for an account, so make sure you review the information carefully. Here’s a full list of current promotions from OptionsHouse, but we also discuss them below.
100 Commission Free Sales
There’s nothing more exhilarating than making a successful trade, except maybe if you make that trade for free? All new OptionsHouse customers have the opportunity to trade without spending a cent. Get 100 free trades when you sign up for an OptionsHouse brokerage account Just fund your new account with $3,000 or more and enjoy your next 100 trades at no cost. You’ll need to execute the trades within 60 days of funding your account, otherwise they will expire unused.
Open an account with OptionsHouse
through this link and use the promotion code FREE100 in order to receive 100 commission-free transactions for stock or option trades.
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by The Smarter Wallet on July 26, 2010
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What’s another cheap meal you can cook at home? How about baked beans?
You can do a lot with baked beans. There are so many versatile ways we can use them, and they just sit in the cupboard until they are needed. They’re great if you are on a budget as well, because they are always cheaply available. Quite often they can be even cheaper if you buy them in bulk, so bear that in mind.
But let’s get back to how you can actually use them. If all you can think of is the standard beans on toast, think again. Here are some more ideas:
1. Beans on toast with a twist. Add some raw chopped up onion and your choice of some hot sauce –- anything spicy you have a taste for. Mix it all together and serve it on hot buttered toast as you would normally. Test your taste buds with that!
2. Bulk out a cottage pie by adding in a tin of beans as well. Mince can be expensive and if you are on a tight budget you’ll want to make sure your meals go as far as they possibly can. One key way to do this is to add some baked beans to a dish. Cottage pie is ideal. Once you have cooked your mince, add some chopped onion, a tin of beans and some frozen peas and sweetcorn. Stir it all in together and look forward to a bulked out and very tasty meal when you serve it up.
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by The Smarter Wallet on July 23, 2010
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It’s time for an update on the investment markets. I’ve got a set of new INO.com investment videos that may be of interest to market traders. Before we get to introducing these videos, I’d like to mention that the trading tool used to analyze recent market events is the INO tool called MarketClub. I’ve previously reviewed the MarketClub trading system here, but you can certainly see it in action in the videos below.
Will The Dollar Index Rally? Tracking a Leveraged ETF for the Euro
Here are some short videos for your viewing pleasure:
Video 1: Is the Dollar Index (USDX) about to rally? The USDX is a measure of the dollar’s value against a basket of other currencies.
It is a weighted geometric mean of the dollar’s value compared with the following currencies:
- Swiss Franc (CHF) 3.6% weight
- Swedish Krona (SEK), 4.2% weight
- Canadian Dollar (CAD), 9.1% weight
- Pound Sterling (GBP), 11.9% weight
- Japanese Yen (JPY), 13.6% weight
- Euro (EUR), 57.6% weight
Using Fibonacci retracement methods, Adam Hewison (INO.com’s expert trader) shows us that this index may recover. While there are some mixed signals in technical analysis indicators that show a shakiness in the USDX, the expectation here is that it will go back up.
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by The Smarter Wallet on July 21, 2010
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How has the summer been treating you? On our end, it’s been great. Nice warm CONSISTENT weather, nothing too hot nor too cold. Kids have been attending their summer schools and next week, my eldest is attending his first computer camp. The interesting thing about these summer camps that I’ve learned thus far is this: some can be pretty cheap while others cost an arm and a leg.
Kid Summer Camps: The Cheap and Not So Cheap
This year, we opted to splurge a little to try out the rather expensive computer camp. It’s set up for 7 to 12 year olds and is all about teaching kids develop their own video games. Yes, what kind of parents are we to be sending our kid to build these games, you may ask? After all, too much video gaming can be a hazardous thing. But we’re not having him play the game, we’re having him develop it, which should be good for his creativity. Plus I’ll let you in on a family fact: the spouse had at one point, devoted his career to the video gaming industry. So I can make the excuse that it runs in the genes?
Then again, if you think about it, most families will find themselves paying more for summers than they do for the rest of the year. Why? Because summers equate to family vacations. And many people end up trying to figure out how best to keep their kids preoccupied during this time of year. During the year, kids go to school (and that’s public school for most of us) where tuition is free. While for summers, the kids spend it in fun camps and other summer fun activities. But for those who want a fancier family experience, there’s always travel for everyone. In our case, it’s usually a trip abroad to visit relatives, and airfare can be pretty hefty when we account for 4 round trip tickets halfway around the world.
So to take things in perspective, computer camp may not be that bad. Although a sports camp or other local community kids’ summer program is probably much more affordable — usually under a hundred bucks or at most, a few hundred dollars for many weeks of fun. Now if you’ve got our own local waterhole or cave network around where you live, then consider yourself lucky. Nature is something you won’t need to spend on. Here are some other cheap ways to enjoy the summer.
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by The Smarter Wallet on July 20, 2010
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Want to start saving more money? Try DIY home improvement jobs!
How many times have you glanced around your home and thought, “That room really needs painting,” or “I should really get around to redoing the bathroom”.
If you’re like the rest of us, you will no doubt have had a few instances when this has happened. But the thing you need to ask yourself is whether or not you can do the necessary job yourself, or whether you need to call someone else in to do it for you.
5 DIY Home Improvement Jobs You Can Do To Save Money
To keep more of your money in an account that earns top savings bank rates, you can certainly attempt to tackle your own projects yourself, rather than hire someone to do the work for you. The following five jobs could be considered as pretty doable DIY home improvement jobs. Always make sure you are happy to do the job before you take it on though –- some people hate DIY (or do-it-yourself) of any kind, and in this case, they would rather spend the money on someone who does it for a living.
1. Painting – both interior and exterior. If you aren’t happy about going up a tall ladder, then get an expert in to do the upper levels of your home. You could still save money by doing the lower levels yourself, if you wish.
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by Millie Kay G. on July 19, 2010
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Billing itself as “The World’s Most Prestigious and Versatile Credit Card,” Barclays’ Visa Black Card has garnered a lot of attention in recent months. What does this card offer to its users and who can benefit the most from it?
If you like the idea of exclusive deals, then the Visa Black Credit Card might appeal to you. Barclay claims to limit this particular card to 1% of U.S. residents. And it’s made of patent-pending carbon, which makes it stand out from the plastic cards up for grabs elsewhere.
How much will this exclusivity cost you? You can expect to pay an annual fee of $495. Since this annual fee is substantially higher than run-of-the-mill credit cards, it’s worth noting that membership gives you access to a rewards program and 24-hour concierge service.
Visa Black Credit Card Review: Concierge Service & Rewards
First, the good: the concierge service can help you with travel arrangements, restaurant reservations, and more, whether you need it for your business or not. For instance, you can learn more about local events, arrange for gifts or flowers, set up conference services, and gain assistance in tracking down the right gifts.
This can be of help when you’re away from home or vacationing — you won’t have to pay extra for flaky Wi-Fi access or waste time hunting for a place to eat if you can call the concierge service. You can email in your requests if that’s easier than phoning, too.
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by The Smarter Wallet on July 16, 2010
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If you have ever looked into making money online you may have already come across HubPages. I came across the site HubPages.com just over two years ago, and even though I haven’t created many hubs since then (my total count is currently seventeen) I have plans to add a lot more.
Make Money With Google Adsense & HubPages
Why is this you may ask? Well I have discovered that it is well worth creating these short articles known as hubs, mainly because you can add Google Adsense to them. And that means you can earn an income from your writing that keeps accumulating over the long term.
Now I should say here that this is one of those classic situations where you get out of it what you put in. It’s no good just writing one hub, associating your article with Adsense and then expecting loads of money to come rolling in. It doesn’t work that way. But it is definitely worth writing as many hubs as you can and starting to make a name for yourself on HubPages, because this is where the real rewards lie.
How Much Can You Earn From HubPages?
I know someone who is making over $100 a month in Adsense revenue from the hubs she has put up on the site over the last year. Actually that was the figure she gave me after just six months on the site –- and I have every reason to believe it will be higher now. She finds articles on all kinds of subjects that are easy to write, and puts them on the site. Some are around 400 words or above, while others are quite a bit longer. But they all give her the opportunity to earn some cash.
Now $100 a month may not sound like a lot. But I have realized that this is a numbers game and the more hubs I add to my collection, the more I will earn from Google Adsense.
To this end I have come up with a plan to start adding one hub a day to my total. Now believe me when I say that 400 words or so a day is not a lot to write. As it stands, the article you are reading (including the title) is 400 words long right about NOW. It isn’t much really, is it? And yet you have the chance to publish such articles for free (and as many as you like as well) to ensure that you can start to build your revenue stream.
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