My Money Blog

Moved For Financial Reasons? Share Your Story.

Posted on February 8, 2012 // 27 Comments

Have you moved for financial reasons? Where did you move to? Where did you move from? How did you decide? Larger income? Better job for similar income? Lower housing costs? Something else? Share your story in the comments … [Read the rest]

What Cities Are People Moving To For Financial Reasons?

Posted on February 8, 2012 // 35 Comments

This post has been revised with new info and added to my Expense Reduction Guide: Housing. Although it takes considerable effort, nearly 40 million Americans move every year. Now, the reasons for all these moves are not all financial, but you can … [Read the rest]

TD Ameritrade Online Cash Services $200 Bonus

Posted on February 8, 2012 // 18 Comments

It looks like TDA is following the trend of combining checking account features with their traditional brokerage accounts. If you have a TD Ameritrade account, this looks like a pretty easy $200 bonus score. Visit this promotion page to sign … [Read the rest]

How To Reduce Housing Expenses – Brainstorming / Request Ideas

Posted on February 6, 2012 // 20 Comments

One of my overall goals for 2012 is to make this site more of a permanent resource for information. As part of this, I want to create an "Expense Reduction Guide" that will provide an organized way to find ways to maximize personal value and make … [Read the rest]

Poll: Which Tax Software Did You Use In 2011?

Posted on February 3, 2012 // 46 Comments

January 31st was the deadline for companies to mail out W-2 forms and 1099 forms involving other income and interest. Coming up is February 15th, the deadline for brokerages to send out 1099-B forms listing stock sale proceeds. That means you … [Read the rest]

Hedge Funds: Actual Investor Returns Less Than Advertised

Posted on February 3, 2012 // 5 Comments

When a mutual fund or hedge fund lists their historical returns, the industry standard is to use time-weighted returns that assume you buy at the beginning of the time period and hold until the end. However, what often happens is that a fund will … [Read the rest]

More Ways To Increase Your Free Dropbox Storage

Posted on February 2, 2012 // 9 Comments

I love Dropbox. I like that it's a real folder on my computer that is also invisibly synchronized and backed up in the cloud. The best part is that usually I forget it's even there. Other online storage apps like Box.net or SkyDrive don't work … [Read the rest]

Correlation Between Age Demographics and Stock Market Prices?

Posted on February 2, 2012 // 11 Comments

While perusing this early retirement reading list for more books to read, I ran across an interesting fellow named Harry S. Dent, Jr. His primary theory is that age demographics are strongly correlated with the economy and thus stock market prices. … [Read the rest]

How To Retire Early and Live Well With Less Than A Million Dollars [Book Review]

Posted on February 1, 2012 // 8 Comments

I enjoy reading older books about early retirement; I seek to learn from their experiences, but I also look for ways in that their perspective is colored by their own time period. For instance, a book written in the 80s1 - an era of high inflation … [Read the rest]

The Overnight Rule For Managing Your Portfolio

Posted on January 30, 2012 // 22 Comments

Recently, I came across an investment tip called the Overnight Rule from Carl Richards via the NYT Bucks Blog: Imagine that all your investment holdings were sold overnight by accident. You can't undo the trades, and now all you have is … [Read the rest]

New Checking Account Promotions: Citibank, Chase, M&T Bank

Posted on January 30, 2012 // 14 Comments

Interest rates looks to remain tiny for a long time, so if you want to boost your interest earned while keeping your money safe in banks, taking advantage of sign-up bonuses is one way to do it. Earning 1% APY on $10,000 is just $100 a year, and it's … [Read the rest]

Savings Bonds vs. Bank Savings Accounts

Posted on January 27, 2012 // 16 Comments

(In this post, I'm not going to provide all the background information on savings bonds that I normally do. For that, please read the older posts in my Savings Bonds category.) When the Treasury announced the $10,000 purchase limit for 2012, a … [Read the rest]