Just2Trade - Review

Its been a week since I opened a brokerage account with Just2Trade.

Initial thoughts:

Pros: $2.50 trade

Cons:
1. Trading(cash)balance shown is unclear.
2. Placing a sell or buy order is time-consuming.
3. Portfolio management non-existent.
4. Account activity is bare-bones(for this alone, I would not recommend Just2Trade)

but if you don't mind doing your own math and keeping track of your financial activity then you may open an account with Just2Trade.

1.99% Balance Transfer Offer for 12 months - $75 capped fee

I called my credit card company couple times this week.

First, I spoke with the Customer Rep who offered me 1.99% rate good for 15 months with 3% transfer fee. I thanked the person and hung up.

Second,(after 10 min) spoke to a balance transfer specialist who offered the same but after telling this person am keen on doing a transfer and the 3% fee is a hindrance offered to cap the fee at $300. I thanked the person and hung up.

Third time is a charm. Spoke to another Customer Rep who played the same song but this time around she seemed eager to help me and transferred me to a balance transfer specialist who again played the same song but told him am looking to transfer x$ and can the credit card company offer me anything enticing..after going back and forth I was offered a 1.99% rate good for 12 months with a $75 capped fee.

This will go straight towards the mortgage payment next month and then the exciting part begins with trying to pay off this card in the next 11 months.
This will immediately bring down the balance on the mortgage but all extra payments would go towards the credit card and hence the mortgage balance would slowly decrease.

I believe the $75 fee is worth it since I would be saving much more than that with the mortgage interest am paying right now.

Chase raising my minimum payment from 2% to 5%

Chase notified me that my minimum monthly payments would jump from 2% to 5% of current balance, effective August 2009.

Its a good thing that Chase wants me to pay off the credit card sooner but its just bad timing especially when am laid off and having to look for employment and trying to conserve my savings.

On A Good Note: The person I've lent the money is still on schedule to pay off the Credit Loan in the next few months.

Uncertainity at work affecting my finances?

It is...About 2 weeks ago, I got my utility bills(electricity and natural gas) and I promptly paid both of them online except that I switched payments so one of them has excess payment and the other one deficient payment.

so, watch out what you type when you pay bills online. Its best you are in a clear state of mind without any distractions around.

CitiBank raises default APR to 29.99%

I received "Important Account Information" notification from Citibank and I have the screenshot of the notification.

Bank of America raises transaction fees

Am bummed. Couple of my credit cards are from Bank of America and now BofA has raised transaction fees to 4% of the transfer amount.

A balance transfer of $10K will cost you $400 in transaction fees.
A balance transfer of $20K will cost you $800 in transaction fees.
A balance transfer of $30K will cost you $1200 in transaction fees.

This should put an end to consumer binge spending.

Check out the 'Special Rules for Credit Card Purchases' ...eye-opener for me!

How healthy are your finances?

I liked this interactive financial tool. click on the image above to access the tool. You can input your age and income and then play with the numbers and be graded at the end!

My grade was B:

Discover - Special Purchase Offer

Am not keen on using Credit Cards as short term loan providers but having said that, I have taken advantage of 0% APR balance transfer offers and occasionally low balance transfer offers provided they have low or zero transfer fees.

Recently, I logged into my account and noticed DISCOVER is offering me a balance transfer @1.99% ( Fee of $150.00 for each balance transfer.) or a Special Purchase Rate Offer of 1.9% good for 6 months. If you don't like paying transaction fee for balance transfers then this maybe an alternative option to consider. As always read FAQs and the very minute fine print..

Questions & Answers About this Special Purchase Offer

Q: What is my special purchase rate?
A: You will receive a special purchase Annual Percentage Rate (APR) of 1.9%. This special rate will only apply for new purchases, not old purchases and balances.

Q: How long does my account have this special APR?
A: Your special rate of 1.9% will be applied to all new purchases made from 4/7/2009 - 10/31/2009 if you make any purchase between 4/7/2009 and 5/31/2009. This rate will apply until the last day of your billing period ending November 2009.

Q: How do you apply my payments?
A: We apply payments to balances with low special APRs, like this one, before balances with standard APRs so, if you have existing balances or make additional transactions that have standard APRs, your savings under this offer will be reduced.

Q: Is this rate for all of my Discover Card charges? Balance transfers? Cash advances?
A: The special low APR is only applied to new purchases made from 4/7/2009 - 10/31/2009. This special rate does not apply to balance transfers or cash advances.

Q: Is there any reason why I would not qualify for this special rate?
A: If your account already has a special purchase rate or is closed or delinquent, you will not receive this special rate.

Equifax: Free FICO Credit Score

Equifax is offering a free FICO score to first 10,000 people!
It's free. No credit card required. No obligation.

Here is the link : click here

I got mine and my score is 771 and the website gives suggestion to improve your score.

Key Factors Affecting Your FICO® Score

1. You have too many credit cards carrying balances.

Your FICO® score was hurt because you are carrying balances on too many credit cards at once.

What to do about this: You should consider paying down the balances on your credit cards and keep the balances low. However, consolidating or moving your debt from one account to another will usually not help your FICO® score since the same total amount is owed.

Interestingly, I only carry balances on two of my credit cards. This leads me to believe that am already in the top tier and if I do pay down my balances, I could possibly vault into 800s.

How often can I request my free FICO® score from this website?
You can receive one free Equifax FICO® score from FreeFICOScore.com every 12 months.

After I got the score, I tried to close my account but MyFico wouldn't allow that. However, they can only permanently lock your account, which is what I requested.

Here is the number to call to lock your online account: 1-800-319-4433 or go here.

Financial Update

Am hoping to pay down Credit Card#1 by mid december and will be allocating a huge chunk of my income this month towards it.

CITI is offering me a low low low 0% offer good until May of 2009 with $75(max) fee and am thinking of taking advantage of it and funding my ROTH IRA for 2008 and 2009 and also pay down my Mortgage and have written down my payment options to pay it off by April of 09...

My NetWorth for November will not be pretty even after allocating hugh chunk to pay down Credit Card #1 as my 401(k) and ROTH IRA account have taken a huge hit...

Am still optimistic about recovering back the monies..

Credit Crisis in the US caused by Greed and De-regulation

1. What happens when you don't have regulations in place?
2. What happens when you don't have a true market economy?
3. What happens if you let businesses charge you the maximum profits it can?

All of these leads to crisis sooner or later..

Am particularly angry and disgusted to learn that the bailout money handed out(in return for preferred shares) to financial companies is being mishandled :-

• Financial institutions are using the money to buy each other out.
• Considering the following article, are using the money to pay out massive bonuses to employees/managers who caused this mess to begin with...

Article Title:

$50 billion of bailout going to employee bonuses

Article Link: ClickHere

Took money out of savings!

Yep. I had to cover some payment towards recent car repair and also pay a bit more on one of the credit cards.
Its not a happy feeling to have to dig into savings but hey, isn't that its purpose :)

This will lower my net worth for September but am still hoping to be able to pay off my Credit Card #1 by end of December and also hopefully be mortgage free by Dec 2009!

Closed my Scottrade account

I have closed my brokerage account with Scottrade and will not be trading anymore until one of the following happens :

1. Either I win a lottery(which I highly doubt)
   
2. I have paid off my home mortgage(which looks probable)
   

Even though, the stock market zoomed to sky high today am still concerned about future inflation and potential devalution in currency which will lead to lower standard of living.

The fundamentals are still weaker and when you have US Govt bailing out failing institutions then you stop innovation and ability of new institutions to take their place and bring new work ethics but with continued bailout, the Fed and the Treasury have made sure that the cyle greed-->unwanted risks-->bailout-->greed continues unabated.

We will certainly have more bubbles and more bailouts in the future and this will greatly impact our 401k and IRA accounts and will certainly increase our taxes!!!!

Its official - Lehman Brothers in Chapter 11

You all know that I bought Lehman Brothers stock last week and officially today, they declared bankruptcy and most of my shares are trading for pennies and my entire portfolio has been wiped out..

Am not blaming myself for this ; rather Wall Street.

Back in March 2008, Lehman Brothers had a book value of $38 a share and today its trading for less than 20 cents a share...What can investors do? They read financial reports, make sense with whatever is out there and invest for long term.

If investing for long term means risking your principal it doesn't matter if the risk is short term or long term...I would rather be it short term..

My faith in US stock market has tanked and am wondering what to do regarding my 401K and Roth IRA portfolio and am unsure of my future investments into these retirement vehicles...

Investing in stock market : know the fundamentals very well

I thought I learned a lesson when I lost several thousands of dollars between 2000-2002 investing in the stock market during the dot com bust and vowed to stay away for a long time.

I did not get back to investing in the stock market until early this year and boy, do I have the smarts at picking the right stock!

I bought WaMu(WM) earlier this year when it was trading for around $20(saw it go down from $40 a year ago) and rode along with it until it got below $5 a share and sold it for a loss!!!
What did I do that you shouldn't? NOT PANIC..even though I felt like I was making an informed decision.

I was all along following the debacle of Freddi Mac(FRE) and Fannie Mae(FNM) and decided to buy FRE while it was trading around 4 bucks each(& to sell it when I had a profit of 10%) and had to watch it go down into $2-$3ish range...I sold it..

Now, I realized that I have lost so much that I really need to make it up fast..What do I do? Invest in Chinese stocks...I researched chinese stocks that had a business growth, earnings were increasing and was profitable..I narrowed it down to a list and decided to invest with China Nepstar Chain Drugstore(NPD). Guess what? Yes..you guessed it right..The CFO resigned the day after I purchased and the stock went down into the $4ish range..

I figured I have had enough of this stock market and decided to take one last gamble. Lehman brothers(LEH) was struggling to stay aflot and had lost about 50% the day earlier. I figured, how much more can it lose?(hear the amateur in me!) and bought a bunch of stock for about $8 and the next day it plunges another 45%...

Amen!

I think am going to stay away from stock market for the rest of my life and focus on paying down my mortgage, having a healthy emergency fund balance and funding my retirement(even though my 401k and IRA will contain stocks and bonds)...

Note: The money that am using to invest in the stock market is *play* money and made a wise decision not to invest thousands of dollars this time around...

6.1% Interest on checking account

I have resisted the urge to open an account with ING or HSBC or any online-only banks for the last several years. I like the comfort of walking into a location and talking to someone personally and I still write checks occasionally and check-writing comes in handy..

Some of the credit unions have better interest rate than ING/HSBC etc..

One of them is Florida Central CU - but I wonder how long this rate will last...any guesses?

Monthly Fixed expenses and Variable expenses

I have struggled to define what's fixed cost vs what's variable cost....Example: Cell phone..is that a fixed or variable cost?
I have signed up for a 2 year contract and if I do not have additional charges then the monthly cost would be my fixed cost..Can I live without it? Sure..I can..but is it feasible?..probably not..

I want to eliminate whatever fixed cost I can and limit/lower the variable cost or keep them predictable..This will help me target the retirment amount that I need to aim for and also determine adequate withdrawal amount to maintain my standard of living..