Finances (mostly for me, boring stuff)
So it seems that I have not been doing too badly with my financial planning.
Per a friends advice, I bought the new Suze Ormon book "Women and Finances" www.suzeormon.com .
Basically she states that women should establish their own credit and have their individual credit card, and savings accounts. She has a deal set up for women that open up accounts with www.Ameritrade.com . If you open an account and deposit atleast $50. per month with them and keep it up for one year without withdrawing they will deposit $100.00 into your savings account at the end. Easy way to make a $100.00, you have nothing to lose and the interest rates is 4.05%. I certainly took advantage of that deal. She makes no money off of it, Ameritrade gets knew clients in the hopes that we will eventually invest money with them in the stock marker. Suze will send you emails with advice on how to invest if you chose to. Which I will defenitely do at a later time. Right now I am still researching it all.
Although I do have all of my own accounts and good credit established, I changed my savings accounts to www.Emigrant-direct.com where I can get 5.05% interest on my savings as apposed to the 1% I was getting at the credit union I had my fun money in. As soon as my CD's expire I am also switching that money over to an Emigrant acount. www.HSBCdirect.com and www.ingdirect.com also have good rates, but I compared them all and it seems like Emigrant had the best rates.
What you always need to make sure of is that the bank your money is in is FDIC insured $100,000 per person, $200,000 per couple, and you should be covered incase the bank goes under.
The book also talks about having enough money set aside to be able to live for atleast 6 months in case you lose your job etc. I'm good with that too for now. That fund was depleted since I was out of work in 2005 for about 5 months due to illness and plain stupidity on my part.
A 401K for retirement is a must, and if your company matches you make sure you put in atleast the % they would match you at. For example if I put 6% of my earnings into my 401K my company will match 3% of that plus an addition 1.25 % just for having the 401K. Ofcourse I've done that and plan to try and invest the full 15% which is the maximum allowed. Rember this money is not taxed so it brings your tax bracket down giving you the opportunity to do better when tax season comes around. This is where I was not doing well, but it's all under control now.
Next thing is opening a Roth Ira or a traditional Ira. You can roll over any money from a 401K to a tradional Ira without having to pay taxes. Good if you switch jobs and want to switch your money over. I would just rather put it all together in one plan.
A Roth Ira is different in where you pay taxes up front and you can invest up to $4,000 in 2007. but will increase to 5000.00 in 2008.
There are 2 types. ETF = good if you are putting in one lump sum of $4,000. It trades like a stock on the stock exchange and offers more liquidity and has a lower expense ratio which is an amount you are charged to cover management and admin costs. It's around 9.99 everytime you invest.
If you are going to be making multiple small deposits it's better to get a "no load" fund, which is a no comission fund.
How to invest+ 90% of your funds should go in the US Vanguard Extender Marker (VII) and 10% to international shares.
WWW.morningstar.com is a good site to get started. This is actually where I am now. I am doing more research. This part is where I get confused. So if anyone has any info on this feel free to comment. Although I think people will read the first part of this and move on. :)
I also found some audio CD's at Barnes and Nobles that were $6.00 - called "all your worth" which was very helpful. They basically talk about must haves and needs. Must haves are things like your mortgage, utilities, food, things that you can't live with out. An exception to this rule are things that you have to pay on a monthly basis like your car or anything that is under a contract. This can include a gym membership, cell phone with a two year contract type deal. Anything that you have to have to pay and are not able to cancel is a must have.
A need is everythign else that you want, but really can live without. There is great advice on how to cut down on your living expenses. She says that instead of trying to save on the little things, like getting the store brand of something. Ok so you do save a few cents, but it doesn't really make a huge difference in your pocket book. Although every little bit helps.
Where you need to try and save are the big item tickets. Mortagage, Homeowners insurance, auto insurance etc. It tells you to go through your policies and look for hidden or unnecessary charges. For example diductibles on your home should not be anything like $500. You should not report any losses that are less than $1000 -$2000 because your rates will increase. Don't have things on your car insurance like towing or rental car, deductible should be atleast $1000 dollars. When buying a new home make sure you review all charges and see if theya re charging you any points. You should really shop around for all of your policies/credit cards and get atleast 5 quotes.
Have an emergency credit card and don't use it unless you can pay off the balance. If you have a high interest on your credit card shop around for lower interst cards. There are plenty willing to give you a lower rate.
There is more, but I am sure no one really wants to read more financial crap. This is mostly for me, to keep things fresh in my mind.
Per a friends advice, I bought the new Suze Ormon book "Women and Finances" www.suzeormon.com .
Basically she states that women should establish their own credit and have their individual credit card, and savings accounts. She has a deal set up for women that open up accounts with www.Ameritrade.com . If you open an account and deposit atleast $50. per month with them and keep it up for one year without withdrawing they will deposit $100.00 into your savings account at the end. Easy way to make a $100.00, you have nothing to lose and the interest rates is 4.05%. I certainly took advantage of that deal. She makes no money off of it, Ameritrade gets knew clients in the hopes that we will eventually invest money with them in the stock marker. Suze will send you emails with advice on how to invest if you chose to. Which I will defenitely do at a later time. Right now I am still researching it all.
Although I do have all of my own accounts and good credit established, I changed my savings accounts to www.Emigrant-direct.com where I can get 5.05% interest on my savings as apposed to the 1% I was getting at the credit union I had my fun money in. As soon as my CD's expire I am also switching that money over to an Emigrant acount. www.HSBCdirect.com and www.ingdirect.com also have good rates, but I compared them all and it seems like Emigrant had the best rates.
What you always need to make sure of is that the bank your money is in is FDIC insured $100,000 per person, $200,000 per couple, and you should be covered incase the bank goes under.
The book also talks about having enough money set aside to be able to live for atleast 6 months in case you lose your job etc. I'm good with that too for now. That fund was depleted since I was out of work in 2005 for about 5 months due to illness and plain stupidity on my part.
A 401K for retirement is a must, and if your company matches you make sure you put in atleast the % they would match you at. For example if I put 6% of my earnings into my 401K my company will match 3% of that plus an addition 1.25 % just for having the 401K. Ofcourse I've done that and plan to try and invest the full 15% which is the maximum allowed. Rember this money is not taxed so it brings your tax bracket down giving you the opportunity to do better when tax season comes around. This is where I was not doing well, but it's all under control now.
Next thing is opening a Roth Ira or a traditional Ira. You can roll over any money from a 401K to a tradional Ira without having to pay taxes. Good if you switch jobs and want to switch your money over. I would just rather put it all together in one plan.
A Roth Ira is different in where you pay taxes up front and you can invest up to $4,000 in 2007. but will increase to 5000.00 in 2008.
There are 2 types. ETF = good if you are putting in one lump sum of $4,000. It trades like a stock on the stock exchange and offers more liquidity and has a lower expense ratio which is an amount you are charged to cover management and admin costs. It's around 9.99 everytime you invest.
If you are going to be making multiple small deposits it's better to get a "no load" fund, which is a no comission fund.
How to invest+ 90% of your funds should go in the US Vanguard Extender Marker (VII) and 10% to international shares.
WWW.morningstar.com is a good site to get started. This is actually where I am now. I am doing more research. This part is where I get confused. So if anyone has any info on this feel free to comment. Although I think people will read the first part of this and move on. :)
I also found some audio CD's at Barnes and Nobles that were $6.00 - called "all your worth" which was very helpful. They basically talk about must haves and needs. Must haves are things like your mortgage, utilities, food, things that you can't live with out. An exception to this rule are things that you have to pay on a monthly basis like your car or anything that is under a contract. This can include a gym membership, cell phone with a two year contract type deal. Anything that you have to have to pay and are not able to cancel is a must have.
A need is everythign else that you want, but really can live without. There is great advice on how to cut down on your living expenses. She says that instead of trying to save on the little things, like getting the store brand of something. Ok so you do save a few cents, but it doesn't really make a huge difference in your pocket book. Although every little bit helps.
Where you need to try and save are the big item tickets. Mortagage, Homeowners insurance, auto insurance etc. It tells you to go through your policies and look for hidden or unnecessary charges. For example diductibles on your home should not be anything like $500. You should not report any losses that are less than $1000 -$2000 because your rates will increase. Don't have things on your car insurance like towing or rental car, deductible should be atleast $1000 dollars. When buying a new home make sure you review all charges and see if theya re charging you any points. You should really shop around for all of your policies/credit cards and get atleast 5 quotes.
Have an emergency credit card and don't use it unless you can pay off the balance. If you have a high interest on your credit card shop around for lower interst cards. There are plenty willing to give you a lower rate.
There is more, but I am sure no one really wants to read more financial crap. This is mostly for me, to keep things fresh in my mind.