With the way the market has been for the past few weeks, one would wonder how useful financial advisors really are. It’s going to depend a lot on your expectations and needs.
There are two types of financial advisors out there; service fee or no service fee. Either way, the amount, or lack of amount, typically doesn’t give you a very good idea of what their abilities are. I like to relate this to my first experience of the bar scene in San Francisco. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Spending money on a cover was convenient to be in a bar with much less people, but the quality of drinks don’t change according to the cover, and neither did their price range.
Financial advisers can also only give you their best offer through the company that they work for. That means they are looking for the best they can do for their company, not the best they can do for you.
Brokerages, such as Charles Schwab, are a great alternative when they offer you the chance to take care of it yourself. These non-advisor firms allow you to play the market the way you want to for small fees in comparison to the service charges typically offered, which are usually a percentage of your earnings. Unless you feel the need to be constantly touching your money on a daily basis, you can put your money in the markets you know well and leave it to the market gods to see what happens.
Come the new fiscal year, it’s so easy to spend that federal return on that hot new item you wanted, particularly with companies marketing their products to you like you absolutely need them, like Apple’s “magical” iPad.
So what, exactly, do you do with money that you never really planned to have in the first place?
One option many don’t consider is investing. Getting the chance to earn on your tax return reeks great benefits, and the risk involved isn’t as deterrable when it involves taxes and not your salary. But, with the amount of routes to go on investing, it might seem like too much trouble when you can easily spend the money and never worry about it again.
The risk in investing can be the same as the risk in buying a condo. Do you see yourself as the one buying the bottom floor with a safe evacuation in case of fire, or the top floor with a nice view but no means of safety? Investments build right into that concept with alternatives between risk and safety. With investments, however, you can have both risk and safety, and using your tax return is the perfect opportunity to practice that.
With your larger return, the federal, it’s only natural to want to be more cautious about how it is invested. Your best decision would be to put the majority of this return in a trustworthy tax-based growth mutual fund. Mutual funds, that secure first floor, should grow at a positive rate even in the bullish of markets. While some consider it a “retirement fund,” the truth is you can make a pretty nice return even over a year on your mutual fund. Pick one or two mutual funds that consistently grow, and your money is safe.
Now, that smaller state return will not grow the same way your federal return would. In order to zest up your portfolio, I recommend two different options for your state return: index funds, or specific stocks (or for an even larger risk, penny stocks).A small state return of $200 can buy about 20 shares of Citigroup, or less risky shares into the S&P500 index. The risk will be greater in comparison to the mutual funds, but the return will be greater too. Even if you lose that money, you may regain that from your mutual funds, so it’s still no real loss. Covering a wide variety of risk in your portfolio will help keep your money under control, and bring you much less stress.
Invest wisely, and you can easily have a 10 percent return on your taxes in a month. If you do well, patience will bring you that iPad without a single dent in your tax return.
Save 75 bucks of any HP computer! Here are the dirty details:
*Offer valid 4/21/10–4/24/10. Valid in Staples U.S. stores, by phone at 1-800-333-3330 or online at staples.com. Offer valid on all HP computers and laptops priced $359 and above. Offer excludes netbooks and item no. 848836, clearance products and Compaq brand items. Limit one per customer, nontransferable. May not be combined with any other coupon. Coupon must be surrendered. No copies/facsimiles. No cash/credit back. Not valid on prior purchases. Coupon value does not include tax.
Print it out and bring it in or use this staples coupon code:49422. You can also call in and provide this discount code to receive $75 off. Unfortunately this deal does not apply to netbooks. With this coupon the HP G60-630 15.6″ laptop will go for 425 bucks after rebate.
US Bank has a promotion going on that gives their FlexPerks Cash Rewards Visa check card holders 10 bucks for free.
Here’s how to get it:
That’s it. Register the card and spend $250 with it and USB will give you a 10 dollar refund. Not a bad deal in these tough times.
If you have been waiting to pull the trigger on an Adobe product then you are in luck. Adobe offers a bunch of professional media editing and authoring tools for photo, video, web, and print publishing.
With this Adobe coupon you can get 10% off CS4 suites and individual products such as Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator, ColdFusion Server, Soundbooth, and more. The suites are a great value since you can get much more software for your money by buying a suite of products.
This promo is over on February 26, 2010.
ADOBE OFFER CODE: 10offAdobe102
Midwest America Federal Credit Union has great Roth IRA
with Checking money rates.
Their 23 month term account pays 2.13% dividend rate / 2.15% APY. There is a $500 minimum deposit to earn this rate and dividends are distributed on a quarterly basis. Here are all of MAFCU’s IRA Rates.

ING Direct currently has the highest 12 month CD rates of 2.00% Annual Percentage Yield. Merry Christmas!
PenFed Credit Union has sweet certificate of deposit rates with 2.50%
Annual Percentage Yield on 3 year certificates. There is a $1,000 minimum deposit for these CDs. Pentagon Federal Credit Union compounds earned interest daily for maximum returns.
There is a convenient location for travellers at Fort Shafter in Honolulu, Hawaii.


CB2 (the modern spinoff of Crate and Barrel) offers a nice selection of furniture that is suitable for modern homes. Some of their furniture is made from recycled and reclaimed materials. Crate & Barrel is their parent company – you can even use Crate and Barrel gift cards on merchandise from CB2.
From November 9 – 25 CB 2 is offering 15% off all of their furniture excluding flor tiles (neat modular carpet tile system). Just donate 5 cans of food to any of their locations to receive this discount. 15% off is a substantial discount on their already reasonably priced furniture. This discount code is also valid on sale items that carry a reduced price of up to 50% off. So if you were hesitating on making a big purchase on maybe a couch, bed, dining room set, rug, or anything else from CB2 then donate some food and save some bucks.
CB2 doesn’t have many locations right now however there are two in the San Francisco Bay Area: Union Square (SF) and Berkeley.
Daily certificate of deposit interest rates are updated daily. Go to the Best CD Rates finder to find the top interest rates of the day. Bank rates change often so check for the highest bank rates before opening a new deposit account.
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Chevy Chase Bank has current interest rates at 2.08% APR, 2.10% Annual Percentage Yield for 24 month (2 year) personal jumbo certificates of deposit. A Jumbo CD requires a minimum deposit of 100,000 dollars.
Capital One Chevy Chase Bank Merger
Capital One Bank recently purchased Chevy Chase Bank for only 520 million dollars. With this acquisition Capital one will also receive the 250 or so banks that Chevy Chase owned.
On a side note, San Francisco Bay area residents were plesantly surprised by the early bay bridge opening.
Investing your money these days is challenging. With the incredibly low interest rates the banks are offering, it’s hard to be a saver. You might as well be stashing your cash underneath the mattress. Instead of depositing your cash away for months, even years and getting a measly 2.00% return (if you’re lucky), open up an Xtraordinary Checking account with Connexus Credit Union and earn a whopping 4.15% APY on balances up to $25,000 with no minimum balance requirements. Have access to your cash, spend it, save it and earn more cash while you do what you normally do. Some of the other perks of opening up a checking account with Connexus Credit Union are no monthly fees, ATM surcharge rebates up to $25 per month, free identity theft protection and free direct deposit.
Chase Bank is new to California since they bought WAMU (Washington Mutual). The old WAMU banks in CA have been converted to Chase Banks.
Chase offers a free business checking account for small business owners. Is this account for you? Well that depends. Free means that there is no monthly maintenance charge (no monthly minimum balance to maintain). There is no direct deposit requirement either. Normal bank fees will apply for returned or unpaid checks and overdrafts.
There are definitely a few drawbacks to Chase/WAMU’s free business checking.
The checking account is “free” but if you bounce a check because the bank took too long to transfer funds or because of a hold that is put on after a balance transfer then you will be charged the stated fees. Then it goes back to dealing with customer service…
WAMU (now Chase Bank) has been offering “Free Checking” for quite some time now. But what exactly does this mean? The name of the checking account implies that the customer will be able to use a Washington Mutual checking account without incurring any ridiculous fees. Here’s a long term bank review.
Free personal checking from WAMU sounds great when the facts are taken into consideration:
Remember the bank still charges fees for the following:
I’ve used personal free checking from Wa Mu for years and it has been ok. It is definitely a decent account since there is no minimum balance requirement. Online banking is definitely not as nice as US Bank online banking but it does the job.
Related Articles:
WAMU Business Banking Review