TERMS OF 20,000 BONUS MILES OFFER: Earn 10,000 Bonus Miles for every $2,000 you spend, up to 20,000 Bonus Miles. Purchases must be made within 6 months from the date your account is opened. We are not responsible for merchant delays in processing transactions. This promotional offer is in addition to the Standard Miles earned on purchases. Promotional Miles will be applied within 8 weeks of reaching $2,000 and $4,000 spend amounts.

The $2000 spending requirement over six months works out to $333 per month. What you’d be looking for is $350 per month in utilities (electric, gas, sewer, water) that previously didn’t accept credit cards for payment (at least without a big fee), which now you can pay Discover via ChargeSmart.com with no fees. If you don’t reach that, I would even prepay some utilities and let it apply to future bills. There is also double miles (2 miles/$ spent) on the first $3,000 spent combined on restaurant and travel purchases. If you can charge $4,000 in 6 months, you’d get the max 20,000 bonus miles.

In addition to the bonus miles, you’ll still get the standard 1 mile per $1 spent on the utilities charges. 10,000 miles can be redeemed for $100 towards any travel from any vendor. You just have to put a travel purchase (airfare, hotel, car rental) on the card and then go online and redeem your “miles” for a travel credit. So buy any $150 airfare from any website on the Miles card and redeem 10,000 miles for a $100 statement credit.

No annual fee. Rewards do not expire as long as your account is in good standing and the card is not inactive for 18 consecutive months.

Miles by Discover Card application link

Miles by Discover Card Promotion: Up to 20,000 Bonus Miles from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

This is pretty cool. New York City is launching a bike-share program called Citi Bike this summer (supposedly late July 2012), with 10,000 bikes and 600 stations for pick-up and drop-off. I’ve seen and used similar bike-sharing programs in Europe, and they seemed to be very practical and moderately popular. I’ve never ridden a bike in NYC, are there many bike lanes or will you be busy avoiding taxis? Combined with the subway, this makes it even easier to get around without a car.

A 24-hour membership will cost $9.95, but an annual membership is only $95 a year and will allow you unlimited trips of up to 45 minutes. A small fee applies after that to encourage you to return the bike quickly for other people to use.

Citi is the primary sponsor to the tune of $41 million and Mastercard is handling the payment infrastructure in addition to contributing $6.5 million. The program is run privately, with no public funding. I hope it works out.

Citi Bike Sharing Program – New York City from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

What, Groupon already has a class action settlement? Yup. Bloomberg reports that Groupon has agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging the expiration dates on its coupons are illegal. Part of the lawsuit alleged that Groupon should be treated like gift cards, which in many states are not allowed to expire. However, like with most settlements, Groupon denies that and doesn’t admit any fault, yada, yada.

Customers who bought Groupon vouchers before Dec. 1, 2011 can either redeem these past their expiration date or, if they are unable to do so, obtain a refund from the $8.5 million fund, according the proposed settlement filed March 29 in federal court in San Diego. Residents in some states can seek refunds only for vouchers sold after Aug. 22, 2010, according to the filing.

So resurrect those expired and forgotten Groupons!

I’ve personally never really had a problem with expiration dates, because the only reason I’d wait is if the service is too hard to book or if I don’t want the service. In that case, I’d just send a online message invoking the Groupon Promise of “If the experience using your Groupon ever lets you down, we’ll make it right or return your purchase. Simple as that.” I just ask for a refund, and have never been denied or even questioned.

Also, as a rule all Groupons never fall below the value of the purchase price, even after expiration. So if you buy a $30 Groupon for $15 at Bob’s BBQ Shack, it will still be worth $15 there even after expiration.

Don’t forget that you can save even more on your Groupons with cashback shopping sites like eBates ($10 new customer bonus), Mr. Rebates ($5 bonus), and BigCrumbs.

Groupon Class Action Settlement: Use Your Expired Groupons from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

ChargeSmart is a bill payment service that allows you to pay many bills with a credit card that usually don’t accept such payments, including mortgages, auto loan, student loans, and utilities. Only participating vendors are eligible, but they seem to have signed up several large companies including Bank of America/Chase/Wells Fargo mortgages, Sallie Mae student loans, and Ally Financial auto loans. In general, it works with all Visa, MasterCard, and Discover branded cards.

Benefits

If you have a rewards credit card, this service gives you the ability earn cashback or frequent flier miles on more purchases. You’ll also be able to take advantage of your card’s grace period since you won’t have to pay up until your credit card bill is due (up to 45 days later depending on when you charge in the statement cycle). If you have a card with a introductory 0% APR on purchases, you could extend the interest-free period even longer.

Another side perk would be for $500+ credit card bonuses, where you use this service to meet the minimum spending requirements. For example, the Chase Sapphire Preferred with get you $500 in airfare after you spend $3,000 in purchases within the first 3 months. If you’re a little short, paying a 2-3% fee to reach that requirement is worth it since a $500 bonus on spending $3,000 is effectively 16.7% back. (You’ll also get 1.25% back on your purchases toward travel as rewards.)

Costs

In most cases, there is a fee involved that depends on the vendor. This may or may not be worth it to you, depending on how much you value your credit card points or miles. Here are a few special cases to consider.

Discover Utility Bill Fee Rebate
Currently, if you use a Discover card to pay a participating utility vendor, Discover will provide an instant rebate your Chargesmart fees. Paying my water bill would have otherwise cost me $16.40 for a $500 payment (3.28%), or $6.10 for $50 payment (12.2%). More good news is that you’ll still earn all the usual rewards that your Discover card offers. I like the Discover More card for their 5% back on rotating categories feature.

Hidden “Large Payment Security Fee”
You should be aware that their initial fee calculator can be somewhat misleading. I was trying to pay a test payment to a mortgage lender for $2,000, and was given a fee quote in Step 1 for $21.95, which was 1.1% of $2,000. Not bad, I thought, you can get 1.5% cash with something like the Capital One Cash Mastercard.

Step 2 is your address information, and Step 3 is your credit card information. So far so good. But in Step 4, they tacked on a “large payment security fee” which added another $25.71 to make the total fee amount $47.66, working out to 2.4% of $2,000. Trying out some different lenders, the final fee amount seems to always work out to about 2.4% for payments over $1,000 or so.

One last wrinkle… there’s a little box that tells me if I sign up to make this payment every month, I’ll get $10 off this first month’s payment. (You can cancel later.) That would make it $37.66 out of $2,000 or 1.88%. That makes it a little better, but not a screaming deal. But for meeting bonus requirements, a mortgage/auto loan/student loan payment is an easy way to charge something you need to pay anyway.

Pay Your Mortgage With a Credit Card Via ChargeSmart from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

Our #1 takeaway over the years was… nobody really uses budgeting. Everyone means to do it; Nobody really does it. The more important concept is cashflow. It doesn’t matter that you spent $200 on clothing this month or last month, what matters is at the end of the month, do you have more money than you spent.

So the guys in charge of the most popular budgeting software admit that… nobody budgets. Well, maybe not nobody but it’s probably safe to say that the great majority of people don’t track their spending monthly. This is an issue I’ve thought about many times. I often talk about budgeting, but I don’t really budget either.

Why is it so difficult? I point to recent books and research about willpower and how it is similar to a muscle. If we have to track every purchase, it causes us fatigue and sooner or later we give up because it becomes just too hard. Doing one push-up isn’t that hard. Doing a hundred push-ups in a row is another story.

The sheer number of choices we must make each day — what foods to eat, what products to buy, what information merits our attention, what tasks to prioritize — can be overwhelming. [...] Put simply, the more conscious willpower we have to exert each day, the less energy we have left over to resist our brain’s primitive and powerful pull to instant gratification. According to one study, we spend at least one-quarter of each waking day just trying to resist our desires — often unsuccessfully.

Behavioral psychology has also found that happiness is earning $60,000 a year. As Del Favero suggests, perhaps it’s because all we really want is to spend comfortably and at the end of the month have something left in the bank account. That number just happens to be about $60k in the US.

So what should the personal finance “experts” be pushing instead of budgeting tools that nobody will use? Here’s one possible plan of attack.

1. Determine a safe savings rate. What percentage of your salary do you need to save for retirement? The idea of a safe savings rate was introduced and researched by Wade Pfau, and varies based on the assumptions. 15% is a good minimum number to start with, although if you don’t want to work for 30 or 40 years you’ll have to save more.
2. Automate that savings. Automatic 401(k) or 403(b) deferrals are great, as well as automated contributions to Roth/Traditional IRAs. It’s best to have the money taken away before you even see it, so there is no temptation to spend. Every automation means one less decision.
3. Check your cashflow. Are you good? Then stop, and enjoy your life. Or do you still spend more than you earn, net of the automatic savings?
4. At first, skip the small things. Deciding not to get that coffee or not to order lunch with all your coworkers every day may exhaust more of your willpower than is worth it.
5. Instead, try attacking at least one BIG thing. Housing and cars are the biggest expenses for most people. Moving into a smaller or cheaper apartment or house. Move closer to town, sell a car, and use public transportation. Switch to a economical car and drive it for 10 years. Look for something you can cut once, albeit painfully. You may not like it initially, but it’s much easier to get used to that than to rely on repeated displays of willpower.

For example, a prospective college student with limited financial resources can choose to go to in-state university instead of private, as opposed to worrying about the price of every textbook and having to constantly choose between studying, socializing, or working at one of three part-time jobs on the side.

Why Everyone Means To, But Nobody Really Budgets from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

As a follow-up to my cash reserves post, I wanted to note that CIT Bank also has some very competitive rates on FDIC-insured CDs with added flexibility that makes them unique. They have a very simple website and appear to be focused on certificates of deposit, although they recently debuted a savings account with a 1.05% APY interest rate on balances above 25k.

Their Achiever CD has a current rate of 1.10% APY for 1-year term and 1.25% APY for the 2-year term with a $25,000 minimum opening deposit. The first unique feature is a “rate bump” option that allows to you raise your rate again in the future if the rate increases. The second unique feature is that you can add more money to your CD one time at any point you choose throughout the term.

You buy CDs to guarantee your rate won’t drop during the term. But these two features allow you added protection from rising rates in the future, and you already start with a competitive rate. You could match future rates, and move your other money over to match those rates as well. The primary limitation would be the higher minimum deposit requirement. Interest is compounded daily.

If you don’t have the $25,000 minimum, they also have their term CDs with a $1,000 minimum opening deposit. Those are paying 1.06% APY for 1-year term, 1.20% APY for 2-year, and 1.42% APY for 3-year. Those are nearly as good as the Achiever CD, but they don’t have the rate-bump and add-on features of the Achiever CD. The early withdrawal penalty is 3 months of interest for the 1-year CD, 6 months interest for the 2-year CD. A quick comparison table:

CIT Bank CDs With Rising Rate Protection (Rate Hike Update) from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

Here’s a resurrection of a great credit card offer that I took advantage of previously for those interested in some free travel. The Chase British Airways Visa Signature card is offering up to 100,000 British Airways (BA) Avois points for new cardmembers, broken down as following:

• 50,000 BA Avios points with first purchase of any amount,
• 25,000 BA Avios points after $10,000 in purchases within the first year of account opening, and
• 25,000 BA Avios points after an additional $10,000 in purchases, also within the first year of account opening

The card does have an annual fee of $95, which is not waived the first year. The card always earns 1.25 BA Avios points per dollar spent on all purchases (double that on British Airways purchases). Another perk is no foreign transaction fees, handy when traveling and saving you up to 3% off everything compared to cards that have the fee. It also has smart chip ID verification technology that is popular in Europe.

I took advantage of the last time this deal was around, and ended up flying around Europe completely in business class with fully lie-flat seats across the Atlantic Ocean. The 50k tier is best for spenders that can’t generate enough in purchases, but if you can spend $20k in a year, you’d end up with the 100,000 bonus points + 25,000 points from $20k in spending. What can you do with all those points?

Note: Avios points now have distance-based rewards. Recently, the official terminology changed from “miles” to “Avios points”. The reward chart is now based on how far you want to travel in terms of miles.

Redeem Avios points domestically on partner American Airlines. It’s usually much better to redeem points on their US partner American Airlines. For example, I can get from Los Angeles to Honolulu, Hawaii using only 25,000 Avios points roundtrip. I ran a quote in Fall and it cost $659 broken down to $621 fare and only $38 in taxes. So in this case you could save $621 in exchange for 25,000 points, which is 2.5 cents per point.

Shorter-distance flights can be a good deal as well. Roundtrip from Chicago to New York City is only 15,000 Avios points + about $30 in taxes.

Finding partner awards on BA.com was a huge headache for me. I recommend calling them at 1-800-452-1201 and paying the phone booking fee. It was worth it for me to find the exact flight I wanted, and in my case they even waived it for me since she said “you’d never be able to find this online” (which was true, but your mileage may vary). For research purposes, you can use AA.com and look for “Saver” awards which is what is available for redemption using BA points. But I still like booking over the phone and trying to get the fee waived since it can be impossible to do many partner awards online.

Redeem Avios points for business class to Europe. Since business class is so expensive, but the flight across the Atlantic is so long, redeeming points for business class tickets can be a good value as well. The taxes are still there, but they are a much smaller proportion and your trip will be so much more comfortable and truly an experience.

A roundtrip business class flight quote from New York City to London was $3,640, with $2,540 in fare and $1,100 in taxes. I could book the same award ticket for 80,000 Avios points plus $1,100 in taxes. Now we’re talking 3.2 cents per point.

Therefore I figured, why not use this card as an excuse to go to Europe in style, because I would never have done so otherwise. When booking my trip, I ended up calling in and getting a really nice customer service rep that used her tricks to nab me a combination of American and British Airways flights from my city to both London and Rome and back, all for under 100,000 miles. The flight was a first-time experience for me… priority check-in and boarding, first class lounges with showers and buffets, multi-course inflight meals, actually sleeping on seats that were fully flat, etc.

How not to use your miles. Don’t use Avios for a economy class transatlantic flight from USA to Europe, because you’ll still be subject to taxes and fees on award redemptions, which are often half the entire cost of the ticket. I ran a quick search for a random New York City (JFK) to London (LHR) flight that cost $1,050, the taxes and fees alone were $650. You can get the $400 “fare” for 40,000 Avios points, but that’s only 1 cent a point value.

Finally, you can also use partner airlines such as LAN Airlines or Cathay Pacific to get from the US to both Asia and South America on business class for 100,000 Avios or less.

Finally, if you can manage to spend $30,000 a year on the card, you can even earn a 2-for-1 Travel Together Ticket good for two years when you redeem for a flight on British Airways. With the Travel Together Ticket, you can bring a companion on your next reward flight without using any additional Avios points. Fees and taxes do still apply, but the voucher is valid to any destination and includes first/business class. Another family tip is that you are allowed to pool miles between multiple people in a “household account” to make redemptions easier. So you, your spouse/partner, and other relatives can share points.

(This was actually done x2 for Mrs. MMB and we traveled together. We householded accounts and that way I could redeem flights for both of us. It worked well because we could all book tickets together on the same flight all at once and only talking to one person over the phone.)

Chase British Airways Visa Signature card application link

British Airways Credit Card – New 100,000 Mile Bonus & Redemption Tips from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

In the May 2012 issue, Consumer Reports ran their scientific lab tests on 25 different varieties of toilet paper (subscription required for full article) to find the best combination of price, softness, strength, disintegration, and tearing ease.

The findings? First, the hidden shrinkage by retail brands that we’ve seen in various products like orange juice cartons (59 oz. instead of 64 oz.) has spread to toilet paper. Sheets have been made smaller, and rolls are smaller as well. The right way to calculate value is by square feet, but who does that?

The top overall pick was the White Cloud 3-Ply Ultra Soft and Thick brand sold at Wal-mart, which performed well in all categories while maintaining a good price of 25 cents per 100 sheets. The cheapest Scott brand (1,000 sheets per roll!) performed poorly and cost 8 cents per sheet. But if you’re having to use three times the sheets, who cares?

The top green pick was the Seventh Generation brand, which is made from recycled content and did alright in most areas except strength but still had a good price of 22 cents per 100 sheets.

My beloved Charmin Ultra Soft came in 6th, done in by a poor showing in disintegration tests and higher-than-average cost. But wait. The 30-roll megapack at Costco is usually $17.99. Every few months the coupon packet has a $2 off coupon, which is the only time I buy it. Each “Jumbo” roll has 231 double-ply sheets, which works out to after-coupon cost of only 23 cents per 100 sheets. The quoted retail price in Consumer Reports is 41 cents per 100 sheets. I rarely shop at Wal-mart, so it seems that my toilet paper buying habits are still within acceptable frugal parameters.

Consumer Reports Ratings: Best Value in… Toilet Paper? from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

Food on the Table is a meal planning service that tries to link the foods on sale at your local grocery store with recipe ideas to help you plan your shopping and cooking. They have a free trial, but right now if you sign up with promo code MAYFREE you’ll get their “premium” service free for life. There is a free iPhone/Android companion app so you’ll have a shopping list while you’re in the store. The main complaint seems to be that some stores aren’t covered, but my local Safeway store was. The site seems like a work in progress, but it’s an interesting idea.

Free Meal Planning Service Membership – Food on the Table from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

What is the best place to lower your interest rates and consolidate credit card debt in order to pay it all off? The first thing to try is to call up your credit card company and negotiate your existing rate down. If that isn’t satisfactory, you could switch issuers and do a balance transfer to a new card with a low introductory rate. If you have qualifying credit, you can take advantage of no fee 0% APR balance transfer offers for up to 15 months.

I would say the next option to consider is P2P lending, which in my experience has lower rates than personal unsecured loans from banks. P2P is gradually becoming an accepted source of loans as shown by announcements of new institutional money coming in from hedge funds. Prosper has been around since 2006 and has done over $300 million in loan volume since inception, and LendingClub has been around since 2007 with over $500 million in loans. Both are now registered with the SEC.

Prosper vs. LendingClub Similarities

1. Unsecured loans. Such loans are backed only by the borrower’s promise. If there is a default, the lender can’t repossess any property or garnish wages. The primary deterrent to defaults is a poor credit score that will increase future borrowing costs and potentially other side effects including affecting employment.

   Alternatively, you may be considering paying off your credit card debt with a home equity loan. This would change your unsecured debt into a secured debt. The danger is now if you don’t pay off that loan, you could lose your house. If that added risk doesn’t make a difference to you, then a home equity loan or line of credit will probably offer you a lower rate.

2. Flexible amounts. You can borrow more or less than your actual outstanding credit card balance, and you’re usually given a choice of amounts for the same interest rate. But remember, the purpose of consolidation is to help speed up the process of getting rid of that debt.
3. Fixed rates over the entire term. The problem with credit cards is that the rates are often unpredictable. “Variable” rates are linked to a benchmark rate, but even “fixed” rates that aren’t guaranteed for X months can just mean they’re fixed until you get a notice that they are now “fixed” at a new, higher number. Given the current low interest rate environment, you should be wary of rising rates.
4. No prepayment penalties. You can pay off your loan early at any time, with no fees.
5. No application fee. There is no fee to apply for a loan. If your loan successfully funds and you get the cash, then you will be subject to an origination fee that is rolled into your monthly payments.

Prosper vs. LendingClub Differences

1. Minimum credit scores. Prosper minimum stated credit score is 640, LendingClub minimum FICO score is 660.
2. Maximum loan amounts. Prosper maximum loan amount is $25,000, LendingClub maximum loan amount is now $35,000. Both lower the limits depending on credit profile.
3. Slightly different fee structures. Both companies charge an origination (closing) fee once you successfully get your loan. If you don’t get the loan, no fees. They have slightly different fees schedule, but both have origination fees ranging from about 1% to 5% for the majority of loans. Both charge $15 fees for late payments or failed payments.
4. Different loan term lengths. Depending on your requested loan amount and other factors, each lender may offer different terms. For example, LendingClub told me that loan amounts from $1,000 to $15,975 are only available with a 36-month term, even though they do offer 1-year and 5-year loans in other cases. However, with a $10,000 loan at Prosper I was given the choice of 1, 3, or 5-year terms. In general, the longer the term, the higher the interest rate.
5. Check processing fees. LendingClub charges a $15 processing fee per payment made by check. Prosper does not. Both companies allow you to make payments via automatic ACH withdrawal from a checking account with no fees.

Prosper vs. LendingClub Interest Rates?

Their full criteria for determining what rate you’ll pay is not disclosed but is based on a number of factors. Really, the best way to see which one will give you the best deal is to ask each one for a free quote. In both cases, getting a rate quote will involve looking at your credit report, but it will not result in a credit inquiry and will not hurt your credit score. If you do decide to move forward and get the loan, only then it will show up on your credit report.

• Request a free rate quote from LendingClub.
• Request a free rate quote from Prosper.

My experience. I applied for a $10,000 debt consolidation loan at both places. I was offered a 1-year loan at 8.17%, a 3-year loan at 7.49%, or a 5-year loan at 10.85% annual interest rates at Prosper. I was offered a 3-year loan at LendingClub at 6.62% interest rate. For a $10,000 loan over 3-years and including all fees, my LendingClub payment was $307 per month and Prosper payment was $311 per month. So even though the interest rates seem rather different, the final monthly payments ended up closer than expected (though still a $150 difference in total payments over the whole 3 years).

Prosper vs. LendingClub: Credit Card Debt Consolidation Loan Comparison from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

If you wrote a book about investing and wanted some big-name endorsements, you couldn’t do much better than this – The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor by Howard Marks has recommendations from Warren Buffett, Jeremy Grantham, Jack Bogle, Joel Greenblatt, and Seth Klarman.

Howard Marks is already famous around many investment circles for his Client Memos as the chairman and cofounder of Oaktree Capital Management, although not as well-known as Buffett’s shareholder letters. This book is basically a distillation of those memos into book form. Here are my personal notes.

Efficient Markets
Marks is an active investor, and this book is about successfully generate excess turns (alpha). Some people seem to think that “efficient markets” is black and white – either you believe in the Easter Bunny or you don’t. Market prices are completely perfect or investing is purely skill. This book helps you view market efficiency as a continuum. Beating the market by trading large-cap common stocks which are following by thousands of professionals is exceedingly hard. Oaktree Capital chooses to focus on what he perceives as less efficient markets – things like convertible securities and high-yield debt from distressed companies (“junk bonds”).

Developing your own investment philosophy
I enjoyed this quote:

Where does an investment philosophy come from? The one thing I’m sure of is that no one arrives on the doorstep of an investment career with his or her philosophy fully formed. A philosophy has to be the sum of many ideas accumulated over a long period of time from a variety of sources. One cannot develop an effective philosophy without having been exposed to life’s lessons

Quality vs. Price
The title of the book is a bit misleading, as there is no single “most important thing”. Basically each chapter is an expansion of one or more of his memos and it titled “The Most Important Thing is… XXX”. However, an overarching theme of the book is about risk control. I’ve already written about higher risk vs. higher investment return.

A related idea is that people tend to think of investments only in terms of quality. Strong companies vs. struggling companies. Highly-rated bonds vs. Lower-rated bonds. Strong developed countries vs. Weaker emerging countries. But what’s important is the price. A high-quality company can be a high-risk or low-risk investment, depending on what price you pay for it. A junk bond can be a high-risk or low-risk investment, depending on what price you pay for it.

Cycles
Marks strongly believes in the recurrence of cycles. One side of the pendulum occurs when people seems think that there are minimal risks, either because of recent history or some new invention that eliminates risk (CDOs?). Often, the only worry remaining is that we’ll miss out on the opportunity for great returns. The other side of the pendulum is when uncertainty is everywhere. Here, people say things like “I’m staying out of the market until the dust settles.” This reminded me of a chart I pulled out a lot during the housing bubble:

If you’re going to pick a time to invest, it’s better when people are scared, because at least they are properly considering all the potential risks. It should be scary and uncomfortable. He reminds you, as Charlie Munger says, “It’s not supposed to be easy.” If you wait until the dust has settled, there won’t be great prices anymore.

Illuminated-only Bonus Chapter: Reasonable Expectations
This is good reminder about having a clear goal as to what you want to achieve with your portfolio, but also to keep that goal within reason:

The key questions are what your return goal is, how much risk you can tolerate, and how much liquidity you’re likely to require in the interim.

Extraordinary skill is rare. When someone else promises returns “too good to be true”, the next question to ask is “why me?” If they found a can’t miss investment opportunity, why are they sharing this with you? If some talking head on TV makes a bold prediction, why aren’t they busy betting their net worth on the outcome? With today’s complex derivatives and betting markets, they should be rich and sunning themselves on a yacht instead.

Recap
Even though I am primarily a low-cost, buy, hold, & rebalance type of investor, I felt this book still provided me with new information for my own evolving investing philosophy. Creating alpha is not easy, and most people who try to do so consistently fail, so you should be very careful and realistic when assessing your own skills. I’ll be sure to read his future memos. Thankfully, they can be found at the Oaktree Capital website, free and available to all.

The Most Important Thing Illuminated by Howard Marks (Book Review) from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

You may know that John Bogle is the founder of Vanguard, now one of the largest fund organizations in the world and a pioneer in low-cost index funds. But what I really like about his books is his focus on common sense as the foundation for his advice. An example of this is his Gotrocks parable [pdf] adapted from Buffett. But back to this excerpt. He first points out how stock dividends have been a good way to create an income stream over the long run that grows faster than inflation.

Of course, by investing in common stocks you assume the risk that dividends will decline during periods of recession or depression [...] What is truly remarkable is that the record of dividend payments by U.S. corporations heavily favors rising dividends over declining dividends, almost irrespective of prevailing business conditions.

Here’s a chart of the historical S&P 500 annual dividend, inflation-adjusted. (Note this is absolute dividend, not dividend yield percentage.)

Image credit to Multpl.com, data from S&P and Shiller

Now, the problem is that you can also pay too much for dividends. He shares an example of how if you were comparing the dividend income from a diversified stock portfolio yielding 3% and growing at 6% annually or a long-term bond yielding 7% each year, it would take 26 years for the dividend income to total the bond income payments.

Unfortunately, defining what constitutes too high a price for dividends is a fallible exercise, one that must take into account not only the average historical valuations for stocks but the current valuations for other investment alternatives as well. History suggests that stocks are relatively expensive when the price paid for $1 of dividends is above $30 (i.e., a yield of 3.3%) and relatively cheap when the price paid is less than $20 (a yield of 5%). However, stocks may well be attractive at a yield of, say, 3.5% if there are compelling reasons to assume that their dividends will increase rapidly or if yields on other classes of financial assets are relatively unattractive.

In the example shown in Figure 2-5, buying a portfolio of stocks at a 3% yield rather than a bond at a 7% yield might not be a sensible investment, especially considering the incremental risk incurred in holding stocks. When stocks yield 4.5% and bonds yield 6%, that may be quite another story.

What would Bogle say right now, when the S&P 500 yield is ~2% and 30-year Treasury bonds are ~3%? The relative difference between the stock yield and the bond yield is less than 1%. I would argue that his last sentence would suggest stocks are actually preferred over other classes at this point.

Now, I’m not turning in a stock bull, and I still have about 70% stocks and 30% bonds in my portfolio, but this line of thinking makes me happier with my 70% in stocks. I’ve also been looking more at living off of dividend income in “early retirement”.

Bogle on Earning Dividend Income From Stocks from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

US Government Budget Breakdown: 50 Years Ago vs. Today from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

SmartMoney 2012 Top 10 Overall

1. Fidelity
2. Scottrade
3. TD Ameritrade
4. E-Trade
5. Schwab
6. TradeKing
7. Zecco
8. Merrill Edge
9. ING Direct Sharebuilder
10. WellsTrade

Best in Commission & Fees Category (5 stars)

Scottrade doesn’t have a rock-bottem per-trade commission at $7 a trade, but it’s lower than average and they still win overall due to lower fees elsewhere – such as annual fees, inactivity fees, fees to use a phone, or close out an account.

1. Scottrade
2. ING Direct Sharebuilder

Best in Customer Service Category (4 stars+)

One important factor here was speed of reply in addition to accuracy, and per the article all of the brokers surveyed now offer Live Chat online except for WellsTrade. I think TradeKing was the first to offer this feature?

1. TradeKing ($50 opening bonus link)
2. Scottrade
3. E-Trade
4. Zecco

Trends

• Prices are still dropping, although more slowly. SmartMoney reports that in 1994 the average commission price surveyed was $28. Last year, $8.27. This year, only $7.96. Note that every single one of their top 10 brokers have per-trade stock commissions of under $10. I suppose anything higher would just seem greedy now.
• Banking. More firms are adding banking features like debit cards and billpay to make it more likely that you’ll keep all your money there, joining firms like Merrill Lynch (Bank of America) and WellsTrade (Wells Fargo) which are already closely aligned and owned by big banks.
• Smartphone and iPad apps. These are indeed cool, but the brokers really love them because they increase your trade activity.

Omissions

SmartMoney mentions the the Merrill Edge BofA deal, where you can get 30 free trades a month if you hold a combined $25,000 as cash in your *deposit* accounts only at Bank of America. However, they don’t mention the WellsTrade deal which offers 100 free trades a year if you hold a combined $25k across acounts including your brokerage balance, but instead requires a PMA checking account that you have to keep active with “in-person” activity like writing a physical check at least once a year.

WellsTrade and Zecco enter the top 10 this year, but Vanguard and OptionsXpress were bumped out. Vanguard was #7 in their 2011 rankings. There was no mention of what happened… I’d like to know if they were notably worse in some area or were simply excluded? OptionsXpress was bought by Schwab last year, but still runs an independent site.

Finally, there was no mention of the quantity and quality of the commission-free ETF lists offered by the majority of these brokers. If anything, I thought that was more important to mention than smartphone apps that scan product barcodes at the grocery store.

Finding The Best Broker For You

Don’t forget to compare these results with the Consumer Reports 2012 Rankings and the Barron’s 2012 Rankings. The key is to drill down to see which broker satisfies your personal set of needs the best, as there is a lot of fluff in there. This is why I’d rather look at specific sub-rankings more closely than the big headline “Top 10″ rankings.

Take the “Banking” category, which included as a criteria but some brokers just don’t offer banking services and I don’t think they should be penalized for it. Another area I don’t care about is “Research” tools. I’ve ever used a broker for research. Morningstar offers me everything that I need, otherwise I just look at Google/Yahoo quotes and look for related news and blog articles. I don’t see how a discount broker would have the time or resources for unique analysis. Just give me cheap trades with good fills, solid customer service when I need it, and track my capital gains and tax lots accurately.

SmartMoney Magazine Top Online Broker Rankings 2012 from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

I’ve never had a security system until now, other than our dogs which are all bark and no bite. I suppose the main reason for that is that I didn’t own enough property to be worth protecting. Burglars could take everything and it would perhaps fetch $600 total on Craigslist, which is less than what a year of ADT monitoring fees might cost.

Combine the baby nesting instinct with a rash of recent break-ins in our quiet neighborhood, and my mindset has changed. I wanted a home security system, but I didn’t want to pay $60 or even $30 a month for monitoring. The monthly bill is where companies make most of their profit. $60 a month = $720 a year = $7,200 over a decade.

After some research, we settled on a company called Simplisafe. Here’s a list of reasons why we chose it:

• Wireless. Simplisafe uses GSM cellular technology, which means you don’t need a landline (which can also easily be cut by a criminal). Wireless monitoring was a requirement for me, and usually costs extra with other brands.
• Affordable up-front cost. The total cost of equipment was about $400 to completely cover my 2,000 sq. ft. house. You could probably cover an apartment or condo for $200-$300.
• DIY Installation. You order it, and install it yourself using the included 3M sticky tape. No drilling holes. Installation literally took less than half an hour. (Their YouTube video has it done in one minute.) If I moved, I just remove the sensors and buy some new sticky pads for $10.
• Affordable monitoring fee with no contract. Again, the monthly fee is where your cost over time adds up, and you’re usually stuck in a 2 or 3-year contract. Simplisafe 24/7 monitoring is only $15 a month with no contract. You can add instant text message alerts for an optional $5 a month. That’s is pretty much as cheap as UL-listed monitoring will cost. If you prefer, you don’t have to buy monitoring at all and you’ll just have a loud audible alarm (you can also buy extra sirens) which may be adequate for condos and apartments.
• Battery-powered. The base station has a rechargeable battery that will last up to 8 hours in a power outage. All the rest of the sensors use their own individual lithium battery. This means the entire system will work in a power outage or if the power is cut on purpose.
• Expandable. Everything is a la carte on the website, so you buy just as many sensors as you need. They recommend a contact sensor for each entry into the house, and motion sensors to cover important areas.
• UL-listed 24/7 Monitoring. On a cheap system, I imagined the monitoring system to be two minimum-wage employees taking turns in an apartment. But Simplisafe is certified by United Laboratories just like ADT and commercial fire alarm systems. Central station monitoring is provided by AMCEST Corporation (UL #S2299). This may also make you eligible for a discount on your homeowners or renters insurance.

Also see short write-ups in NY Times and CNN Money.

I’m happy with the system, and it’s been in use for over 30 days. I often forget to disarm the system before I get home, so when I get home I get warning beeps and have to enter the PIN into the keypad or use the key fob within 30 seconds. If I didn’t, they would call a listed phone number and ask for the secret passphrase, otherwise they would call the police. I don’t see how anyone could enter the house and take something valuable without setting off at least one sensor and having the police within a minute along with a loud alarm. Even if someone breaks in and immediately breaks the base station, the signal is already sent. When you’re at home, there is a “Home” setting where the contact sensors are armed but the motion sensors are not. We also purchased a “panic” button to place by your bedside for instant alarm activation.

I would say that one thing I’m worried about is that I am depending on the system to tell me if/when the individual lithium batteries run out of juice. But the base station makes a little beep whenever one of the sensors is set off, so you know it’s still working. The lithium batteries are supposed to last 5 years. I also do not get video monitoring. I could buy an additional DVR setup from Costco for a one-time cost, but I’m really not interested in that much surveillance. Finally, depending on your area you may need to file for a security system permit with a small fee.

For now, I’m paying the extra $5 a month since I like getting text messages whenever the system is armed and unarmed. You’ll also get an alert if there is a power outage or any sensor is set off. I might get rid of it once the cool factor wears off and I trust the system more.

You can get 5% off a Simplisafe system with code SAFENOW or $25 off with code LM25OFF (better unless your total is over $500).

Note: I bought the original Simplisafe. They just announced Simplisafe 2.0 for pre-order which has a few more features like a smartphone app and fancier sensors like glass breakage and carbon monoxide. The basic setup and technology is still the same, but you need the 2.0 base station to take advantage of the new features. However, the 2.0 costs $25 a month, so I’m sticking with the original for $15 a month.

If you already have a home security system, I would recommend looking into switching to a cheaper UL-listed monitoring service once you are out of contract like NextAlarm.

Simplisafe Alarm Review: Cheap, Effective DIY Home Security from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

Tickets must be purchased on a Friday for a Friday show time. Limit 1 movie ticket per Visa Signature card purchase, per 30 day period following the date of a purchase in connection with this offer.

Check out your credit cards, you may be surprised to have one and not know it. If you’ve gone after some of the juicy $500+ sign-up bonuses this year, you probably have one of these cards.

• Chase Sapphire Preferred with $500 in travel bonus = Visa Signature card
• British Airways card offering 100,000 bonus Avios points = Visa Signature
• Hyatt Credit Card with 2 free hotel nights at any Hyatt in the world = Visa Signature

If you are a member of AMC Stubs, you can get the Fandango service fee waived as well at those theaters (membership costs $12 a year, they have discounted it previously). Time to see The Avengers!

Half-Off Movie Night: 2-For-1 Tickets with Visa Signature from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

Here’s a chart of the historical mortgage rate averages, courtesy of HSH.com. It includes the 30-year fixed, 15-year fixed, and the 5/1 30-year adjustable. Since I bought my home less than 5 years ago, 30-year fixed mortgage rates have ranged from a high of 7% to just above 4% today.

Even though I stopped trying to predict mortgage rates a while ago, I still find it hard to believe that I started with an interest rate of over 6% and now could be paying under 3% with a no-cost refi.

Alternative investments
If I successfully close on this loan, I don’t know if I’ll be aggressively paying it down as much as before. It’s important to note that the risk levels are not the same for the options below, but the interest rate environment is finally tipping to the point that I’d consider investing instead of paying off 3% debt.

• I could buy super-safe US Treasury bonds, with yields at ~2.2% for a 15-year maturity. Interest on Treasury bonds are exempt from state income taxes.
• I could buy a municipal bond fund like the Vanguard Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt Fund (VWIUX), which invests in investment-grade municipal bonds. The fund holdings have a duration of about 5 years and yields nearly 2% federally tax-exempt. If you’re in the highest tax bracket, that would be an effective yield of ~3%.
• If I lived in California, I could buy shares of the Vanguard California Long-Term Tax-Exempt Fund (VCITX) with 2.60% yield that is exempt from both federal and state income taxes, with a duration of 6.4 years. That could be an effective yield of well over 4%.
• I could take on more risk and buy shares of mature, dividend-paying companies. The Vanguard Equity Income Fund (VEIRX) has a current dividend yield of nearly 3%.

I’m going through a local mortgage broker, but you can find similar rates over at Amerisave. If the “all lender fees and points” is negative, that means the credit they give you is more than all closing costs including appraisals and title insurance. (Anyone use them before?) Compare that with rate quotes from and Quicken Loans.

What’s The Record For Multiple Mortgage Refinances Within a Short Period? from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

After an interesting conversation about how vegetarians often have different motivations (religious, ethical, environmental, amongst others), I thought about the many driving forces that can result in frugality.

Purely Financial
Let’s start hypothetically, and say that all you care about is money and you cut expenses purely because you would rather invest that dollar and have it produce income for you. You could move into a smaller house, buy a fuel-efficient car, walk or use public transportation instead of driving when possible, make dinner from scratch at home instead of ordering dinner at the restaurant, and cancel the cable TV service. But if you won the lottery tomorrow, you’d drive your Hummer everywhere, eat at Morton’s Steakhouse once a week, and subscribe to everything from ESPN to HBO and add in the 5-DVD Netflix plan to top it all off.

Environmental / Green
But wait, you are rather concerned about preserving natural resources, so perhaps you’d still walk a little more and buy a fuel-efficient car. A smaller house would probably use up less electricity and heating oil as well. Using raw ingredients to cook uses less wasteful packaging made of plastic and styrofoam.

Simplicity / Minimalism
If you want to reduce chaos and clutter in your life, then you may still have a reason to move into a smaller home since that’ll force you to get rid of some extra things. Do you really need a big car, or is a hatchback or station wagon enough? Hey, the Europeans make do, as gas costs $10 a gallon there.

Physical Health
Walking or biking is much healthier than driving, so you won’t need that Hummer as much. Medical studies have shown that the more time you spend sitting, the shorter your lifespan, so you don’t want to be that TV-watching couch potato.

Self-Empowerment
Sure, you could pay someone to cook your food, but wouldn’t you feel great if you knew how to brine a turkey, make your own beer, or grow your own vegetables? This might also apply to whatever other skills you want to pick up. Home repair, appliance repair, auto repair, landscaping, investing…

Religious / Philanthropic
The sooner you reach financial independence, the sooner you can start giving more back to society and serving others instead of trying to make money.

So in the end, you could be the same person, with or without a big pile of money. (Maybe not. I’d get some cool toys.) A more practical idea would be to use these other motivations to make saving money more appealing. You’re not buying a compact car because you’re cheap, you’re being minimalistic and environmentally conscious. You’re not skipping Olive Garden because you’re broke, you’re doing it because you know how to can make your own risotto at home that’s even better. Find a different (higher?) cause. (The extra thousands of dollars growing in your brokerage account won’t hurt either.)

Use Multiple Motivations For Frugality: Environmental, Simplicity, Health, Spiritual, Philanthropy from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

• 6% cash back on purchases at supermarkets
• 3% cash back on gas and department store purchases
• and 1% cash back on everything else.
• 6% back on Amazon gift certificates bought via supermarkets. Finally, don’t forget that you can buy a lot of nice gift cards at popular stores at supermarkets – I’ve seen Home Depot, Best Buy, Macy’s, Sears, and various gas stations and even Amazon.com. (Update: Confirmed to work for Amazon gift cards bought at Safeway stores. I bought it in along with other grocery purchases.)

In addition, there is now a $150 welcome bonus for new cardholders when you spend $1,000 or more within your first 3 months. The card has a $75 annual fee, but keep in mind that spending $25 a week on groceries, that 6% back will earn enough cash ($78) to pay for the annual fee by itself. The Blue Cash Preferred also has 0% APR interest on purchases for 12 months.

The regular Blue Cash Everyday from American Express gives you $100 cash back bonus after spending $1,000 in eligible purchases in the first 3 months, pays 3% cash back on purchases at supermarkets, 2% cash back on gas and department store purchases, and 1% cash back on everything else and has no annual fee.

If you spend less than a combination of $175 per month on groceries and $100 on gas per month, then the Blue Cash Everyday would give you more money back overall. Otherwise, the Preferred above works out better. Both cards offer the simplicity of cash back on the major “need” categories of groceries and gas, great for those that don’t like dealing with rotating categories or don’t travel very much.

If you get some sort of application error, you should try clearing your cookies or using the Private Browsing or Incognito option in your web browser. This worked for me to see the application page.

Blue Cash Preferred from American Express Card application link

Blue Cash Preferred from American Express Review: $150 Bonus + 6% Back on Groceries from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

Still it’s not a bad deal, $75 for 30k miles if you live near a SunTrust branch. Some of the text suggests that you can get 15k of those miles with just the new checking account and no debit card, but it’s not entirely clear. Direct deposit must be $100 or more. The “Balanced Banking” checking account option has a $12 monthly fee, waived with a $3,000 minimum balance across Suntrust accounts. Selected fine print below:

Checking Account Offer: Open a new qualifying SunTrust checking account with qualifying Direct Deposit and select the Delta SkyMiles World Check Card to receive 15,000 bonus miles. The checking account must be opened between 5/1/2012 and 6/30/2012. The offer is only available on new SunTrust checking accounts and cannot be combined with any other offer. To qualify for the 30,000 bonus miles offer, a Delta SkyMiles World Check Card must be opened with the checking account. Please allow 6-8 weeks for miles to be credited to your Delta SkyMiles account after the first qualifying Direct Deposit is made, which must be made by 9/30/2012. A qualifying Direct Deposit is a direct deposit of your salary, pension, Social Security or other regular monthly income of $100 or more per deposit electronically deposited to your account during statement cycle by your employer or an outside agency. Transfers from one account to another or deposits made at a banking location or ATM do not qualify as a Direct Deposit.

SunTrust Bank & Delta Check Card – 30,000 Bonus Miles Promotion from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

All of these ETFs use futures to try and match the price movements of a commodity, but they don’t actually hold the commodity itself as storage and transaction costs would be cost-prohibitive. The concern back then was that UGA only started trading in February 2008 and was thinly traded so the bid/ask spreads could be wide and NAV premiums could be high. Today, UGA still has significantly net assets than OIL or USO.

Here’s a chart of the past 3-year performance of USO vs. OIL vs. UGA, via Google Finance:

Here’s a chart comparing the past 3-year price change of UGA vs. gasoline prices at the pump. UGA daily closing prices from Yahoo Finance, national average gas prices from the US Energy Information Administration.

The tracking looks better than expected, considering the concerns I’ve read about contango and hedge fund manipulations. UGA’s expense ratio is 0.80%. I wonder how much trouble it would be to trade gasoline (RBOB) futures directly on the NYMEX.

Is hedging gas prices worth the effort for the average consumer? Probably not. Unless you are especially sensitive to a price spike for some reason, any money is better invested for the long run. But if that’s your goal, your better option would appear to be UGA.

Hedging Gas Prices Revisited: Gasoline ETF UGA vs. Retail Gas Prices from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

Your Work Contract
Most employers offer their full-time salaried worker’s some length of paid maternity leave, and it’s usually spelled out clearly in the lawyer-ese language of your work agreement. A few employers even offer paid paternity leave. Making an appointment to discuss all your options with Human Resources can be time well spent. Keep in mind that you are subject to the laws of the state where you work, not where the company is based.

In addition, you may be eligible for a longer unpaid leave-of-absence. For example, a big company may allow you up to one full year of leave and your same job (or comparable) will still be yours when you come back.

Short-Term Disability Insurance
Depending on your insurance plan and local laws, being pregnant or taking time off to bond with a new child may be covered under short-term disability insurance. This means you may be eligible for an additional period after your paid maternity leave where you will get a disability benefit that is somewhere around 50% of your normal pay (subject to caps).

Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
The FMLA entitles an eligible employee to take up to 12 workweeks of job-protected unpaid leave for the birth or placement of a child, to bond with a newborn or newly placed son or daughter, or to care for a son or daughter with a serious health condition. You may or may not be required to use up your paid vacation days first. To be eligible for FMLA benefits, an employee must:

• work for a covered employer;
• have worked for the employer for a total of 12 months;
• have worked at least 1,250 hours over the previous 12 months (~24 hours per week average); and
• work at a location in the United States or in any territory or possession of the United States where at least 50 employees are employed by the employer within 75 miles.

Under some circumstances, employees may take FMLA leave intermittently – taking leave in separate blocks of time for a single qualifying reason – or on a reduced leave schedule – reducing the employee’s usual weekly or daily work schedule. If FMLA leave is for birth and care, or placement for adoption or foster care, intermittent leave is subject to the employer’s approval. To get that permission, you should approach your employer in a way that suggests that taking the leave in chunks would disrupt the office operations less than taking all 12-weeks at once. For example, you may propose a 4-day workweek over a period of several months to a year, as opposed to leaving entirely for three.

State-Specific Family Leave Laws
Each state can have their own separate family leave and/or disability laws that may grant you more time and/or pay. Running a Google search for “[Your State] Family Leave Act” or “[Your State] Family Leave Laws” should locate the appropriate information.

Let’s take the most populous state and the California Family Rights Act (CFRA). Under federal law, any leave taken for a pregnancy-related disability is part of your FMLA 12-week limit. However, in California, an eligible employee who is disabled on account of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions is entitled to take Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL) for up to four months. In addition to that, an eligible employee could then take 12 weeks of family leave to care for and bond with a new child under FMLA/CFRA. That adds up to a total possible leave of 7 months.

Sources: U.S. Department of Labor, CA Dept. of General Services, CA Fair Employment and Housing Commission

Maximizing Your Maternity and Paternity Leave Options from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

The creators of America’s Test Kitchen ran another test (like with the knives) of the major brands of plastic food containers including Gladware, Ziploc, Rubbermaid, Sterilite, OXO, and more. All were BPA-free and they used the rectangular/square 8-cup sizes. They froze them, put stinky food in them, microwaved them with chili, washed them repeatedly, submerged them in water to test for leaks, and more. Being frugal doesn’t mean just buying the cheapest thing out there, it’s about finding the best value for the price.

The winner? For plastic food containers, the winner was Snapware MODS (update: now “Snapware Airtight”) which featured good performance across all categories. However, the reviews on this 38-piece set of Snapware Airtight for $40 shipped at Amazon.com seem to be worsening over time, and look at the pictures the constructions does look slightly less “beefy”. I did find a cheaper 20-piece set for $15 shipped at Wal-mart that may be worth trying out. It may be better to recognize that most of the better performing containers use the kind of seal that Snapware uses with snap-down “wing” flap, silicone gaskets, and a lid with full wraparound ridges.

For glass containers, the winner was Kinetic Go Green Glasslock, which is also sold under Glasslock by Snapware. Made of microwave-safe tempered glass, this type of container seems to be enjoying a comeback due to all the concerns about microwaving plastic. I have to say, it does sound like a great idea as long as you don’t drop things a lot (like me). Freezer safe. Add in that airtight lid, and I’m sold.

The main drawback beside fragility is the additional cost. You can buy their 16-piece set for $70 at Amazon.com including free shipping, although I’d rather buy a six-piece set of a medium-size for about $30-$40. All seem to have overall good reviews, and I also noticed that people seem to really love these cute Wean Green Wean Cubes Baby Food Glass Containers, which are also made by Glasslock (Snapware). Hopefully these can last a long time. Besides, there’s always that baby registry…

Best BPA-Free Food Storage Containers For Baby Food and More from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

Meanwhile, The Big Picture shares a bunch of graphs from TheChartStore that don’t make it look so clear-cut. Looking at this one, why shouldn’t just bail out every September? Data set is the S&P 500 from 1928-2011.

Larry Swedroe tests the theory out using 30-day Treasury bonds as the alternative investment in this CBS Moneywatch article:

He looked at returns through 2007 from six start dates since 1950. “Sell in May” beat “buy and hold” if you started investing in 1960, 1970 and 2000, but not if you started in 1950, 1980 or 1990. “It’s pure randomness,” Swedroe says. “How would you ever know when to start?”

Throw in the tax implications of all that buying and selling, and I agree. Do you really want to base your investing strategy on a data-mining result that has no logical explanation behind it? Sounds too much like driving a car using only your rearview mirror.

However, Tadas Viskanta of Abnormal Returns has what I think is a reasonable compromise – what if you just decided to rebalance your portfolio at the very end of April and the very end of October? You should rebalance your portfolio regularly anyway, so why not do it twice a year, six months apart. If your target asset allocation is 70% stocks/30% bonds and now you’re at 80/20 due to the recent run-up, why not go back to 70/30. If things end up at 60/40 in November, then again, go back to 70/30.

You could call it “Remember to Rebalance in May and November”. It even rhymes! If “sell in may” really works, you’ll get some benefit from this mean reversion wackiness. If it’s just noise, you portfolio shouldn’t theoretically be hurt any more than picking other months.

Sell in May and Go Away? How About Remember To Rebalance In May and November from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

10% Extra Cash Back + 10 cents per purchase on Chase Freedom
The Chase Freedom Visa card is a popular cash back card that features 5% cash back on rotating categories and 1% back on everything else. This quarter you’ll get 5% back on all purchases at grocery stores (up to $75 cash back a quarter based on $1,500 in purchases). Check out my page on 5% cash back credit cards for more info.

However, if you have a Chase checking account, they will add an additional 10 points + 1 extra point for every $10 in purchases. Since 100 points is worth $1, that’s basically saying every purchase on the Chase Freedom earns 10 cents plus 1.10% cash back and every 5% category purchase earns 10 cents plus 5.1% cash back. For someone like me that puts everything on their credit card for easy expense tracking, that can add up especially with smaller purchases.

Currently, the Chase Freedom has a promotion offering $100 bonus cashback if you sign up and make just $500 in purchases in your first three months.

1% Mortgage Cash Back program
If you have both a Chase checking account and a Chase mortgage, you can earn 1% cash back on your mortgage payments (principal + interest). You have to have the checking account open before the mortgage closing, and enroll in automatic payments from said account within 60 days of closing. If you take the option of having your 1% cash back applied towards your loan principal, that works out to shortening a 30-year fixed mortgage by 9 months if you stick with it. (They really should make this an option on other mortgages, paying just 1% extra instead.)

I don’t know how good Chase mortgage rates are, but I’d probably get a quote now from Chase just to see if they are competitive. Overall though, it would probably be better to just get a better interest rate and pay extra towards your principal as if you had a higher mortgage (takes discipline).

$150 New account opening bonus
Thinking about opening a new account? You can also get a $150 bonus through this link if you open a Chase Total Checking account with $100 and set up direct deposit (new customers only). To avoid monthly service fees, you must do any one of the following each statement period:

1. Have monthly direct deposits totaling $500 or more made to this account, or
2. Keep the daily balance in your checking account at or above $1,500, or
3. Keep an average balance of $5,000 or more in your checking and other types of qualifying Chase accounts.

Chase Exclusives: 10% Extra Cash Back on Chase Freedom, 1% Cash Back on Chase Mortgage Payments from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.