The reason for setting the bonus at $121, which seems to be a generous but odd amount, is that the bank says that consumers pay $121 overdraft fee every year on average. With ING Electric Orange, you get a lot of features from the paperless checking account for free, including free MasterCard Debit Card, free online bill pay, free access at over 35,000 ATMs through the Allpoint network, and free postage to mail your paper checks for you.

The promotion is good for today only. To get the bonus, follow these simple steps to open an account today:

1. Open an Electric Orange Checking Account on with Reference Code EOSAVE.
2. Use your Debit Card to make 3 signature transactions (you know, the ones you have to actually sign) within the first 45 days.
3. On day 50, we’ll put $121 in your account. You have to open today to get the $121 bonus.

Though Electric Orange is an interest-bearing checking account, the interest rate is rather low. For balance up to $50,000, the yield is only at 0.25% APY. Of course, when you get a checking account, earning interests isn’t never the main goal.

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

SogoTrade is offering 100 commission free trades for every new customer. It’s quite easy to get the free trades: Open a SogoTrade account; fund the account with $500; receive the bonus. There is a restriction on the free trades though. The free trades must be used within 30 days after the account is funded, or they will expire.

On one hand, the offer is quite generous because the total value of the offer is $300. That’s much better than promotions from other brokers (OptionsHouse also offers 100 free trades). On the other hand, how many investors, especial small investors, can make 100 trades in 30 days?

SogoTrade Commission

I first looked at SogoTrade nearly three years ago, when the broker was offering scheduled investment plans, like those you get from ShareBuider. At that time, before there was Zecco and OptionsHouse, I concluded that the it was quit cheap to trade with SogoTrade. It appears that with so many discount brokers competing for your business, SogoTrade remains a solid option for trading stocks for less.

So how much does it cost to trade with SogoTrade?

SogoTrade is very competitive in terms of commission. It charges $3.00 per internet equity trade, regardless the number of shares. From what I know, the commission is only higher than what OptionsHouse charges at $2.95/trade, but much lower than the fee at other widely used discount brokers like Zecco, TradeKing, and Scottrade. For options trading, there’s another $0.70 for each contract.

SogoTrade doesn’t charge any fee if the account is in dormant mode and, unlike other brokers, it doesn’t charge a fee if you are not happy with SogoTrade and want to transfer the account to somewhere else. The transfer usually costs $50 at other brokers. But this is not the only benefit. If you like Sogotrade and want to transfer your account at another broker to SogoTrade, you will get reimbursed for the account transfer fee charged by the other broker up to $100 if the account balance is $25,000 or more.

So, what do you think about SogoTrade and this 100 free trade promotion offer?

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

1. Browse for qualifying items. Qualifying items are select items sold by Amazon.com in Apparel, Electronics, Software, Video Games, and Computers displaying the offer message on their product information pages. Due to manufacturer restrictions, some products are not eligible.
2. Add qualifying items to your Shopping Cart until the total amount of qualifying items before taxes, gift-wrap, shipping, and other promotions totals $50 or more. The savings only apply to select products sold by Amazon.com in Apparel, Electronics, Software, Video Games, and Computers. Items from those different product categories may be combined to qualify.
3. Click the “Proceed to Checkout” button, the amount of the savings will be reflected on the final order checkout page.
4. Update the form of payment to your Discover Card. The discount will only be reflected if you use Discover Card as your form of payment.

When you are shopping for holiday items, make sure you also check out Amazon.com Black Friday sales started this Monday.

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

It could be but the idea of “managing your money” can be endlessly complex. In many cases, people think of personal finance as making sure the bills are paid on time and picking a few mutual funds for the 401(k). While that is certainly a big piece of it, the truth is that it is much more multifaceted. To do a complete assessment, you need to also consider retirement planning, saving for college, estate planning and tax planning. And often times, it can be just like an onion – the more layers you peel back, the stinkier it gets.

If you find that one of the following situations pertains to you, sitting down to talk with a financial planner might make some sense.

You Need the Help

Some of us just feel plain old better knowing that there is a professional who is overseeing our finances and that alone is worth the cost.

Let’s face it. Most of us don’t have finance degrees and even for those that do some of these considerations can still get pretty hairy. The internet has become a wonderful resource for getting all of your money questions answered but sometimes you need somebody who can examine and help you with your situation specifically.

There’s an old saying that you don’t know what you don’t know. A financial planner can help guide you through situations and choices that you weren’t even aware of.

You Have a Complicated Tax Situation

The IRS estimates that about 2/3 of individuals will hire a professional to do their taxes this year. That’s a lot of people who already don’t want to deal with the complexity of their current tax situation.

Throw in a marriage, divorce, inheritance, sale of a business, sale of a home, or exposure to the alternative minimum tax and you’re quickly treading on turf that may best be left in the hands of an expert.

You Have a Significant Amount of Assets

Your tax situation grows more precarious as your income or portfolio grows. With a large portfolio you need to be careful of the alternative minimum tax.

Also, a financial planner can help ensure your assets are properly diversified among a number of asset classes and that your annual capital gain and loss situation is managed effectively.

You Need to Plan for the Inevitable

It’s estimated that 40% of people over the age of 50 don’t have a will or any type of contingency planning established. While cheap and quick alternatives are available, if you want all of your bases covered properly (including who you want to maintain custody of your children), plan for a visit to a lawyer or financial planner.

Planning for your death also carries serious tax consequences for your estate and those inheriting it. A lack of a will or trust can mean that your estate spends months tied up in probate court and a significant portion of it ends up in the hands of the government instead of your heirs.

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

Now, optionsXpress is running the $100 bonus promotion again with requirements similar to the previous promotion with an addition that 3 trades must be executed in 12 months in order to qualify for the bonus offer:

Offer is valid for one new Individual or Joint optionsXpress account opened and funded with at least $500 by US residents on or before December 31, 2011 at 11:59 CST, and having executed 3 trades within twelve months of account opening. To receive $100 bonus, account must be funded with at least $500 cash or securities transferred from a brokerage firm other than optionsXpress. The $100 bonus will be deposited into the new optionsXpress account within one month after meeting the terms and conditions of this offer. optionsXpress may charge the account for the cost of the $100 bonus should account fail to remain open with minimum funding (excluding trading losses) 6 months from the account open date. IRAs, other tax-exempt, linked, or shared accounts are not eligible to receive the $100 bonus offer.

The requirements are stricter than last time which also make the deal less profitable because, to get the bonus, you are required to make three trades which will cost you nearly $45, a big chunk of the bonus you will receive.

Get More than $100

However, there is a way to make the offer work better. I just mentioned that I didn’t use my account until only a couple of weeks ago. The commission is still $14.95 which is very expensive by my standard, but I didn’t pay that much commission for my trades. Here’s what I did.

optionsXpress also has a referral program, the one that I have been running for quite a while. If you refer somebody to optionsXpress, you both can get some rewards, such as $100, 10 free trades, or books, and you can choose which one you want to receive. So to make it work better, all you need to do, after opening your own account, is refer somebody else, maybe someone in your family if it’s difficult to find others, and choose either $100 or 10 free trades when making the reference. There are also requirements to receive the referral bonus, but they are relatively easier to meet:

Offer limited to one $100 bonus per referrer and referred friend, for each unique referral resulting in a newly activated, funded optionsXpress account meeting the terms and conditions of the refer a friend program. To qualify for the $100 bonus, the referred account must maintain a per account average balance of $500 for 6 months, and the account must trade at least once. The $100 bonus will be deposited into the referrer and referred accounts within 45 days after the referred friend meets the terms and conditions of the offer. To qualify, the referrer must enter the referred friend’s email address through this page, and the referred friend must enter the promo code “FRIEND” through the new account application form when opening the new account.

As you can see, to get the referral bonus, only one trade is required (not you, but the people being referred) and after six months, the bonus will be ready in your account for use. That’s how I traded for free with optionsXpress, with the free money I received

Interested? Open an optionsXpress account and get $100 free money for yourself.

BTW, there are a few other broker promotions going on right now:

• TradeKing $50 bonus (ends November 30, 2009)
• OptionsHouse 100 free trades (ends December 31, 2009)
• Firstrade triple bonus (ends December 31, 2009)

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

• Frugal Holiday Entertaining
• Serving Holiday Food Frugally
• Frugal Gift Buying

Today we are kicking off the series with some tips about saving money while entertaining guests. Whether you are entertaining friends and family members for several days in your home or having them over for a simple dinner, there are a lot of expensive traps that you can avoid. Here are just a few tips to keep your guests comfortable and your wallet heavy.

Entertaining Dinner Guests

1. Natural table setting: It’s easy to get drawn into the expensive table setting trap when you are decorating for a holiday dinner. Instead of buying special gold plates, expensive table linens and fancy napkin rings, invest in plain white linens and plates that you can use for any occasion. Then, use Christmas ornaments, ribbons, decorative leaves and other simple, inexpensive items to decorate your table for the holiday at hand.

2. Drinking for one: When Uncle Charlie likes scotch, Cousin Rita enjoys vodka and Mom and Dad like their gin you could be facing a hefty bill at the liquor store. Instead of trying to indulge in everyone’s favorite drink, just create one holiday themed mixed drink for everyone to enjoy. You can find many alcoholic mixed drink recipes online. Not only will this simplify your hosting duties, but it will allow you to buy just one kind of liquor.

Entertaining Houseguests

1. Climate control: If you live frugally, it is likely that you keep your thermostat at a certain money saving, yet comfortable temperature for every season. When you have houseguests they may no be quite as comfortable with your temperature setting. Instead of heating or cooling the whole house to their specifications, simply make sure there is an electric blanket and a fan in the room they’ll be sleeping in. That way, they can heat or cool their area while they sleep with minimal added expense.

2. Have breakfast in: When you have guests it’s easy to get distracted by thoughts of gourmet coffee houses and breakfasts out, but it is much cheaper to make everything at home. Before your guests arrive, buy some of the coffee grounds sold at your local gourmet coffee shop. Get a couple of recipes for easy breakfast casseroles and cinnamon buns and help your guests enjoy a delicious and inexpensive breakfast at home.

3. Entertainment: If you leave entertainment to the last minute, you may end up spending a great deal of time at the local tourist traps. This can result in a lot of money spent on useless items that are highly marked up. Instead, get ready for your houseguests by borrowing board games from a friend or coworker. You can also get some movies that you all enjoy or, if the guests are family, get your home movies and photo albums out of storage.

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

Do good for yourself, your home and your wallet

Why wait for next year to do Spring cleaning? Clear out books you’ve already enjoyed, CDs you never listen to anymore and movies you’ve already watched and sell them either to a reseller, on Craig’s List or on eBay. You’ll feel good about cleaning the house, your home will immediately feel more spacious and you’ll end up with a bit of extra cash in your pocket.

Keep your receipts, watch the ads and take advantage of price adjustment policies

Gone is Black Friday. This year, with the economic decline taking a toll everywhere, retailers may as well have invented “Black November and December.” It seems each week bigger and better deals are being offered on a wide variety of great items. If you’re worried about picking something up now for fear it will be offered for a cheaper price later, don’t be. Most retailers have existing price adjustment policies. Simply keep your receipt and you can snag a great item now and guarantee the smallest price, even later on.

Consider buying gifts in bulk to free up money for other holiday expenses

It’s no secret that buying in bulk can save money. The same principal can be applied to gift-giving as well. Think “divide and conquer.” Visit a warehouse store, purchase multiple gifts at one time in one package and simply divide them and repackage. Warehouse stores have gone to great lengths to meet the special needs of frugal-minded gift-givers. From multi-packs of gift cards to bags of gourmet coffee to wonderful bath and beauty products, when you purchase in quantity you needn’t skimp on quality to save money.

Go green to find more green

Rather than spending money to pay for wrapping paper, bows and ribbons, save the cash to spend elsewhere and instead opt for recycled packaging or skip it entirely. Beautify a brown lunch bag with rubber stamps an a bit of glitter. For small packages, use the aluminum foil you already have in your drawer. Create pretty pom-poms out of yarn and use them to trim packages. It may be what’s inside that counts, but “going green” when it comes to gift wrap doesn’t mean they can’t be just as fun and festive looking, too.

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

Weekend Readings

• How to Fix Up Your Resume
• Can A Home Loan Modification Ruin Your Credit?
• The Real Costs Of Depression
• 5 Reasons Why You Will Retire Broke and Unhappy
• IPodMeister: Trade your CDs for an iPod or iPhone… legally?
• Investing Strategy: When to Buy Dividend Stocks
• Real Estate Short Sales Explained
• Frugal Ways to Celebrate the Holidays
• The Path to Home Ownership
• 6 Ways to Bounce Back From Unemployment
• 6 Steps on How to Prosper by Celebrating Your Marital Differences

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

I have been a TradeKing customer for more than two years. My experience is that it’s a decent broker despite that the commission it charges for stock trading isn’t the cheapest among online discount brokers. I talk about TradeKing quite often because it’s one of brokers I use quite often. If you are interested in getting the bonus, you can open an account before November 30 with a minimum $2,500 initial deposit and keep the month in the account for at least six months, plus a trade must be made within 180 days.

Besides, there are also other bonus offers from banks and brokers for opening a new account. Maybe you can find something you need

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

Before things were cleared, I was very nervous as I also had a few other transfers scheduled around that time. Had the withdrawal gone through, I would have paid a lot of fees due to insufficient fund in my account. I also feel quite lucky that I checked my account that morning and did what had to be done. Fortunately, nothing really happened at the end because the stop order I placed on the withdrawal at BofA eventually worked and it stopped the transfer.

When the whole incident was over, I realized that I need a better way to notify myself for situations like this when the account balance drops to dangerous level. Because I never had any such incident before, I didn’t have such alert in place. Instead, I had relied entirely on my manual check of the account for years and that’s not really very reliable. What I did back in July was to set up several automatic alerts in my account that will send me an email when certain events happen, such as

• Available balance
• Account has insufficient funds
• Low balance threshold

The first alert emails me the account balance every morning so I know how much I have in the account without even logging in. The last two occur only when the account doesn’t have enough money. The second alert goes off when the balance is below zero. However, I don’t want to be informed only when there’s no money in the account. If that indeed happens, it is probably already too late. So I created the third alert with a balance threshold at $1,500, a level that requires me to replenish the account immediately.

While that was the first time that I set up bank alerts, I have been using credit card alerts for a long time. Alerts that help me manage my credit card bills include:

• Statement available
• Transaction exceeds a threshold
• Account balance exceeds a threshold
• Payment scheduled
• Payment reminder
• Payment not received
• Payment posted

Because I no longer receive any paper statement from credit card issuers, I rely on email alert to let me know when the monthly statement is available online for me to review. The second and third alerts are for situations when either a large purchase is posted in the account or the total account balance exceeds a threshold. Once receiving these alerts, I usually check the account right away to see if there’s anything unusual. The last four alerts are all related to credit card payment. To make managing my credit accounts easier, I have arranged to have all payment deadlines at about the same time, in the first week of the money, so I can schedule payments on the same day for all cards. Some card issuers, such as Chase, alerts me when a payment is scheduled, others like AmEX remind me when no payment is received xyz days before the due date. In addition to using these alerts, I also check my bank account to make sure that payments are indeed taken from the account when they are supposed to.

With these alerts, I have never missed a single credit card payment and never paid a late fee.

photo credit: apple 94

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

Recently, I’ve noticed many stores pointing consumers toward the use of online coupons. At first I thought the stores had lost their minds, I mean — showing me how to save money on your products? I know you are reimbursed by the manufacturer and all, but still … it seemed too good to be true.

The more I started to examine this trend the more I realized that it was, in fact, too good to be true because many online coupons aren’t worth more than the paper they are printed on.

How much does it cost to print that coupon?

The coupon sites that I tried used an entire piece of paper to print each little coupon. With printer ink costing up to .10 per printed page and paper coming in around a penny per page, you’ve already spent a good chunk of some of those coupons by the time you are done printing them. If you simply must have the coupon, make sure you set your printer for the lowest quality print and don’t be afraid to print the coupons on the back of junk mail, scrap paper — anything you don’t mind ending up in the cashier’s till.

How much does it cost to go to that store?

Before you print that coupon, ask yourself if the item you printed the coupon for sold at your local grocery store. If it isn’t, you will have to make a special trip to another store in order to buy it. If you have to make an out-of-your-way trip then you need to consider the cost of gas as an expense that detracts from the saving’s offered by the coupon. It might only add an extra couple of pennies but when you add that to the cost of printing the coupon, you are well on your way to saving nothing.

Hello, would you like a virus, spy or pop-up with your coupon?

Many of the coupon websites out there require that you install their proprietary, super-special, secret coupon making programs into your computer. With every mysterious program you install from the wide open plains of the internet, you risk getting a virus. And even if it is downloaded from a company or website you trust you may still be installing their spy program that facilitates customer-targeted pop-up ads on your machine. Not only is this extremely intrusive and annoying but, if you don’t know how to get rid of that junk on your own computer, it could cost you quite a bit of money to hire your neighborhood geek to take it off for you.

Will you use the items you buy?

You know those people who have pantries filled with things that they will never use but that they bought because they were on sale? Well, you could be one of those people — spending money you don’t need to spend on stuff you don’t even want — if you buy things simply because you have a good coupon for them. Only print coupons for those items you want to buy and know you will use within the next month.

Does the coupon make it cheaper than the store brand?

A dollar off coupon on a box of name brand cereal will not make it as affordable as the store brand. If you really want to be frugal, store brand items are almost always a better choice than a name brand item with a coupon. Many of these coupons are used to lure you into making a bad decision for your budget. Remember, if the coupon doesn’t reduce your overall average spending, then it’s not saving you anything — it’s costing you.

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

I first knew Revolution Money more than two years ago when it launched a credit card, the RevolutionCard, which it claims can better protect cardholder’s identity by not printing name and account number on the card. I don’t know whether that claim has been proven or not, but I wasn’t very impressed by the card so I never thought about getting one. Then in early 2008, Revolution Money introduced another product, called Revolution Money Exchange, to compete with Paypal in the payment service business. This time, I jumped in and got an account for myself. Unlike the RevolutionCard which I don’t see any direct benefit to myself for using it, the Revolution Money Exchange has a very attractive feature: It doesn’t cost anything to send money between account holders. I don’t make a lot of money transfers online, except between my own bank accounts, but I don’t like that when somebody pays me $15 via Paypal, I only get, say, $14. What Revolution Money Exchange provides is exactly what I am looking for: No fee money transfer, though it doesn’t have the massive customer basis (Revolution Money has 400,000 consumers) as Paypal does.

Now that American Express is acquiring Revolution Money, I am wondering whether AmEx will keep Money Exchange free of fees for individual consumers.

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

Those were the exact words I thought when my husband came home and shared with me what he saw his coworker doing. Each week she digs deep into her purse and purges it of all the loose change both in her wallet as well as the coins floating around in the bottom. And when I say “purge” I really mean “throw away.” Yes, you read that correctly: in the trash can, the garbage, with the refuse. My husband must have been anticipating my reaction because just as my jaw hit the floor, he pulled a small sandwich baggie from his pocket chuck full of coins.

I’ll admit it. I get tired of having my purse weighted down by lots of change, but money is money. Want to make the best use of your change? Here are some ideas to help you make every penny count:

Count it out, roll it up and trade it in

Skip paying for the rolls and visit a local bank instead. Most will give you complimentary paper rolls for just this purpose. If you have young children, this can be a great family activity. Picking up the coins helps improve fine motor skills. Counting out and grouping the coins helps reinforce mathematics skills. It’s also a great way to enable children to actively help the family’s bottom line in a very real way. (Not keen on all the counting? Employ the use of a Coinstar machine to do all the counting for you. Be warned, though, you will employ it by paying it a fee to the tune of 8.9%.)

Convert to bills without the counting

Think rolling coins or paying a fee is your only option? Think again. Some banks (especially credit unions) have machines that do all the counting for their tellers-and you-for free. Call your bank to find out if they’re one of them or check out TheUnderStory.com to find one near you that does.

Always keep 4 pennies in your wallet. Doing this can help you minimize the number of pennies you get back in return, leaving you with much more silver change which is easier to spend.

Give the ultimate gift to a coin collector

An old jar of coins can literally be the equivalent of a treasure chest to a coin collector, especially the junior variety. Give the gift that literally only costs you the change in your pocket and you’ll be giving the gift of a great treasure hunt.

Consider it forced savings or an emergency fund

I actually have a small tabletop, battery operated machine that automatically rolls the coins for me. Truth is, even after I accumulate a massive amount of rolls, I still don’t necessarily trade them in for bills. Instead, I keep them tucked away as a “ready-to-go” emergency fund. During times when things are especially tight, I quickly trade in a few rolls of coins for cash immediately in order to buy a few groceries. This enables me to stretch the food I’ve already got in my pantry, leaving my usual budgeted grocery amount to go towards paying for other, unexpected expenses. Another great way to look at loose change is to treat it as a sort of forced savings, similar to how others few tax withholding throughout the year. Forbid yourself to spend any change and instead collect it all. Watch how quickly a bit of change here and there can add up to help stash away a college savings or vacation fund without even trying.

photo credit: Nicholas Bonanno

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

I have been using Quicken Home & Business for investment tracking for years. It is a powerful and convenient tool that does a lot of other things than tracking stocks and mutual funds. However, the convenience comes with a price tag of $100. It’s not cheap for sure. If you only want to have a tool to manage your investments, then you don’t need Quicken. In fact, there are plenty of tools to help you do what you want to do for free. One of them is Google Doc.

I recently created a Google Doc Stock Portfolio Tracking Tool based on a Google Doc Template. What makes it easier to create such a tool with Google Doc is that I can simply use GoogleFinance functions to retrieve values I need. You can do the job with an Excel Spreadsheet, but then you will need to figure out where to get the data and so on. With Google Doc, a function call to GoogleFinance() is enough. Here’s how my stock portfolio tracker looks like.

In addition to the columns in the original Google template, I added Purchase Date, Purchase Price, Position, Daily Change, Total Market Value, and P&L into the spreadsheet. At the end, I also have total daily change ($ and %), market value of the entire portfolio, and profit & loss ($ and %). I have published the spreadsheet, so if you want to use it, you can download the spreadsheet and save it as your own copy.

Right now, the spreadsheet only has a few stocks I own. To track the stocks you own,

1. Delete rows from the top and only leave the last row (row # 4 as in the screenshot below);
2. Highlight the last empty row by clicking the row number from the leftmost (# 8 in the picture below);
3. Click Insert from the menu bar on the top and select Row Above;
4. Copy the last row that’s left in the spreadsheet from Step 1 and paste the entire row to the new row just created

Now that you have the new row with identical information as the last row, all you need to do next is replace Ticker Symbol, Purchase Date, Purchase Price and Position with the new stock you want to add to the spreadsheet. The spreadsheet then will automatically calculate the rest for you.

Remember, when you add new investments to the spreadsheet, always leave a blank row above Total and always insert a new row above the blank row and copy and paste the entire row to the new empty row you just created. Each row is only for one transaction, even if it’s the same stock (as I have two rows of C above).

I am sure there are other functions, such as Year-to-date return, etc., that can be added to the spreadsheet to make it more useful, I just haven’t figured out how to do it yet. If you have ideas on what to add, please let me know.

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

PerkStreet Financial is offering a PerkStreet Online Checking Account that allows account owners to earn cash back with their Visa debit card. Every time you use the debit card in non-PIN transactions, you can earn 1% cash back. Right now PerkStreet Financial is promoting the new checking account by giving each new customer who opens an account with $25 deposit a $50 bonus.

Online Checking Account

In order to receive the $50 bonus, you will have to make a deposit of at least $25 when opening the account. However, the checking account itself doesn’t have a minimum balance requirement. In addition, the free checking account also offers a free book of checks and free online banking and bill pay. The account does charge a monthly account maintenance fee of $4.50 if you don’t use your debit card even once in the month. If you use debit card more often than cash or credit card, this shouldn’t be a big problem. The monthly inactivity fee can be avoided if you do any of the following: making a transaction with your debit card, writing a check that clears the account, using online bill pay, initiating a withdrawal or making a deposit to the account.

You can also use the debit card to withdraw cash within STARsf network without paying a fee. If you use out-of-network ATMs, there will be a $2 fee for each cash withdrawal.

The Perks

With the PerkStreet debit card, you can earn 1% cash back for every dollar spent in non-PIN transactions. The cash back you earned can be redeemed for gift cards, free music or coffee. How’s how the cash back program works:

1% Cash Back

• Every $100 in non-PIN purchases earns you a dollar in perks.
• Every dollar perk you redeem gets you $1 on a PerkStreet Financial Visa Gift Card or a gift card from Target, Best Buy, Amazon.com, GAP or Ticketmaster.

Music

• Every $100 in non-PIN purchases earns you a song.
• Every song you redeem gets you $1 in credit at iTunes, Rhapsody or Amazon.com Gift Cards for MP3s or millions of other items at Amazon.com.

Coffee

• Every $200 in non-PIN purchase earns you a cup of coffee.
• Every cup you redeem gets you $2 in credit on a reloadable gift card from Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Peet’s Coffee and Tea and Bruegger’s Bagels.

About PerkStreet Financial

The PerkStreet Financial Debit Card is issued by The Bancorp Bank. According to the FDIC, The Bankcorp Bank is established on July 28, 2000 and has been a member of FDIC since July 28, 2000 (FDIC Cert: 35444). The bank is headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware and operates only one branch.

The bonus offer expires on December 31, 2009. To receive the bonus, in addition to the $25 deposit, you will also keep the account active for three straight months. The bonus will be deposited into your account within 15 business days of the end of the third month.

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

The day after Thanksgiving – traditionally known as Black Friday – is the day that unofficially kicks off the Christmas shopping season. Retail chains have worked hard to turn this into THE shopping event of the year by opening up stores in the early hours of the morning and offering plenty of doorbuster deals. Some even offer free breakfast!

With the economy still struggling to recover and unemployment rates at their highest level in decades, overall holiday sales are expected to be down but that won’t stop that throng of dedicated deal finders from loading up their carts.

If you’re one of those people, here’s what you can expect to find at some of the country’s largest retailers.

Target

Opening: 5:00AM

Deals: Target has been getting some press for offering a Westinghouse 32-inch LCD TV for $246 as well as select toasters and coffeemakers for $3. Additional deals on electronics such as HDTVs, DVD players, GPS units and cameras can net savings of up to 50%.

Extras: The store is offering a $10 gift card when you spend $100 or more from 5AM to noon on Friday.

Best Buy

Opening: 5:00AM

Deals: Many TVs will be 30% off. GPS units are 50% off. You can get up to 50% off major appliances and both the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 are priced at $299.99.

Extras: How about your own safety? Learning from the recent disasters at stores like Wal-Mart, Best Buy will be handing out tickets for doorbuster deals guaranteeing the holder of that ticket the product ahead of time so there is no stampeding through the front door.

Kohl’s

Opening: 4:00AM

Deals: Up to 50-60% off jewelry, clothing and appliances and up to 70% off on housewares. Discounts of 50% can be had on some of their specially priced electronics.

Extras: “Early Bird” specials will run from 4AM to 1PM providing extra incentives on already discounted merchandise. Additionally, Kohl’s will offer $10 in “Kohl’s Cash” for every $50 spent.

Wal-Mart

Opening: 6:00AM on Thursday – In an effort to manage the crowds, many Wal-Mart retailers will open early on Thanksgiving and remain open 24 hours leading up to the deals starting at 5AM on Friday. Instead of waiting in the parking lot, shoppers will be able to enter the store and line up at in-store displays for the items they want.

Deals: Wal-Mart has been pretty tight lipped thus far about their Black Friday plans but it appears they’ll be offering deals on several smart phones with a two-year agreement including the AT&T Curve 8310 for free and the Bold 9000 for $78.88. HP notebooks for $298 also look to be on the list.

Extras: Like Best Buy, Wal-Mart has taken steps to manage the potential madness by opening Thursday instead of Friday. Given the negative publicity that came with a worker death last year, this should be a welcome change.

Home Depot

Opening: 6:00AM

Deals: Select power drills, nail guns and tool sets will be on sale for 50% off or more. Appliances like refrigerator/freezers and washer/dryer combos will be available for 30-50% off. Christmas trees and all the accessories will be on hand at deep discounts as well.

Extras: Don’t want to fight the crowds at the store? Try shopping Home Depot online and get free shipping on most orders over $49.

Toys ‘R Us

Opening: 12:00AM

Deals: You name it and it’ll probably be on sale. Bikes, video games and accessories, and electronics are all being marked down. You’ll find 50% off Razor scooters in addition to 50% or more off of selected VTECH, Little Tikes, Leapfrog, and Playskool merchandise.

Extras: You can get a $10 gift card with any purchase over $75. Plus, check out their “Biggest Big Book” for loads of deals that you can get before Black Friday.

Amazon.com

Opening: Monday, November 23rd – Amazon is replacing the Black Friday day with Black Friday WEEK. Starting Monday, you’ll find discounts on items like TVs, DVDs, Blu-Ray players and computers with deals continuing to be added throughout the week.

Deals: Amazon has been relatively silent about this year’s offerings but expect markdowns on everything from electronics to clothes to their trademark book selection. In fact, Amazon has already engaged Wal-Mart and Target in a price war by offering several new release titles for just $9.

Extras: Keep an eye out for the Gold Box where you’ll find discounts of up to 75% on specially marked items.

Sears

Opening: 4:00AM

Deals: In addition to digital cameras and GPS units, hot doorbuster deals this year consist of several specials on HDTVs including a Samsung 22-inch LCD TV for $249.99 and a Panasonic 42-inch plasma TV for $649.99.

Extras: Go online and enter the promo code “SEARS5OFF50″ to receive an additional $5 off a $50 purchase.

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

The IPO stock I bought today is Dollar General (DG), the discount retailer backed by Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts (KKR). With more than 8,700 chain stores mainly in the south and midwest,  DG is the largest retail store by the number of stores operated. Though items sold at DG are mainly priced around $1, the retailer is generating $10 billion in annual revenue with positive same-store growth for 20 straight years. Even in this tough economic environment, DG has increased its sales by 11% so far this year, according to IPOHome. Despite the growth potential, the stock, priced at $21 a share, is rather rich with its 26.9 price-to-earning ratio, higher than its competitors such as Family Dollar Stores and Dollar Tree. A Morningstar analyst said the stock is only worth $18 a share.

Anyway, I bought 83 shares of DG at $22.69 apiece at Scottrade.

Speaking of IPO stocks, my purchases so far are a mixed bag. On one hand, I got China Life (LFC) and Visa (V) on the day they were issued and they are doing very good. On the other hand, I also had Black Stone (BX) and Giant Interactive (GA) which are total disasters. Let’s see how DG will do.

Another stock I bought today is Boston Properties (BXP) through its direct stock purchase plan at ComputerShares. I have been looking at BXP for a long time, mainly for its dividend payout (currently at $2 a share), like other dividend-paying stocks I purchased through ComputerShares (except Bank of America which cut its dividend to 1 cent early this year after receiving massive bailout from the government). However, since BXP’s DSPP program requires $250 for each recurring purchase, I am not able to set up an automatic investing plan as I did with other stocks.

photo credit: Karen Apricot New Orleans

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

Anyway, my investments are not what I want to talk about here. It’s the platform that allows ordinary investors to buy stocks traded on exchanges outside the U.S. Until last week, the only broker that lets investors invest in international stocks directly is E*Trade as far as I know. But now, it has a competitor. On October 30th, Fidelity introduced its own international stock trading platform as the appetite for investing in foreign stocks grows. The move puts Fidelity in direct competition with E*Trade. So how are these two compared against each other? I took a quick look at Fidelity’s new platform and the following are what I found.

Eligibility

I opened my E*Trade Global Trading account without any eligibility issue. At that time, I didn’t have any account with E*Trade and there was nothing that prevented me from getting the account. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case with Fidelity, which requires to have a non-retirement account  that trades 120+ times per year and $25,000+ in assets, or
$1 million in household assets. Well, I have to say that the requirement is very high for a small investor like me. I may like Fidelity better than E*Trade, but I am not eligible to have Fidelity International Trading account for sure.

Foreign Markets

If you are eligible for trading with Fidelity International Trading, then you do have a wider selection of foreign markets offered through the platform. In addition to Canada, Hong Kong, France, Germany, Japan, and United Kingdom that are available at E*Trade, Fidelity also provides investors access to six more developed markets: Australia, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal.

Commissions

My biggest concern when trading stocks is how much a trade is going to cost me, whether it’s a domestic stock or a foreign equity. I am always looking for the cheapest brokers. However, there’s no such thing as cheap in foreign stock trading. It cost me a lot to buy ICBC and Alibab with E*Trade.  Here how much Fidelity and E*Trade charge to trade in a particular market:

So basically, E*Trade charges a lot more in commission than Fidelity does. However, if you are like me, who wants to buy foreign stocks but don’t like a lot of money to meet Fidelity’s requirement, then E*Trade is the only choice, despite the high cost.

Currencies

When I bought those two stocks through E*Trade two years ago, I had to convert my fund into Hong Kong dollars before I could use the money to purchase the shares because E*Trade requires all trades be conducted in local currencies. At Fidelity, it seems that things a little more flexible as you can settle your trades in both local currencies and U.S. dollars. But, there is a price on settling with U.S. dollars. According to Fidelity,

If you choose US dollars as the settlement currency for your international stock trade, a foreign currency exchange fee (in the form of a mark up or mark down) based on the size of the currency conversion will be charged when the foreign currency exchange executes.

So you still have to pay for converting local currencies into U.S. dollars, not that Fidelity will do it for you for free. Thus, Fidelity recommends that if you trade in a particular market very often, it’s better to exchange “a certain amount of currency to avoid currency exchange fees on each trade”.

Currencies Exchange Fees

Since you may need to convert your U.S. dollar into the local currency before making a trade with either E*Trade (required) or Fidelity (recommended), another cost of buying foreign stocks is the fee that you pay to make the conversion. I wasn’t able to find the exact mark-up at E*Trade, but last time it cost me $11 to convert $1,000 to Hong Kong dollars. At Fidelity, the more money you convert, the less fee it charges. For $100K or less, the fee is 1.0% of principal. So if I exchange $1,000 into Hong Kong dollars, pretty much the same as what E*Trade charges. However, I am not sure whether the fee is also proportional to principal at E*Trade as the information is not available.

Well, from what I have seen, even though it costs more to trade with E*Trade, but it is still an affordable choice if you want to invest in foreign stocks unless you have a lot of money to be eligible for Fidelity’s International Trading.

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

But this year’s isn’t the only tax bill you should be thinking about. The planning and choices you make now could have a significant impact on how much you can be sheltering from Uncle Sam next year. Some decisions should be part of a normal yearly financial assessment and some you will need to address in the next month or so before you miss the boat altogether.

Here are five questions that you should be focusing on right now for 2010.

1. How much should I be contributing to my flexible spending accounts?

Health care and dependent care flexible spending accounts are some of the best deals the government has going.

These plans allow you to set aside money to pay for qualifying expenses free from federal taxes. For someone who places the IRS limit of $5,000 per year into a dependent care flexible spending account, that could mean hundreds of dollars in tax savings. But be careful how much you commit. Any unused money left in the account at the end of year is forfeited.

Individuals are generally only able to sign up for the flexible spending account as part of their employer’s open enrollment period so if you don’t sign up for it now you’ll have to wait until next year.

2. Should I choose the regular or high deductible health plan at work?

This one requires you to do some forecasting of what your medical expenses will be. Unfortunately, that will always be more art than science.

People are enticed by the high deductible plan due to the lower monthly premium they’ll have to pay out of pocket. The drawback is that you’re on the hook for a higher deductible before insurance starts covering your expenses. One medical procedure or trip to the hospital and you could find yourself with some significant bills.

If you’re young, healthy, and don’t expect a need for health services in the next year, the high deductible plan may be a good way to keep a few extra dollars in your pocket.

This is another choice you’ll need to make before your employer’s open enrollment period ends.

3. How much can I contribute to my 401(k)?

In terms of retirement planning, the answer to the above question should always be “as much as possible”. The same answer also applies when it comes to tax planning.

Traditional 401(k)s have the added benefit of reducing your taxable income. The IRS sets an annual 401(k) contribution limit of $16,500 (and higher for those over 50) so someone in the 25% bracket could save over $4,000 on their taxes by maxing out their 401(k).

If the prospect of maxing out your 401(k) seems too much, try the incremental approach of raising your contribution by 1% every three months until you get there.

4. Do I have any losers among my investments?

In light of the recent recession, odds are you have some. When selling them, the losses can be used to offset any capital gains you’ve incurred during the year or some of your taxable income.

The sale needs to be made in the year you want to take the loss for tax purposes. Preparing a plan ahead of time can help put some of those losses right back in your pocket.

5. How much do I plan on donating to charities?

Making a donation to charity may be the easiest way to lower your tax burden.

If you itemize, the money you give will offset any taxable income you have. Donations could be in the form of cash, cars, stock or any of a number of other things that a charitable organization will accept.

Give a gift to charity and keep a gift for yourself in the form of a tax write-off. What better deal is there than that?

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

After long delays, I finally opened the account in July. The process is a little bit longer than other bank accounts, but not tricky. There are five steps in the opening process.

At first, you will need to select the type of account you want to open. EverBank offers a quite few banking and investing accounts for you to choose from, including Money Market account, Checking account, CD account, World Currency account and investing accounts. If the Money Market Account is what you want to have, select it from the list accounts available.

Once you selected the account, you will need to provide personal information in the next step. All the information are pretty standard, such as your name, address, email, employment, etc. However, EverBank does conduct a credit inquiry as part of the procedure to verify your identity. You will be asked to answer a few questions based on your credit history, which is retrieved from your credit report during the process.

Not every bank verifies a new customer’s identity through credit inquiry. In the case of EverBank, the credit inquiry is a hard inquiry as it will show up in your credit report, even though it will be different from those when you apply for a loan or credit card. As EverBank puts in their Q&A section:

What kind of inquiry does EverBank obtain and how will it affect my credit score?

EverBank obtains a credit inquiry for the purposes of opening an account. While such an inquiry will show on your credit report, it’s coded differently than an inquiry for a loan and would have less of an impact on your credit score.

So even though it is a hard pull, it won’t affect your credit score that much, if any. However, if you are concerned about the impact on your credit, you can stop the process right there.

After your identity is verified, you will proceed with your application by selecting how much you want to put in your account as initial deposit and how you would like to fund your account. To avoid monthly account maintenance charge ($8.95 a month), you will need at least to have $5,000 in your account, but the minimum balance required to open the account is $1,500.

There are several ways to fund the account, including ACH, which is the method I chose. If you also choose to ACH, you will need to provide your bank’s name, routing number, and account number. Before you can use ACH to transfer funds between your EverBank account and external accounts, EverBank again needs to verify your ownership of the account by making two small trial deposits into accounts to be linked to EverBank. That will take a couple of business days.

After you finished the online application, your account won’t be active until you send a printed form with your signature back to EverBank to complete the process. EverBank will send you an email once they receive the paperwork to let you know that the account is now active. That will take some time, depending on how fast they process your paperwork. For me, it took about a week, so it isn’t too bad.

Oh, one more thing. During the online application, you will not be able to set up access to your account. Rather, you will have to enroll in online banking after the online application is completed. To set up your online account access, you will need to provide your account number.

Well, this is the whole process of opening a savings account with EverBank. As I mentioned earlier, the process is a little bit longer than what other banks have and it asks you to mail the application back to the bank, plus a hard credit inquiry. If you think you EverBank is the bank you want to have, the bank is actually pretty good after going through the application process.

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

1. You deserve to have whatever you want, even if you can’t afford it

You work hard, don’t you? Okay, well, even if you don’t work hard what does it matter? We are here to enjoy ourselves and withholding cool toys, cars, gadgets and handbags from our lives is not enjoyable. You are an adult now and, as such, you make the rules for your life. There are no more parents making you do stupid things like eat healthy, go to work on time, or save money. Don’t let your budget become a surrogate parent — show it who’s boss and get what you want — whether you can afford it or not.

2. It’s fun to always get what you want immediately upon wanting it

If you want something, you should have it immediately, almost as if there is a genie in a bottle on your living room table just waiting to answer your call. If you think about it, waiting to get something until you have saved enough money is always very uncomfortable. There is no fun in the whole process because you spend all that waiting time NOT enjoying the cool new item. When you get everything you want immediately, your life is filled with fun experiences that you never have to earn and whose novelty NEVER runs out.

3. Working for things is boring and makes you feel used

Earning the things you want is for suckers. There is no reason why you should have to go out and earn money to buy the things you want—you should just put them on a credit card. This isn’t the third grade and you don’t need any gold stars to show what a good little worker you are. After all if you don’t pay the credit card bill, who cares? They’ll just charge it off or…something…

4. Stress over finances can’t be as unhealthy as everyone says it is

You’ve heard it all — ulcers, high blood pressure, insomnia, weight gain — sheesh, is there any medical illness that isn’t attributed to stress over finances? It can’t be all that bad. Look, millions of people live paycheck to paycheck each week and just skate by on what they are earning and they don’t all end up sick all the time…or at least…they don’t talk about it if they are. They don’t worry about boring stuff like emergencies, retirement and college savings — why should you?

5. You CAN have everything you want if you just rationalize it enough

There are about a million ways you can make yourself think you can afford something. You can tell yourself that you won’t go out to eat next month (even though you know it’s not true). You can tell yourself that this is the last splurge you’ll have until Christmas (even though you already plan on splurging again next week). You can tell yourself that your budget will be back on track in a couple more weeks, so this won’t be a big deal (even though you have been telling yourself for the past year or two but it never seems to actually get, “back on track”). Just tell yourself whatever you need to hear to make it okay and then spend!

photo credit: ladybugbkt

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

• Get a 1.60% Annual Percentage Yield on balances of $2,500 or more.
• Get a 10% bonus on your interest earned four times a year. Just open and use your Capital One credit card at least once a month or keep an average balance of $15,000 in your savings account each month to qualify.
• No Fees
• FDIC Insured

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

I got my free subscription of both the BusinessWeek and Forbs last time when the free offer was available early this year, so the deal is real. Now it’s alive again, so if you are interested, you can use this link to get the free magazine if you want to have it. All you need to do is taking a few minutes to finish a short survey about MP3 players.

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

Anyway, since I already have an account, I won’t be able to take advantage of this offer. But if you are interested in getting the free trades (valued at $295), here’s the information you need to open an account.

There are a total of nine steps to go through in the process. At first, you need to select the type of account you want to have, individual or joint account. Then you will need to create a profile by providing your email address and selecting a user name and password. You will use the user name and password to log into your trading account once it is established. The other information are pretty standard, such as employment and financial information.

After you agree the terms and conditions, you will need choose how to fund the account in the next step. OptionsHouse offers several options to make deposit to the account, by wire, ACH, check or ACAT account transfer (OptionsHouse can reimburse up to $100 account transfer fee). If you are not planning to transfer your account from another broker to OptionsHouse, then ACH may be a better choice. To set up ACH, you will need your bank’s routing number and your account number. And as you know, it takes some time to set up ACH transfer. OptionsHouse uses trial deposits to verify bank account ownership which takes a couple of business days.

The online application process is rather simple, but the application isn’t completed yet. Once you finish the online process, you can log into your account immediately. However, you will need to printout you finished application form and fax it to OptionsHouse before your account becomes active. If your account isn’t active, you won’t receive real-time streaming quotes (of course, your account also has to be funded).

Now that you know the whole process, are you ready to open an OptionsHouse account and get the 100 free trades?

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus

In the latest job report, the government said that the nation’s monthly unemployment rate reached 10.20%, the highest level in more than 26 years. For a long time, we have been warmed that the unemployment rate may reach double-digit, but it seems that it came a little earlier than expected.

Despite the huge amount of money the government has spent to pull the economy out of the deepest recession in 70 years, the job market is still very weak. In October, U.S. employers shed 190,000 non-farm positions. The number of jobs lost in a month is the lowest so far in 2009, but the number of unemployed person increased 558,000 in October, pushing the total number of people without a job to 15.7 million. Since the recession began in December 2007, more than 8.2 million workers have lost their jobs.

The economy may be recovering (GDP grew 3.5% in the third quarter), but we probably won’t feel any real improvement until we all have jobs.

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

Special bonus offers

• OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades
• Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus in November
• CollegeAdvantage $50 Bonus