OptionsXpress $100 Bonus

We just learned that OptionsXpress is offering a $100 bonus for new accounts and wanted to pass the information along to you:

• 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
• Must execute 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.

You can check out the complete details at OptionsXpress.

#1 CPA Firm

You may not think that becoming a Certified Public Accountant is a small business startup idea, but the fact is there are many advantages to getting a professional license like the CPA. One of the biggest advantages being that your skill set is easily transferable to going back to work for "the man" if your start up accounting firm doesn't pan out as you had planned. If you love working with numbers, then working as a CPA can be both a rewarding and lucrative profession. If you can work out of your own home office to begin your firm, then the startup costs for a solo practitioner CPA are relatively low. There are literally hundreds of different CPA career options, so as the owner of your own CPA firm, you could choose to specialize in one of many niches.

#2 Web Design Firm

Anything Internet related is firmly positioned right smack dab in the middle of a large and growing market. If you are a very creative person with a knack for software like Photoshop, then starting a web design company might be a great option. The great thing about starting a web design company is that you need next to nothing to get started (just a computer and the right software) and you can work from anywhere.

#3 Dog Training School

Go to any dog training school and you will likely be surprised at the rates that they are able to charge. If you love dogs and maybe have always dreamed about being a veterinarian, then this could be an option that you might enjoy just as much without having to spend the time and money for veterinary school. Starting your dog training school could be something that you could start this month!

#4 Professional Writing Service

Maybe you have always loved to write but have never really given any serious thought to turning your writing skill into a money making business. It's typical for people to assume that the only way a writer will ever make any money is if they write a best selling book that gets published or they work for a newspaper or magazine. However, that is just not the case. You could start a writing service that caters specifically to different webmasters and online publishers that need high quality content written for their websites. This gives you the freedom to work from home or wherever you like as you get paid to do what you love: write. I can certainly see the value of this kind of service first hand as I work closely with a top notch professional writing service to assist me with my credit card website. If you love to write but have always wondered how to actually make money writing, then this could be a great business for you to consider starting.

#5 Home Security Consultancy

If you have a background in the military, police force, or the martial arts, then starting your own business as a home security consultant might be right up your alley. You could offer everything from home security system reviews to alarm installation to body guarding detail.

#6 Catering Business

Love to cook? Hate working for someone else? Don't have the capital to start your own restaurant? If some or all of these things apply to you then you may find that starting a catering company is perfectly suited for you. Yes, there will be long hard hours slaving away in a kitchen, but if cooking is what you love, then catering will allow you to control your own destiny without having to come up with the large amount of capital that opening your own restaurant would require.

#7 Home Inspection Service

Home inspection professionals get to travel around and snoop through peoples homes, charge prices in excess of $150/hour, and wear jeans to work every day all while having the power to point out what looks good and what looks bad about the home they are inspecting. It takes a skill set similar to a handyman or construction worker to be a successful home inspector, but while starting a handyman service or a construction firm are fairly commonplace, it seems that many people overlook the strong benefits to starting a home inspection service.

#8 Internet Marketing Company

Whether you decide to build your own websites and do Internet marketing in house, or whether you decide to take on small business clients and help them with their Internet marketing, one thing is for sure: Internet marketing is potentially very profitable. If you consider yourself an expert on SEO or PPC or social media or all of the above, then starting your own Internet marketing company could be a great choice for you to consider. Many small businesses are beginning to realize the importance of a strong small business Internet marketing plan so now could be an ideal time to take advantage of this growing opportunity.

#9 Limousine Service

Lease a couple of Town Cars and a limousine or two and you are ready to hit the road! Schmooze your way into a few corporate contracts picking up business people from the airport and then throw in some weekend work chauffeuring around party goers and you have yourself a client list!

#10 Outdoor Adventure Company

Families, church groups, and companies are all prime candidates to be interested in going on a wilderness adventure trip - with you as their guide! You can have the time of your life hiking, canoeing, kayaking, whitewater rafting, snorkeling, camping, and hunting all while at work!

#11 Web Publishing Company

You could choose a topic you love and start a blog to talk about that topic. You could scale your company up to include multiple websites and multiple blogs in different niches. Selling advertisements, creating a unique product or service to sell, and using affiliate programs are all different ways that your web publishing company could make money with your various web properties.

#12 In-Home Personal Training Service

Starting a company that offers in-home personal fitness training is a way to be a personal trainer and not have to rely on working for a gym or fitness club. You can keep all of your personal training fees without having to give a cut to a gym for using their facility and you can offer a desired service to people who prefer to train in the privacy of their own homes.

What other small business startup ideas do YOU have?

Author Bio: Joel is a CFP® and the owner of 4 small businesses. He runs an insurance agency that sells Florida individual health insurance as well as a number of different websites including a credit card website and a website for comparing auto insurance.

With all of the different ways to accumulate rewards points, it can be confusing to see what the actual benefit of signing up for either of these cards can be.  Assuming the scenario where a student has a 3.5 GPA for the year and pays all of his or her bills on time and spends $2,500 on their credit card, the following amount of rewards points can be accrued during the first year you are a card member.

Citi Student Forward Card / TOTAL POSSIBLE POINTS - 19,800

• 3,600 points to keep your account open, pay on time, and stay under your credit limit for the first three months
• 8,500 points to sign up for paperless statements and make at least 3 purchases totaling $250 in the first three months
• 1,200 points for paying on time and staying under your credit limit for all 12 months
• 5,000 points for spending $1,000 on dining, books, music and movies
• 1,500 points for spending $1,500 on other every day purchase

Citi mtvU Platinum Select Card / TOTAL POSSIBLE POINTS - 11,850

• 3,600 points to keep your account open, pay on time, and stay under your credit limit for the first three months
• 1,500 points for submitting your 3.5 GPA transcripts in each semester
• 250 points for paying on time and staying under your credit limit for all 12 months
• 5,000 points for spending $1,000 on dining, books, music and movies
• 1,500 points for spending $1,500 on other every day purchase

If you use the standard conversion of 100 rewards points being worth $1, you can earn $198 worth of rewards using your Forward Card and $118 using your mtvU card.  When you add that to the 0% APR you can earn on the first six months of either card AND the 0.25% APR reduction that is possible on the Citi Student Forward Card, both cards offer great rewards for the holidays.

You can check out both credit card offers at Citi by clicking here.

Fast forward to 2009, and I've found myself talking to small business owners (franchisees, home-based business owners, real estate agents, lawyers, and even charitable organizations) about how to promote their companies or organizations on the Internet. From these discussions one thing has become abundantly clear--they don't know how. And the problem is particularly acute for really small companies.

Without a large marketing budget, small companies can't afford to hire a firm to properly build an online presence. And they are too busy running their company to learn how to do it themselves. Most companies manage to put together a website, but find that it adds little value to their business. The "if you build it they will come" approach to a website just doesn't work. The result is often an attitude that the Internet is of little value to their business.

What a missed opportunity! Online marketing done right provides an extremely low cost yet powerful way to market a company. And that brings me to this case study on Internet marketing for small businesses. Marketing a business online is not difficult. It takes some known-how and elbow grease, but once you succeed, you'll wonder how your business ever survived without it.

Over the next several weeks we'll walk through how to market a company online. While these tutorials apply even to blogs and companies that exist solely online, the focus will be on small, local companies. To that end, we will be using a design/build firm in Northern Virginia as our case study. The firm is called the Fisher Group, and they designed and renovated our kitchen two years ago.

Apart from the fact that I know the Fisher Group and the quality of their work, I've selected a design/build firm for the case study for a couple of reasons. First, like most small companies, the Fisher Group is a local operation. Located in Northern Virginia, their work is limited in geographic scope, which is an important consideration when executing an Internet marketing program. Second, they already have an existing website that we can evaluate. And third, like many small companies that are brick and mortar operations, figuring out the benefit a website can bring to the company is not always obvious.

Here's what will cover over the next few weeks (and I'll add links to each tutorial here so this article will act like a table of contents):

• Defining the Right Goals for your Internet Marketing Campaign
• How to Evaluate Your Website (and your competitor's website)
• Keywords--The Lifeblood of Internet Marketing
• 10 Keys to Optimizing Your Website for Search Engines
• 10 Stupid Ways to Optimize Your Website for Search Engines
• 20 Ways to Get Noticed Online
• Free and Paid Tools to Help Supercharge Your Online Marketing Efforts
• Social Media for Small Business
• 10 Ways to Turn Visitors into Customers
• Conversion Testing (or how to turn dimes into dollars)

I may add to or modify this list as we go, but that should give you a good idea of where we are headed.

Finally, it's important to keep in mind that Internet marketing is about a lot more than just making money. It's really about how to promote something online, whether it is a for profit company or not. You may want to promote your church's website or the site of some other charitable organization. You may be a local politician wanting to promote your next campaign. Or you could be a school looking to promote a fundraiser. Whatever your specific company or organization does, Internet marketing is about two things:

1. Getting visitors to your site; and
2. Converting visitors to customers or clients or contributors.

And over the next several weeks, we'll look at just how to do that.

TradeKing Pricing

Probably the best thing feature TradeKing offers is a flat pricing structure.  Unlike other brokers like E*Trade and Scottrade, TradeKing does not charge an additional fee for phone or broker assisted trades.  Whether you're on the road calling in a trade or sitting at home clicking "execute', the cost is only $4.95.  There are no tier levels or minimums that need to be met, so don't expect to see hidden costs on your monthly statement for trades.  Options trading holds the same structure as each trade is $4.95 and every contract is an additional $0.65.  Again there are no tiers or extra costs associated with these prices, which makes them extremely attractive.  Brokers like E*Trade and TD Ameritrade can charge in excess of $50 for broker assisted help, so TradeKing is certainly a thriftier option.

TradeKing Award Winning Customer Service

TradeKing offers the standard allotment of contact options, having phone support and live chat support available from 8am to 6pm ET Monday-Friday and email support available 24/7.  TradeKing vows to reply to all emails during normal business hours within 120 minutes and within 24 hours on the weekend.  Having had to contact them a few times through email, I can tell you that they are always quick to respond.  In testing their live chat feature, I always had a representative within 60 seconds so it appears that all of the rewards for top-notch customer service are well deserved.

TradeKing Account Opening Process and Special Offers

Opening a TradeKing account is very easy.  After filling out a few short forms online your application is approved within a few minutes and that's it!  TradeKing does have a pretty cool feature in that your password must be typed in on their online keyboard.

One of the other attractive features that TradeKing offers is cash bonuses for opening up a new account or transferring an existing account their way.  Currently, if you open a TradeKing account before November 30th fund that account with at least $2,500 and make just 1 trade,  TradeKing will give you an additional $50.  If you are transferring an existing account, TradeKing will reimburse you up to $150 for the fees associated with the transfer.  Plus, if you know a lot of wanna-be investors, you can earn $50 for every friend you refer to them. Not to shabby.

TradeKing Community and Special Features

Something that amazes me every-time I visit TradeKing.com is that they have a leaderboard which shows how some of their best investors are doing.  The leaderboard lists the percentage increase that the user has experienced over a given time period as well as their last transaction.  Unfortunately it does not tell you whether they bought or sold the investment, only that they traded it.  Darn!

The TradeKing community is pretty large and informative.  In addition to a lot of tutorial videos that help both amateur and experienced traders, TradeKing offers expert advice via online blogs and forums, and they even list over 18,000 members user names and how active those users are in the community.

All in all, TradeKing continues to thrive even though they are still less than four years old in the online discount broker space.  With the low cost on trades, excellent customer service and allotment of free money for signing up now, it would be difficult to think of any reason why you shouldn't use TradeKing for your online investing needs.

To learn more about TradeKing or to open an account, visit the official TradeKing website.

0% Balance Transfer for 9 Months

In a world where credit card companies are scrambling to find new ways of cashing in on consumers, Citibank has decided to increase their intro offer on purchases and balance transfers from up to six months to up to nine months on their Platinum Select MasterCard.  While three months doesn't sound like much, if you are planning to move a big balance over, or make a large purchase, having three more months of interest free payments is quite the bonus.

It's strange to see Citibank move in this direction because they recently announced fees on their previously free checking accounts and are expected to cut a few other amenities while Congress speeds up the new Credit Card rules.  While the Citi Platinum Select MasterCard does not provide the 12 month interest free offer that the Discover American Flag or Chase Slate cards have, it's still nice to see Citibank work its way to the top.

Now it's time to put the turkey sandwich down and scroll through the top money articles of the past week.

10 Ways To Reduce Your Car Insurance Bill @ Financial Highway: If you are a good driver with no tickets or accidents, you should be able to find a carrier and coverage that will work with you to reduce your rate.

How I Very Unexpectedly Lost $60 In Less Than 3 Seconds @ Enemy of Debt: Impulse decisions usually cost more than they ever make ... be smart!

Results of the $100 Scratch Off Lottery Project! @ Budgets Are Sexy: As part of a donation effort, J Money decided to buy $100 worth of scratch offs and all the winnings would be given to charity.  The result - Perhaps he should have donated the full $100.

You Can Say Thank You With More Than Just Money @ Own The Dollar: Actions speak louder than words and most think that money speaks louder than both of them but that's not anywhere near the truth.

How To Score Big On Cyber Monday @ My Dollar Plan: Who cares about Black Friday?  Cyber Monday is where it's at!

What Money Smells Do You Need To Work On? @ Mighty Bargain Hunter: Why is it that whenever people have a lot of money in their hands, they smell it.  Does it smell differently than a single dollar bill?

Everyone Needs Some Blow @ Suburban Dollar: Of course it's not what you think but blow money still sounds intriguing.

5 Four-Letter Words You Should Be Using in Personal Finance @ Frugal Dad: If you're like me and have trouble weaving in and out of debt, then your four letter words may be different than mine. 

And here are some personal finance carnivals from the past week: Money Hacks Carnival: Thanksgiving Dinner Edition, Festival of Frugality – My Best Purchases’ Edition, Carnival Of Twenty Something Finances Turkey Edition, Carnival of Money Stories: Great Questions edition, and Carnival of Personal Finance #232 Thanksgiving Survival Edition.

I was reminded of these things recently, when a friend took a small cash advance from his credit card, and faced a whole lot of fees that he wasn’t aware of.

1. Higher APR
The cash advance APR for a credit card is usually much higher than the regular APR of the credit. For example, the Disney Visa Credit Card has a regular APR between 13.24% and 16.24%, but a cash advance APR of 19.24%.

2. Cash Advance Fee
Most credit cards will charge you a fee when you take a cash advance. For example, the Chase Sapphire credit card charges a transaction fee of 3% or $10, whichever is higher, when you take a cash advance. If you withdraw $100 as cash advance – you will get a net of $90 after taking into account the cash advance fee. The fee will either be charged up front, or when your balance is due (depending on the credit card terms).

3. Payment may be applied to a low APR balance first
Some credit cards apply your payments towards a lower balance APR first, before moving to a higher balance APR.

Let’s look at this with an example. Suppose you have a credit card that has an APR of 16.24% on regular purchases, and 19.24% on cash advances. You buy stuff worth $100 and take a cash advance of $100. You pay $100, when your balance becomes due. Some credit cards will use this money to apply towards the lower APR balance first. This means they will use the money to clear off the balance created with the regular purchases, so you will still have $100 outstanding from your cash advance, on which interest will be charged at a higher rate of 19.24%.

To avoid this situation, you should try and get a cash advance on that credit card, which has no or minimal other balances. With the new credit card regulation changes, credit card companies will not be able to practice this any longer. After the regulation changes, -- they will need to apply the payments pro – rata on all the balances. Until then, you need to keep this in mind and protect yourself from the extra fee.

4. Cash advances don’t have a grace period
Credit card companies usually don’t allow a grace period for cash advances. This means that interest starts piling up as soon as you take the cash advance. Most people are used to shopping on their credit cards, and then paying the bill, when their statement arrives. This is not good if you have taken a cash advance because interest keeps adding up every day you don’t pay off. The key here is not to wait for the balance to be due, and pay off whatever you can, as soon as you can.

The best option is to avoid cash advances, as the high fee truly makes it an option of last resort. But, sometimes despite our best intention, things become a bit tight, and we are forced to do things we don’t like. Next time you take a cash advance, keep these tips in mind, and minimize the fees you pay on such advances.

This article is a guest post written by Manshu from One Mint, an investment blog that covers topics ranging from Indian IPOs to U.S. ETFs, and everything in between. If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to his feed.

Rather than trying to make sense of the many banking options that she could have used, we started with a simple list of requirements that narrowed the field:

• On-campus ATMs so that she can get cash any time she needs it.
• No fees for ATM use.
• Debit card so she doesn't need lots of cash.
• Not a credit card, so she can't get in trouble with overspending.
• Online banking that allows me to access the account.
• Electronic fund transfer so I can send her money with little fuss.

Requiring an on-campus ATM narrowed the field quickly. I went to the college web site and found that only Bank of America was on campus, and a few others were "conveniently located."

Bank of America has what they call a CampusEdge Checking account that fit the bill. They even have a "Stuff Happens" one-time free refund, and she used that within the first month or two. She hardly ever uses the checks, but she uses the debit card all the time.

Last year, I set up the account to send me a text message with her balance every week. Each Friday morning, I would get the message, and when her account was under $200, I'd hop online and transfer a couple hundred more. (You know, I really should be Father of the Year). I didn't give her money every week, but it was a good reminder to talk to her about how she was managing things. I also transferred money so that she could buy her own airline tickets; I think it is good for her to know how to do that. The nice thing about the Bank of America site is that both of us can access the account online, but I am the only one who can transfer money from my personal account into her account. I set up the transfer, and when she logs in, she doesn't even see the link to my account.

This year, the weekly balance reminders are less important. She made good money in her summer job, so she'll be spending her own cash. Still, I'm keeping the text messages coming so that I can see what's happening. She did a budget this summer, and we negotiated what we will pay for and what she's responsible for. (Basically, she pays for everything except airline tickets home.)

The funny thing is that my wife and I really didn't think about preparing our daughter for this part of life. Although we waited until the last few months, we should have started earlier. I remember the day shortly after she got the debit card and she called me: "Dad, how do I use my card at the gas pump?" She'd seen me do it a thousand times, but I had never thought to explain it.

This article was written by Dave who is the brains behind Tekdig, a technology blog. You can subscribe to his blog by clicking here.

To give you an idea of what's available, I've put together this list of free and low cost online checking accounts. I'll be adding to the list as interesting offers become available. What I like about these options, however, are the diversity in what is offered. As you'll see below, for example, PerkStreet doesn't pay any interest, but offers a cash back debit card and $50 sign-up bonus. In contrast, Everbank pays one of the highest yields available for a checking account. Its rate is so high, it competes with rates for savings accounts and CDs.

So here's the list, and if you know of other good checking account options, be sure to leave a comment.

Online Checking Accounts

PerkStreet Financial: This online checking account gets high marks for innovation. PerkStreet offers a no fee checking account, including free checks. It takes only $25 to open an account, and after that, there are no minimum balance requirements. So long as you use your account, there are no monthly maintenance fees. PerkStreet offers a large network of surcharge-free ATMs, free online banking and bill pay, and customer service 24/7.

One of the most unique features PerkStreet offers is a debit card with 1% cash back. Cash back rewards are typically reserved for credit cards. PerkStreet's debit card is the only one we are aware of that offers cash back.

PerkStreet's only drawback is that it does not pay interest on the checking account. Depending on how much you keep in your checking account, this may or may not be important. PerkStreet does offer, however, a $50 cash bonus for new accounts. To get the $50 bonus, open an account with a $25 minimum deposit and keep the account active for three straight months. PerkStreet will deposit $50 into your account within 15 business days of the end of the third month.

For more information and to open an account online, visit PerkStreet Financial.

Everbank: If you are looking for a checking account that pays interest, Everbank is the answer. For the first three months, Everbank pays a bonus rate of 2.51%. For the first full year, including the bonus rate, the APY is 1.2% for checking accounts with balances below $10,000. That rate is higher than many savings or money market accounts. And the first year APY goes as high as 1.72% for balances of $50,000 or more.

Everbank's interest rate also has another nice feature--the Yield Pledge guarantee. Everbank pledges that its checking account will yield within the top 5% of competitive accounts.

ING Direct: Well known for its Orange accounts, ING Direct offers an online interest bearing checking account. While its yields aren't as high as Everbank (ING currently pays 0.25% APY for accounts under $50,000), it comes with an ATM MasterCard debit card, free ATM use and free bill pay. Having used an Orange savings account for years, I can personally attest to how easy it is to navigate around the ING Direct website.

Note that all of the online checking accounts listed above are FDIC insured.

Fun Fact: The Federal Government's current $12 trillion in debt will nearly double to $21 trillion over the next ten years, according to projections by the CBO. Of the $9 trillion increase, more than half will be to cover interest payments.

In response, Bob asked me what the average guy on the street can do about our runaway spending. I answered that basically there was nothing we can do. Sure, we can vote each November for the candidate we think is best. We can write to our representatives. We have freedom of speech. But beyond that, all we can do is watch politicians drive our great country into financial ruin.

You can listen to the full interview here:

After the interview, I began reflecting on this answer. While I haven't changed my fatalistic view, it did occur to me that there are steps we can and should take to protect our investments (and even profit) from the government's financial irresponsibility.

1. Foreign Investments: As the U.S. dollar falls relative to other currencies, investments that trade in these foreign currencies go up in U.S. dollar value. You could invest directly in foreign currencies through Forex, but investing in foreign stocks has several advantages for the average investor. Most 401(k) and other employer-sponsored retirement plans will have several good international stock funds. And investing in foreign stocks rather than currencies gives you broader exposure. Forex can be extremely volatile.

My current portfolio is about 20% foreign, which is too low for me. I'm slowly moving it toward the 30% mark, with 40% in U.S. stocks and the remainder in bonds.

2. TIPS: Treasury Inflation Protected Securities are government bonds with interest rates that are set, in part, based on inflation. The idea is that as inflation rises, so do the interest rates on the bonds. As a result, TIPS can protect an investor from the ill effects of inflation. I invest in TIPS through a Vanguard fund (VIPSX), but most all major mutual funds offer a TIPS fund. You can find great information about TIPS on the TreasuryDirect.gov website.

3. Real Estate: Despite all the excitement about real estate going up and the crashing down, in the long term it tends to rise in step with inflation. Because of the ease of financing, one can use leverage with real estate to super-charge return on investment. Of course, with the increase in ROI comes a healthy increase in risk. While I invest in and manage single family homes in the mid-west, there are other ways to invest in real estate.

One easy approach is to buy shares of REITs, or real estate investment trusts. Currently, I invest in two REIT funds, Fidelity International Real Estate (FIREX), and the Vanguard REIT Index (VGSIX).

4. Commodities: First, forget about gold. Yes the price is rising and it's the talk of the town. Last year it was oil. A few years earlier it was real estate. Before that it was technology. In the 1630s it was tulips. Next year it's anybody's guess. But a small portion of a portfolio can hedge against inflation and provide some additional diversity to your investments. A commodities fund or ETF that covers not just precious metals, but oil and other commodities should do the trick.

Of the four approaches above, it seems to me that a healthy dose of foreign investments is key. While the U.S. still has a remarkably robust economy in general, we must realize as investors that the U.S. is no longer the only game in town. President Obama's lack of influence over the Chinese government (and President Bush's lack of influence before that) should make this abundantly clear.