Upromise started off just for Sallie Mae Student Loan customers to reduce their loan amounts. The way it works is: if you ever shop online on sites such as eBay, Travelocity, OfficeDepot, etc., then you can earn a percentage of your purchases. By searching for a retailer you want to shop at through the Upromise site, and clicking on the link to redirect you to your retailer, you earn a percentage of each purchase into your Upromise account.
In the past, you were only able to deposit those funds against your student loans. However, now you may also receive a check or deposit it into your Sallie Mae Bank account. If you deposit it into the Sallie Mae bank account (currently earning 1.25% interest), you are also eligible to receive 10% of your Upromise earnings at the end of the year as a bonus.
There are many ways to earn money in your Upromise amount. In addition to earning a percentages of your purchases online, you may also earn extra Upromise cash by using a registered credit card at participating restaurants. You could also join e-Rewards and redeem the money you earn by filling out surveys for Upromise cash. Many companies also award a dollar amount for joining or trying their services. For example, ServiceMagic pays $4 for getting a quote for any services you may need around the house.
Therefore, Upromise is a great deal. If you shop online anyway, you should sign up and get your friends and relatives to sign up and add you as the beneficiary.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Retirement
How much should you save for retirement?
IRA maximum is $5,000 per year until you are 50 years old. Is that enough or too much? The 401(k) limit until age 50 is $14,500. You can find out what amount you need to save by using some calculators online. There are a variety out there that will tell you what you need to save per year or what you need in total to attain your goal.
Here are some of my favorite ones:
AARP Calculator - Tells you what percentage of your income you should contribute to retire by a certain age. Also tells you the age you will retire if you keep contributing the percentage that you are currently contributing
FINRA Calculator - Shows you a schedule of exactly how much you should contribute each year. Every year, the contribution grows so that you are not overwhelmed by a large amount from the start.
CNN Money Calculator - Tells you the likelihood that you will attain your goal for retirement with a percentage. For example, "We believe there is an 80% chance, you will attain your retirement goal."
Also, you might find it helpful to see how much social security you will be getting in the future by plugging in your social security number and other info on the official SS website: Social Security Online Services. You have to have enough working credits to get the personal estimates at this website, which means that you have to have 10 years of working experience.
If you can't get your personal estimates through the website, you can estimate your future social security through the Social Security Online Services - Quick Calculator.
IRA maximum is $5,000 per year until you are 50 years old. Is that enough or too much? The 401(k) limit until age 50 is $14,500. You can find out what amount you need to save by using some calculators online. There are a variety out there that will tell you what you need to save per year or what you need in total to attain your goal.
Here are some of my favorite ones:
AARP Calculator - Tells you what percentage of your income you should contribute to retire by a certain age. Also tells you the age you will retire if you keep contributing the percentage that you are currently contributing
FINRA Calculator - Shows you a schedule of exactly how much you should contribute each year. Every year, the contribution grows so that you are not overwhelmed by a large amount from the start.
CNN Money Calculator - Tells you the likelihood that you will attain your goal for retirement with a percentage. For example, "We believe there is an 80% chance, you will attain your retirement goal."
Also, you might find it helpful to see how much social security you will be getting in the future by plugging in your social security number and other info on the official SS website: Social Security Online Services. You have to have enough working credits to get the personal estimates at this website, which means that you have to have 10 years of working experience.
If you can't get your personal estimates through the website, you can estimate your future social security through the Social Security Online Services - Quick Calculator.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Renting vs. Buying
Before even considering if you should be a home owner, you should have a 20% down payment to minimize the risk of foreclosure and to avoid paying the mortgage insurance. You also should have a full funded (whatever that means for you) emergency fund since home emergencies can come up regularly. Some even advise that you should build a separate home emergency fund valued at 1-3% of the purchase price.
Once you have both of those criteria, it is smart to see if you should purchase a piece of property for yourself. The NY Times "Is It Better to Buy or Rent?" Calculator is great for determining just that. Have you considered association fees, insurance, taxes, maintenance, and closing costs? The property costs more than just the price tag. Do you know how long you are going to stay in that property? The break even point can come 10 years after the purchase. If that is the case for your situation, are you prepared to wait that long before your investment pays off?
Having lived several years in CA, I always thought that buying is better than renting, however, now that I live in Miami (a renter's market), I can see that there is no way I could afford a house in the area that I am renting and break even, even after 30 years. Therefore, landlords seem unavoidable in my foreseeable future.
Once you have both of those criteria, it is smart to see if you should purchase a piece of property for yourself. The NY Times "Is It Better to Buy or Rent?" Calculator is great for determining just that. Have you considered association fees, insurance, taxes, maintenance, and closing costs? The property costs more than just the price tag. Do you know how long you are going to stay in that property? The break even point can come 10 years after the purchase. If that is the case for your situation, are you prepared to wait that long before your investment pays off?
Having lived several years in CA, I always thought that buying is better than renting, however, now that I live in Miami (a renter's market), I can see that there is no way I could afford a house in the area that I am renting and break even, even after 30 years. Therefore, landlords seem unavoidable in my foreseeable future.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Budgets
How to Build One and How to Stick to One
As discussed in my Cash Flow Blog Post, you could use Mint.com to set up your budget as it automatically tracks the amounts you spend in each category for you. However, another important part of building a budget is seeing if you are spending too much in one category or another.
Gail Vaz-Oxlade's Budget Worksheet will help you see if you are overspending in one area or another. Go to the site and at the bottom of the page, there is an option to download it as Excel as well. She says that housing should be 35%, which I believe is a little high. I think around 30% is more reasonable. Also, there is only room for 10% savings and I think that 15% is better. She is Canadian and they have a better retirement plan, therefore, their savings do not have to be as high. I think if you cut back 5% from the housing and add it to the savings, you'll be doing great if you are able to spend within that budget. Transfer whatever numbers you come up with to the Mint.com budget, which will help you stick to it, and you'll be set!
Always remember that the more you can save the better. If you are earning $30K after taxes, for example, you are only saving $4.5K if you are saving 15%. This means that you are not even maxing out your Roth IRA, which you should. This also does not allow any room for saving for emergencies, a down-payment, grad school, or a vacation. Therefore, always remember that the more you can save, the better you will be off in the future.
As discussed in my Cash Flow Blog Post, you could use Mint.com to set up your budget as it automatically tracks the amounts you spend in each category for you. However, another important part of building a budget is seeing if you are spending too much in one category or another.
Gail Vaz-Oxlade's Budget Worksheet will help you see if you are overspending in one area or another. Go to the site and at the bottom of the page, there is an option to download it as Excel as well. She says that housing should be 35%, which I believe is a little high. I think around 30% is more reasonable. Also, there is only room for 10% savings and I think that 15% is better. She is Canadian and they have a better retirement plan, therefore, their savings do not have to be as high. I think if you cut back 5% from the housing and add it to the savings, you'll be doing great if you are able to spend within that budget. Transfer whatever numbers you come up with to the Mint.com budget, which will help you stick to it, and you'll be set!
Always remember that the more you can save the better. If you are earning $30K after taxes, for example, you are only saving $4.5K if you are saving 15%. This means that you are not even maxing out your Roth IRA, which you should. This also does not allow any room for saving for emergencies, a down-payment, grad school, or a vacation. Therefore, always remember that the more you can save, the better you will be off in the future.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Credit Report and Score
Your must know your credit score if you are going to apply for any credit as your interest rate depends on it. Your credit report is what determines your credit score. Therefore, you should look at your credit report regularly to spot any inaccuracies. The best place to check your credit report is from the free website Annual Credit Report where you can check three credit reports from the three different companies: Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian. I suggest looking at one report every 4 months so that you can check your free credit report 3 times a year.
As for the credit score, most companies charge even when they say the credit score is free. Or, they charge if you don't cancel their service, which some people forget. Therefore, there are two great truly free credit score websites available: Credit Karma and Quizzle. My Credit Karma score has always matched one of my scores that I have purchased from MyFico.com exactly. Quizzle has always been around 80 points lower than the average of my three scores, which have always been only a few points away from each other or equal. However, you can get a rough idea of where you are by getting both of these free scores.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Mutual Funds
I am starting a Roth IRA this year partly because I'd like a nice retirement, but also partly due to the available IRS Retirement Credit.
Since I am new to investing, I'm going to start with mutual funds. I strongly believe in the freedom to buy and sell if I needed to without considering the commission, therefore, I am choosing NTF or no load funds only. You do not pay a commission to buy or sell these funds.
However, after signing up for the Roth IRA on ShareBuilder (where I already have a brokerage account due to a $50 incentive), I was a little lost about choosing the actual mutual funds. I looked at Standard & Poor's, The Street, MorningStar, etc. ShareBuilder advised I look at Lipper's detailed ratings. Choosing from 200 NTF funds from various fund families was no easy task until I bumped into US News Mutual Funds website.
The website easily compares MorningStar, Zack's, Lipper's, Standard & Poor's, and The Street ratings. Also, there is a lot information on each fund including the history of the returns, management, MaxFunds.com scores, etc. Searching for each stock (and remembering to select the right stock from the family in the drop down menu) left me with only 3 funds that I feel are rated the highest by all. I also wanted a semi-consistent return of at least 5%.
I'm not sure about all the details that the websites base their scores on, yet I feel that if several popular websites recommend a fund, it must be doing well. There is no way that even an experienced financial adviser can know everything about the management, the return, the risk, the average return, etc of each of the 200 funds I was considering. Therefore, now I need to choose 2 from IDROX (Real Estate should go up soon, the inconsistent return history is due to the inconsistent real estate market), ACMVX (I wanted to invest in the Republic Services stock, but finding it as the top stock in a highly ranked fund is even better), and PTTDX (great looking fund with mortgage backed securities).
Update: Went with ACMVX and IDROX. PTTDX is government based and invest a lot in low paying US Treasury Bonds as well as Fannie Mae, just didn't feel right.
Since I am new to investing, I'm going to start with mutual funds. I strongly believe in the freedom to buy and sell if I needed to without considering the commission, therefore, I am choosing NTF or no load funds only. You do not pay a commission to buy or sell these funds.
However, after signing up for the Roth IRA on ShareBuilder (where I already have a brokerage account due to a $50 incentive), I was a little lost about choosing the actual mutual funds. I looked at Standard & Poor's, The Street, MorningStar, etc. ShareBuilder advised I look at Lipper's detailed ratings. Choosing from 200 NTF funds from various fund families was no easy task until I bumped into US News Mutual Funds website.
The website easily compares MorningStar, Zack's, Lipper's, Standard & Poor's, and The Street ratings. Also, there is a lot information on each fund including the history of the returns, management, MaxFunds.com scores, etc. Searching for each stock (and remembering to select the right stock from the family in the drop down menu) left me with only 3 funds that I feel are rated the highest by all. I also wanted a semi-consistent return of at least 5%.
I'm not sure about all the details that the websites base their scores on, yet I feel that if several popular websites recommend a fund, it must be doing well. There is no way that even an experienced financial adviser can know everything about the management, the return, the risk, the average return, etc of each of the 200 funds I was considering. Therefore, now I need to choose 2 from IDROX (Real Estate should go up soon, the inconsistent return history is due to the inconsistent real estate market), ACMVX (I wanted to invest in the Republic Services stock, but finding it as the top stock in a highly ranked fund is even better), and PTTDX (great looking fund with mortgage backed securities).
Update: Went with ACMVX and IDROX. PTTDX is government based and invest a lot in low paying US Treasury Bonds as well as Fannie Mae, just didn't feel right.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Missing Money - Unclaimed Property
Did you know that if a company ever owed you money and could not find you, they could have placed the money into the unclaimed funds. To check to see if you any unclaimed funds, you could check two great sites:
Unclaimed
Missing Money
Please remember that the reason the company could not find you was because you moved, so look for all states that you have previously held an address at. Check your friends and relatives. Every time I have checked, I have always found money for friends, unfortunately never for myself though.
You could also check out your favorite celebrity for fun to see their previous addresses or who owes them money.
Unclaimed
Missing Money
Please remember that the reason the company could not find you was because you moved, so look for all states that you have previously held an address at. Check your friends and relatives. Every time I have checked, I have always found money for friends, unfortunately never for myself though.
You could also check out your favorite celebrity for fun to see their previous addresses or who owes them money.
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