I recently ran across a new online bank known as WT Direct. They’re apparently affiliated with Wilmington Trust FSB, and they’re offering 5.26% APY. There’s no minimum deposit required, and this rate is good on any balance for 60 days, after which you have to maintain a balance of $10,000 to get the high rate - otherwise it drops to 0.6%. Yikes! If you slip up and dip below the $10k threshold, you’ll certainly pay the price. On top of this, they have a less than stellar Bankrate Safe & Sound rating… [more]

FiveCentNickel participated in three carnivals this week. Here they are along with links to my articles that were included in each.

The Carnival of Personal Finance included “How to Make Money in the Stock Market.”

The Carnival of the Capitalists included “How to Make Money in the Stock Market (Revisited).”

The Best of Me Symphony included “How Movie Theaters Make Money.” Also included was “Nervous Tics in a Nine Year Old Boy” from raising4boys.com.

I was recently listening to Clark Howard when the subject of Capital One credit cards came up. As you may or may not know, Capital One only recently started reporting credit limits to the credit bureaus. Previously, they had been reporting the highest balance in place of the actual credit limit. [more]

Have you ever heard of “Longevity Insurance?” In short, longevity insurance is a relative new form of insurance that provides you with a guaranteed stream of income later in life, typically starting after you turn 85. To get longevity insurance, you have to make a substantial upfront payment 20 or so years earlier. [more]

In the comments to my post on how to make money in the stock market, Jonathan pointed out another post on the same topic, but with a different slant.

In short, The Finance Buff argued that the odds of missing the 10 best days over 20 years are so slim that stats such those that I presented in my original article (as well as in my followup) are meaningless. I’ll be the first to admit that my view is something of an oversimplification, but so is TFB’s contrary view. [more]

It’s fairly well know that if you’re not at least 59-1/2 years old, you can’t generally take a distribution from your traditional or Roth IRA (or SEP-IRA, for that matter) without incurring a 10% penalty (note that Roth IRA contributions can be withdrawn at any time, for any reason, without incurring a penalty). There are, however, a number of exceptions to this rule, and one of them has to do with buying a home. [more]

Here are some of my favorite FiveCentNickel (subscribe) posts from a year ago this week:

» Spending Money to Save Money
» Dish Network Customer Service STILL Sucks
» Summer Electric Bill Pain
» Termite Control: Sentricon vs. Termidor
» Marriage by the Numbers

And here’s what was going on two years ago:

» Sandwiches by the Loaf
» How to Sue Wal-Mart
» The Definition of Overpaid
» The Riskiest States for Identity Theft

Finally, this is what was happening over at Raising4Boys (subscribe) last year:

» Selling Babies on eBay
» It’s a Wonderful Life…
» First Day of School Jitters? Yeah, Right

Yesterday my wife and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. It’s hard to believe all the things we’ve experienced and how much our lives have changed in the past eleven years. Fortunately, pretty much all of these changes have been for the better. We now have four fantastic boys, our finances are on the rise, and the future is looking bright. Life is good. In case you’re curious, here’s a numerical look at our life up through last year. With that said, let’s take a look at some of the articles that caught my eye over the past week… [more]

As a followup to yesterday’s post on how to make money in the stock market, I thought I’d expand out the numbers and include the full dot com debacle rather than cutting off the analysis in 2001. Thus, I pulled the split-adjusted closing value of the S&P 5000 for every day from July 1, 1982 through June 29, 2007. This gives us a full 25 years of data ending at the close of the second quarter of this year. [more]

FiveCentNickel participated in three carnivals this week. Here they are along with links to my articles that were included in each.

The Carnival of the Capitalists included “Money and Happiness.”

The Carnival of Personal Finance included “It’s Okay to Spend Money.”

The Best of Me Symphony included “Eco-Friendly Energy Savings.” Also included was “A Private Matter (Beware: Bathroom Humor Ahead)” from raising4boys.com.