Archive for June 2011

Lending Club Update – May 2011 Performance

Written by Nickel - 20 Comments

I finally got around to updating Quicken over the weekend, so I thought I’d put together another update of Lending Club investment performance, this time covering through the end of May. I neglected to note my net annualized return (NAR) at the end of the month, but it was in the mid-8% range. According to [...]

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Published on June 20th, 2011
Modified on June 29th, 2011 - 20 Comments
Filed under: Saving & Investing
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Capital One is Buying ING Direct

Written by Nickel - 7 Comments

Remember when I reported a rumor that Ally Financial (parent company of Ally Bank) was interested in buying ING Direct? Well, that rumor turned out to be wrong. Instead, it was recently revealed that Capital One will be acquiring ING Direct for a reported $9B – with $6.2B in cash, and $2.8B in stock.
This move [...]

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Published on June 20th, 2011 - 7 Comments
Filed under: Banking
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Intuit to Update Quicken 2007 to Run on Mac OS X Lion?

Written by Nickel - 7 Comments

Here’s an interesting little nugget of information related to the Quicken 2007/Mac OS X Lion debacle. In case you missed it, Apple has decided to drop Rosetta from their next major update of OS X (10.7; dubbed “Lion”). This means that software that hasn’t been updated to run on the Intel chip architecture won’t run [...]

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Published on June 17th, 2011
Modified on June 19th, 2011 - 7 Comments
Filed under: Miscellany
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Get a $300+ Bonus from the Citi Premier Card

Written by Nickel - 6 Comments

Around a month ago, I wrote about a generous $500+ bonus offering from the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card. Today I wanted to share another big bonus, this time from the Citi ThankYou Premier Card. It’s a pretty simple deal… Apply for the card and use it to spend $2k within three months and you’ll get [...]

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Published on June 17th, 2011
Modified on March 28th, 2012 - 6 Comments
Filed under: Credit Cards
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Rage Against the Marketing Machine

Written by Jeffrey Steele - 10 Comments

One of the brilliant innovations of the last couple decades, I think, is the drive-thru pharmacy. Ponder the concept a minute and you’ll likely agree.
With the advent of TV prescription drug advertising, most Americans dutifully began turning their homes into mini apothecaries. But about the same time, studies started showing many ills requiring medications could [...]

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Published on June 16th, 2011
Modified on June 20th, 2011 - 10 Comments
Filed under: Consumer, Frugality, Retirement
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Does Early Retirement Make You Live Longer? (Updated)

Written by Nickel - 24 Comments

Over the weekend, I ran across a fascinating study that suggests that retiring early can significantly increase your lifespan. This work was based on an analysis of longevity data from former Boeing Aerospace, and it concluded that “for every year one works beyond age 55, one loses 2 years of life span on average.”
Here are [...]

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Published on June 15th, 2011
Modified on June 23rd, 2011 - 24 Comments
Filed under: Retirement, Working
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Considering a Small Business Credit Card?

Written by Guest Contributor - One Comment

This is a guest post from Lisa White.

As a small business owner, I’ve debated whether a dedicated credit card for my company is the way to go.
Today, money is a lot harder to come by. Loans are more difficult to acquire and take longer to finalize. When used responsibly, company credit cards can provide small [...]

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Published on June 14th, 2011
Modified on February 1st, 2012 - One Comment
Filed under: Credit Cards, Self Employment
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The Very Best Travel Savings Tip

Written by Nickel - 2 Comments

Last week, Ed shared eight tips for saving money on vacation, and this morning I shared another eight travel saving tips. With those excellent tips as backdrop, I wanted to share with you the mother of all travel saving tips:

For those that can’t (or don’t want to) check out the video, it’s a humorous piece [...]

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Published on June 13th, 2011 - 2 Comments
Filed under: Frugality, Travel
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More Tips for Saving Money on Vacation Travel

Written by Nickel - 3 Comments

As a quick followup to Ed’s recent post about how to save money on vacation, I wanted to point out an article from Fiscal Fizzle that lists even more ways to save on vacation.

Research ahead of time for low-cost things to do
Consider the cost of travel when selecting destinations
Use cash for your spending money
Book a [...]

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Published on June 13th, 2011
Modified on June 20th, 2011 - 3 Comments
Filed under: Frugality, Travel
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Citi Credit Cards Hacked: What It Means for Cardholders

Written by Nickel - 3 Comments

In case you haven’t heard, Citigroup got hacked, and the hackers made off with approximately 200,000 credit card numbers, cardholder names, and e-mail addresses. That’s the bad news. The good news is that they were unable to access Social Security numbers, birth dates, card security codes, or card expirations dates.
The other bit of good news [...]

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Published on June 10th, 2011
Modified on June 12th, 2011 - 3 Comments
Filed under: Credit Cards
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