This infographic (picture in miniature below) is absolutely huge, and it comes with a giant list of sources. In it, Munroe works his way through a series of monetary visualizations at multiple levels. He starts out with dollars, then zooms out to thousands, millions, billions, and trillions.

He tackles both mundane, everyday issues (the cost of a cup of coffee, the annual cost of pet ownership, etc.) and scales up to bigger picture issues, like a comparison of how household net worth values has changed over the past 25 years, a visualization of household income by quintile (and even finer divisons), presidential fundraising, charitable giving, corporate revenue, federal spending, the derivatives markets, and more.

(click image to enlarge)

He even includes interesting tidbits like the cost to buy the world a Coke ($2.24B), the cost to teach the world to sing ($840B), the cost to fund Wikipedia for 100 years ($1.85B), and the total economic output of the human race so far (a little less than $2.4 quadrillion, with roughly 60% of that since 1980).

The entire infographic spans 12,528 x 8352 pixels, so be prepared for some scrolling.

If you take the time to dig through it, please come back and post the most interesting tidbits that you found.

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How safe are your passwords? If you bank online, the only thing standing between you and a financial disaster is your password (and perhaps your username). And yet many people do an astonishingly bad job of selecting secure passwords.

A big part of the problem is that secure passwords are hard to remember. When combined with the fact that most of us have dozens of online accounts (if not more), it’s tempting to just an easy to remember phrase and use that. Over and over. But that’s exactly the wrong approach.

So what makes for a secure password? For starters, it should be relatively long. All else being equal, longer passwords are harder to crack. It should also be complex, using as many different character types as possible. And it should be a random as possible, avoiding common words, names, etc.

Oh, and you should also use a different password at every site.

In general terms, you should shoot for 12-14 characters, assuming the system will allow it. Some systems don’t allow long passwords like this, which is unfortunate, so you’ll just have to do the best you can. But, all else being equal, longer passwords are harder to crack.

As far as character selection goes, the more character types you include, the more complex your password can be, and the harder it will be to crack. If you stick to numbers, you only have ten characters to choose from. Add in letters and you have 26 (case-insensitive) or 52 (case-sensitive) more options. Throw in special characters (punctuation marks) and you add yet another dimension.

You will, of course, have to stick to what is allowed, but most modern systems now allow numbers, letters, and special characters. Of course, some seemingly security-conscious websites (*cough* TreasuryDirect *cough*) use case-insensitive passwords when case-sensitivity would offer a good bit more security. But, oh well… There’s only so much you can do.

Randomness. Ah yes, randomness. In general terms, you should avoid using dictionary words, names, birthdates, etc. That being said, you can use dictionary words as long as you string them together in a random combination. But you’re probably better off using a long, completely random, and complex password. So long as you can remember it, of course.

And there’s the rub. It’s hard to remember a long, complex password — much less remember a different one for every site. That’s why I recommend using an encrypted password keeper such as 1Password, LastPass, or KeePass.

I personally use 1Password — no affiliation, I just love it. I also use the iPhone app so I have my passwords with me (but secure) at all times. Yes, you still have to remember a password, but just one.

And finally… Why should you use a different password at every site? Simple. Because if one account gets compromised, you don’t want people to be able to hit your other accounts.

Consider the case of Gawker Media. Gawker owns popular websites like Gizmodo and Lifehacker, and their password database was compromised about a year ago. And in that one event, tons of passwords (and their associated usernames) were dumped into public view.

Imagine if you had been using the same username and password for Gawker Media sites as you use for your online bank, credit card account, etc. You’d be facing a potential disaster.

Well, guess what? It’s not that uncommon for sites to get hacked and for username/password databases to get stolen and cracked. If that happens, your account may be compromised, but as long as you’re using different login credentials at different sites, the damage will be limited.

As an interesting aside, an analysis of the Gawker password database revealed an amazing lack of creativity, with shockingly frequent usage of such cryptographic masterpieces as 123456, password, 12345678, qwerty, abc123, 111111, monkey, 12345, letmein, and so on.

Note: To be completely honest, I’ve been known to use the same (relatively) easy to remember password at a number of non-critical sites around the web. But I never use this password (or the associated username) for any “mission critical” accounts.

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Last summer I mentioned that ING Direct was about to roll out the ability for customers to deposit checks electronically. Unfortunately, that still hasn’t happened. Yes, their website still says that “depositing check is about to get a whole lot easier,” but I’m not holding my breath.

Perhaps they ran into technical difficulties, or perhaps the takeover by Capital One has delayed things indefinitely. Who knows? But what I do know is this… Another major player in the online banking space — Ally Bank — has added the ability to deposit checks remotely.

The new feature is called “Ally eCheck Deposit,” and it involves scanning an uploading your check from the comfort of your home. You can either use their scanning wizard, or you can scan it on your own and upload the image manually. Apparently your deposit will be processed on the next business day, so it’s way faster (and easier) than mailing in a check.

Funds availability is governed by their standard deposit agreement, which states that:

For all other checks drawn on any U.S. financial institution other than Ally Bank, state or local government checks that are payable to you, Cashier’s, Certified, Teller’s or traveler’s cheques that are payable to you, and Federal Reserve Bank checks, Federal Home Loan Bank checks, and postal money orders, if these items are payable to you, $100 is available on the first business day after the day of your deposit and the remaining funds on the second business day after the day of your deposit.

Though longer delays may be applicable if, for example, you deposit checks totaling more than $5k in a single day or you have a history of overdrafts.

I haven’t tried this myself, but it looks reasonably efficient. It would be nice if you could just snap a pic with a smartphone and tap the screen to upload, but still… This beats the heck out of mailing a check or driving across town to a brick and mortar bank.

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Do you like to shop online? If so, do you make a point of clicking through from an online “cash back mall” first? If you do, you’re saving a few extra percentage points. If not, you’re leaving some money on the table.

Not sure what I’m talking about? Well, there are a number of services out there that offer a bounty for shopping at an e-tailer after first clicking through from their own site. Here’s how it works (more or less)…

What’s a cash back mall?

Many online retailers have affiliate marketing programs, through which they pay other websites for bringing them business. These payments are typically in the form of a small percentage of the total purchase price — often in the 3-5% range. Over the past decade, as online shopping has grown, some savvy entrepreneurs have built businesses around referring customers and then passing on a slice of the savings.

Some of the best known businesses in this are include Upromise, FatWallet, and E-bates. In all cases, you’ll need an account (which is free) so they can track and pay out your cash back earnings. Once you have an account, simply click through from their cash back mall before shopping.

Which one is the best?

Let’s assume that you’ve decided to do this, but you’re not sure which site to use. If you’re anything like me, you value simplicity, so you don’t want multiple accounts. Rather, you want the best overall account. So let’s see what each has to offer.

For starters, Upromise has “over 600 stores,” FatWallet has just over 1,000 stores, and E-bates has around 1400 stores. While all three offer most of the same big names, there are some differences. For example, you can get cash back at Target through E-bates (3%) and Upromise (2%), but FatWallet doesn’t offer Target.

Next, what about earnings? Well, there are some differences here, but nothing completely consistent. For example, you can get 2% cash back on Walmart.com purchases with FatWallet and E-bates, compared to 1% from Upromise. At Kohl’s, it’s 4% from E-bates, 3% from Upromise, and 2% from FatWallet. For Sears, it’s FatWallet at 4% and both Upromise and E-bates at 2%.

Finally, what about convenience? One thing that Upromise has going for it is that it links up to your existing Upromise account (if you have one). And yes, you can withdraw your money from Upromise rather than directing it into a 529 plan, but that’s an extra hoop to jump through. For their part, FatWallet offers payment via PayPal whereas E-bates will pay either by check or PayPal.

Bonus offer: E-bates is currently offering a $10 gift card to Barnes & Noble, Target, Home Depot, or Magazines.com just for signing up and completing your first purchase ($25 minimum).

Pro tip: If you pay with a cash back credit card, you can stack the savings. For example, if you use a 1% cash back credit card on a FatWallet purchase with 3% cash back, you’ll get a combined total of 4% cash back. And if you use a Chase Freedom card at Kohl’s, you’ll get 5% + 5% cash back from Chase plus 2-4% from the cash back mall.

What about you? Do you use an online cash back mall? If so, which one? Why did you choose the one you use over the alternatives? And how much have you saved?

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While paying my bills recently online through my bank, I had a sudden flash of concern. How safe was my transaction? Was I at risk of identity theft or, even worse, the pilfering of my accounts?

Although experts say online banking is safer than the traditional method of using paper statements, it turns out that my worry is not completely unfounded.

Although there are currently no reliable studies showing how much money is lost through online banking alone, there are a number of reports that have put this problem at the forefront.

Incredibly, about $3.2 billion was lost to phishing attacks in 2007, which affected 3.6 million people that year, according to a survey by Gartner, a technology research firm. Reports indicate that this is a growing problem.

The Sinowal Trojan, a virus that injects legitimate-looking pages on your browser, then steals your login credentials, compromised 300,000 online bank accounts and 250,000 credit and debit card accounts over three years, according to a study published in October by California’s RSA FraudAction Research Lab.

With the use of online banking on the rise, and the service heavily promoted by most financial institutions, this issue most likely will become even more widespread.

So how can those of us who use online banking safeguard ourselves?

Although there is no silver bullet, there are ways to bank smart online that can help minimize your risk of fraud.

Protecting your online banking info

The first rule of thumb is to confirm that the online banking site is legitimate. An easy way to do this is to log onto the site directly, not through a third party or unsolicited email. Otherwise, it’s easy to be duped by copycat websites that have been designed to capture your information.

When deciding on passwords and PINs, the more complex, the better. Never use the obvious, such as names or birth dates. The most secure passwords use a combination of letters and numbers (and special characters, if allowed). Change your passwords and PINs often, and vary your credentials from account to account.

Also, keep passwords and account information in a secure place, and don’t share them under any circumstances. This includes providing this information during unsolicited phone calls or in emails.

You should also familiarize yourself with your bank’s privacy policy, which will detail what information the bank has about you and what it shares with other companies. And be sure to confirm that your deposits are federally insured by the FDIC. The ‘About Us’ section on most bank websites will typically provide this information.

It’s best if your information is encrypted when being sent between your computer and your online bank (and back). Look for the lock or key icon in your web browser to be sure that your data is secure.

Don’t use a public computer, such as those located in hotels or cybercafés, to access your accounts, and be wary of using public or unsecured wifi networks. Otherwise, it will be relatively easy for fraudsters to steal your data.

Finally, any computer used for banking should have a virus protection program and firewall that are updated regularly, and be sure to perform virus scans daily. Warning signs that your computer has been compromised include slow or sluggish response times, frozen screens, and/or an inordinate number of unsolicited pop-ups.

Closing thoughts

Given that it’s nearly impossible to completely secure a computer, the more safeguards that you implement, the better off you will be.

By being proactive, keeping a close eye on account balances and transactions, and instituting safer online banking procedures, you will minimize your risk of theft.

It’s important never to let your guard down, especially when banking online.

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As a followup to the recent news that Capital One is buying ING Direct, which was met with mixed reactions, I thought I’d share some positive news about ING Direct…

According to a series of Twitter exchanges, remote deposit of scanned checks is on the way. For example, back in December when they were asked if remote deposit was on the way, they replied:

Mailing checks is sooo 90’s – Don’t worry, remote deposit is on the way. It’ll be a dream come true.

And in March, when they were asked if it was still “on the way,” they replied:

You bet, but still no ETA. We’re forecasting nothing but smooth sailing once released.

And finally… Earlier this month, when asked again about remote deposit, they hinted that it might be available by the 4th of July:

Let us ease the pain… you’ll be seeing some easier ways to deposit checks before you’re declaring your independence.

As far as I’m concerned, this is great news… I’d love to be able to snap a photo of a check – or at least run it through my scanner – and deposit from afar. As things stand, PayPal is currently the only financial institution that I deal with that allows for remote deposit.

Source: @INGDIRECT via The Happy Rock

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Over the weekend I checked in on our Upromise account. In case you’re not familiar with Upromise, it’s a free service that allows you to earn money toward college by shopping online, buying groceries, dining out, etc.

Here’s how it works:

First, you need to create an account. From there, you have a variety of options. The easiest things to do are to register your grocery and drugstore loyalty cards as well as your credit cards so that they can credit your account when you buy eligible products, meals, or services from their partners.

You can also initiate online purchases by clicking through from their “online mall” and receive anywhere from 1-25% of your purchase in cash back, or book travel through their partners (including Priceline, Expedia, etc.) and receive up to 4% cash back. Note that these rewards are in addition to any credit card rewards that you might otherwise earn.

Another option would be to sign up for the Upromise-branded credit card, which pays 1% cash back. You can also complete a number of other “high ticket” actions like requesting life insurance quotes, applying for a home loan, etc. If you do so, you’ll receive a bounty for each.

In general terms, the intended endgame is for you to link your account to a Upromise 529 account and have your earnings deposited straight into it. You can, however, withdraw your funds directly if that’s what you prefer.

The primary downside of using Upromise is that you’re giving up a slice of your privacy. That being said, their privacy policy clearly states that they don’t share any personally-identifying with their partners. They do, however, use the information to improve ad targeting, etc. Pretty harmless stuff, and really no worse than what credit card companies and grocery/drug stores are already doing with this information.

Honestly, I’ve been a pretty lightweight user of Upromise, having just registered our loyalty cards and credit cards, and then just going on with my daily business as if nothing is happening. Nonetheless, I’ve earned a couple hundred dollars since first signing, and could have done better if I had been a bit more diligent about updating our credit card info when we switched cards, and so forth.

In the end, this isn’t going to be a major contributor to our kids’ college educations, but hey… It’s free money, so why not take advantage of it?

Are you using Upromise?

Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section.

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When it comes to planning for your financial future, inflation is a huge issue. In fact, given the historic annual inflation rate of 3.75% a million dollars today will be worth just over $190k in 50 years. Moreover, using that historic rate along with the rule of 72, we can further conclude that prices will double every 19.2 years.

CPI vs. the true cost of living

Of course, it’s also been argued that the true cost of living is increasing faster than the official inflation rate. One problem is that gas and groceries are omitted from the so-called “core inflation rate,” meaning that when food and fuel prices spike, this particular inflation indicator might not budge. For this and other reasons, it has been argued that official inflation estimates understate the true situation.

The motivations for underestimating inflation are obvious. Because numerous governmental programs, as well as estimates of “real” economic growth are indexed to inflation, the federal government can (at least in theory) save money and paint a rosier economic picture by understating inflation. I’m not going to wander of into the weeds and debate whether or not this is happening. Rather, I’m just pointing out the potential benefits of inflation manipulation.

Note: Just to clear up any confusion, inflation-indexed government programs typically use the CPI-U, which does include food and fuel prices. The point here was just that, for a variety of reasons, the various inflation estimated have been criticized as inaccurate, with a tendency to understate the real situation.

If inflation were to be understated, however, this would be a huge deal from an investor’s perspective. After all, if you think that inflation is running at X% and it’s really running at Y% (where Y > X), then you’re likely to fall well short of your goals – at least in real terms. The reason for this is that, even though your portfolio may be growing, the value of each dollar is shrinking faster than you expected.

Estimating inflation in the real world

With that as a backdrop, I wanted to point out an interesting website that I ran across this past weekend. It’s called The Billion Prices Project (BPP). The BPP is an academic project based at MIT which seeks to use prices collected at hundreds of online retailers to estimate a daily price index.

As of now, they are still well short of covering all of the goods and services that go into the CPI. If you click through and look at the graph, you’ll see that there is a rough correlation between the BPP index and the CPI. Since late 2009, however, it appears that the BPP index has been running ahead of the CPI.

Given the differences in what the two indices cover, it’s difficult to say if this difference is real, but this is (to me at least) a fascinating project with a lot of potential. It would be great if they can tweak the BPP to the point that it converges on the CPI. It would be especially nice to see a real-world calculation that includes the cost of fuel.

While fuel prices aren’t easy to come by online, and thus aren’t part of the BPP index, it seems like they could partner with a crowd-sourced database such as Fuelly (which I’ve written about before) to get real-time estimates of fuel prices from throughout the country.

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As for using Serve, you can move money into your account from a bank account, debit card, or credit card, and money can also be transferred between Serve accounts. You can use your Serve account to send/receive money amongst friends, pay bills, make online purchases, etc. You will also receive a re-loadable, pre-paid card that is linked to your account for offline use at any merchant or ATM that accepts American Express cards.

There are apparently no fees for transactions between Serve users, but there are some other fees that you’ll want to know about. For starters, there’s a 2.9% + $0.30 fee to load your account with a credit, though that discounted to 0% for cash, debit, and ACH transactions. There is also a $2.00 fee for ATM cash withdrawals. Note that all fees are waived for the first six months*.

*Note: It has not escaped my attention that you might be able to use Serve to generate credit card rewards and/or break through cash back tiers, at least until the fees for funding your account with a credit card kick in.

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In general terms, these sites offer a series of time-limited deals on an ongoing basis. If you provide them with your e-mail address, they’ll send a different offer to you every day. There’s usually a minimum required buy-in before the deal goes live, but as long as enough people sign up for it, you’ll get something like a 50% discount at a restaurant, spa, store, etc.

While these services can be a great money saving tool, they can also be a huge drain on your budget. For example, I recently ran across a “$10 for $20 worth of food” offer for a local restaurant. This is a restaurant that we’ve been to on a couple of occasions and, while it was okay, it was nothing to write home about.

Honestly, I’d probably choose a sandwich on the couch over going back, but… As soon as that offer hit my inbox, I was sorely tempted. After all, they were offering me 50% OFF. That’s $10 worth of “free” food – who can turn that down???

Of course, if you don’t really want/need it, then it’s not a good deal at any price. Nonetheless, my brain was temporarily blinded by that huge percentage off. In the end, cooler heads prevailed and I simply deleted the offer – but I came close to wasting ten bucks on a deal that I didn’t really want.

This isn’t to say that all of the offers are a bad idea. For starters, there was the deal at the running store that I mentioned above. Another winner was “$10 for $20 worth of food” at a restaurant that we do frequent. And yet another was the “$10 for $20 at Barnes & Noble” deal that I used to pick up some books for my son’s birthday.

Other gotchas are that the deals are often time-limited, such that your “$X for $Y” worth of products or services often falls back to being worth just $X if you don’t use it by a certain date. And you also need to be on the lookout for price gouging. For example, FTD and Groupon wound up with egg on their faces when it was revealed that FTD charged Groupon customers higher “regular” prices than non-Groupon customers.

The bottom line for me is that, while there are some great deals to be had, you really need to be disciplined and think twice before pulling the trigger on these sorts of deals. Yes, you can save a ton of money but, if you’re not careful, you’ll end up draining your savings account on a bunch of stuff that you neither want nor need.

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As a followup to my recent posts about protecting your passwords and securing your financial documents, I just wanted to share some tips for increasing your DropBox storage space without spending a dime…

As a reminder, DropBox is an online file storage and synchronization service. Whatever you put in your DropBox (basically just a folder on your hard drive) gets mirrored to their servers, and then propagates back down to whatever other computers or devices (like an iPhone) that you have hooked to your account.

There is also a web interface so you can access your files from anywhere, whether or not that particular computer is connected to your account. You can also share certain folders within your DropBox with other users, so it’s very handy for file sharing and collaborative work. Oh, and your data is encrypted while on their servers.

Free DropBox accounts come with 2GB of storage, though you can pay to upgrade to as much as 100GB. Once you sign up, you can look in your account for a referral link that you can share with friends to get an extra 256MB for yourself (plus 256MB for them). You can refer a maximum of 32 friends for a total of 8GB of bonus space, bringing your potential total up to 10GB of free space.

If you have access to a “dot edu” (.edu) e-mail account, the referral deal is even better… You can still refer a maximum of 32 friends, but your bonus doubles to 512MB per user, for a total of 16GB of bonus space. That brings your potential total up to 18GB of free space.

Of course, the referral program is limited by your ability to get people to sign up, and it’s not particularly easy to get 32 friends or family members to sign up, but every little bit helps. The good news it that, even if you don’t refer anyone, you can get 128MB of free bonus space for completing each of the following tasks:

• Connect your Twitter account with DropBox
• Connect your FaceBook account with DropBox
• Send a Tweet about DropBox
• Follow @Dropbox on Twitter
• Tell DropBox why you love their service

These things only take a few minutes to do and, if you’re not comfortable with the Twitter or Facebook integration, rumor has it that you can simply revoke the privileges (and/or delete your Tweet) after receiving your bonus.

So… To sum up, you start out with 2GB of space, and can get bring that up close to 3GB by completing a few social networking tasks. On top of that you can get up to 8GB or 16GB through the referral program.

To validate your .edu for better referral bonuses, click here, and to complete the social networking tasks for free space click here.

That’s it. Have fun!

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Last week, I wrote about protecting your passwords and other sensitive financial data, like account numbers. Today I want to go a step further and talk about protecting electronic documents – tax returns, Quicken files, bank or brokerage statements, etc. – that you may be storing on your computer.

Going paperless

I’ve been gradually transitioning over to a paperless financial system. A big part of this transition has involved scanning in various financial documents for future reference. This has worked well, and has greatly reduced the stacks of paper that used to accumulate around the house.

But what about securing and backing up the resulting files? What would if my hard drive crashed? Or worse, if someone stole my computer? Clearly, I need to take additional steps to protect my data.

As far as backups go, I’m currently using an online backup service known as Backblaze. That’s been great for creating a comprehensive backup of everything on my hard drive, and serves as a good baseline of protection – but it doesn’t secure my data locally.

Note: While Evernote seems like it would be an ideal solution for storing and accessing your data, they don’t offer server-side encryption of your file attachments. There’s also not an option for encrypting your local copies once you put them in Evernote.

Securing your files

For security, I’ve recently discovered TrueCrypt, which allows you to create a password-protected, “virtual encrypted disk” where you can stash stuff that you don’t want anyone to access.

And just to round things out…

Try storing your TrueCrypt archive in your DropBox. In case you missed it the last time I mentioned it, DropBox is an online file storage and synchronization service that allows you to share an entire folder (and its contents) across multiple computers, your smartphone, etc.

By placing your TrueCrypt archive in your DropBox folder, you’re making it accessible from any computer you’ve hooked up to your account while still keeping your data secure. So, for example, my wife can immediately access an files that I put in there from her computer. Very slick.

Oh, and a quick tip… If your archives take too long to synchronize, try splitting them up into multiple, smaller archives. For example, one for taxes, one for financial statements, and so on. By doing this, there will be less data to transfer when you make a change.

Hat tip to Mike Piper for getting my wheels turning by bringing this up on Twitter, and then testing it out on his own setup.

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This is a guest post from Tom Becker, a personal finance writer who specializes in detailed reviews of business bank accounts at Money Choices.

It seems that each decade brings new and innovative ways to manage your money. In the 1990s, you could use simple PC-based software to track basic income and expenses. These later evolved into reporting and analyzing powerhouses. In the 2000s, connectivity with the internet made PC-based software easy to synchronize with bank and investment websites and provided access to detailed account information right at home.

With the arrival of the 2010s, the next phase is to manage the information that already resides out on the internet, through web-based software that will provide data security, keep the records protected against loss, and allow the user access their information from virtually anywhere. Here’s a list of ten of the best web-based solutions for managing your money.

10. ClearCheckbook

Emphasis: Balancing your checkbook
Price: FREE!
Description: ClearCheckbook provides analysis tools for evaluating and tracking your expenditures. Your bank data is imported and you can then analyze expenses by category and closely monitor your balance to avoid overdrafts. Uncleared and cleared balances are provided with alerts that can be set to any dollar amount.

9. Billeo

Emphasis: Online shopping assistant
Price: FREE!
Description: Billeo is an easy-to-use toolbar application that tracks and records all online passwords, fill out forms, and stores the receipts by date, company, or category for easy retrieval. You can also use Billeo to manage your bill payments, or even to track online offers to maximize the savings realized online.

8. MorningStar

Emphasis: Virtual portfolio tracking
Price: $18.95/month (or free)
Description: MorningStar offers a bunch of excellent premium content to paid subscribers. They also have a great portfolio tracker tool for the investor who sits at a computer all day. Quick glances at your portfolio will alert you to buying and selling opportunities.

Note from Nickel: Google Finance also offers a nice portfolio tracker, and it’s also free. I’m also not a fan of tracking my portfolio on a minute-by-minute basis, but… To each their own. Personally, I use the Vanguard portfolio tracker for a “big picture” view of our investments.

7. Buxfer

Emphasis: Tracking shared expenses
Price: FREE!
Description: Buxfer is great for people who share expenses with roommates. Instead of guessing at fair portions of bills and tracking things in your head, the software does the math and tracks who has paid for each of their expenses.

6. HelloWallet

Emphasis: Online financial management
Price: $8.95/month
Description: HelloWallet is a unique service in that, for every five users who sign up, an account is offered to a person who cannot afford this service. The site offers all the money management functionality necessary to manage and budget and monitor financial investments.

5. Mvelopes

Emphasis: Virtual envelope budgeting
Price: $129.60/year (equivalent to $10.80/month)
Description: Mvelopes is a virtual envelope-budgeting tool. When the bills must be paid, the dollar amount in each envelope is applied to the bill electronically. In other, budgeting and bill payment are combined into one handy tool. You can also track discretionary spending in a dedicated envelope.

4. Thrive

Emphasis: Achieve financial goals
Price: FREE!
Description: Thrive provides detailed information to bring spending in line with goals. You set your own goals and the software tracks your actual expenditures against the goals in each category and sends alerts for any anomalies. Thrive can also provides guidance for things like raising your credit score.

3. Moneystrands

Emphasis: Manage cash flow and avoid surprises
Price: FREE!
Description: Moneystrands allows you to create a budget from the ground up, and then it monitors your performance. Alerts are provided automatically when the bank balance drops below a certain level. When bills must be paid, the user is alerted to the tasks that must be completed. They also have an iPhone app.

2. GreenSherpa

Emphasis: Customizable financial dashboard
Price: FREE!
Description: GreenSherpa allows your to pull together all of your personal financial accounts in one place. With an easy-to-view dashboard that analyzes all the information from various sources, you can see a snapshot of your overall financial picture with just a glance.

1. Mint

Emphasis: Complete financial management
Price: FREE!
Description: Mint can track virtually any financial activity. You can create a budget, track monthly expenses, evaluate investment performance, etc. This is by far the most well-known of all the web-based software packages. It’s so good, in fact, that Intuit bought it as a replacement for their own “Quicken Online.”

Do you track your finances online?

Even with the horror stories of website breaches and identity theft, my view is that the benefits of online personal financial management software far outweigh the risks. These services all work hard to protect your information, and some even allow anonymous signups. If you’re not already managing your money online, my advice is to test out a few of these sites and see if they meet your needs.

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While tracking my wife’s flight today, I discovered that Google Chrome is sponsoring free wi-fi on AirTran, Delta, and Virgin America domestic flights from November 20th, 2010 through January 2nd, 2011.

To access the free connection, simply enable wi-fi on your device, select the “gogoinflight” network, and launch your web browser. You’ll be redirected to the GoGo web site where you just have to click the “Start Browsing the Web” button.

While this promo is sponsored by Google Chrome, it looks like you can participate with any browser. That being said, I coincidentally made the switch to Chrome about two weeks ago, and I love it.

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Over the weekend, I ran across a fascinating – and somewhat disturbing – account of a new approach to e-commerce. You can read the full article from the NY Times. I’ll just summarize it briefly here, and then talk a bit about what you can do to protect yourself from this sort of thing.

The backstory

This past summer, a woman named Clarabelle Rodriguez ordered some glasses online from a website called DecorMyEyes, which she found by searching Google for the brand name she was looking for. She also ordered some contacts. This is where it gets strange.

The day after ordering, she received a phone call from the company saying that they were out of the contacts she wanted, and that she would need to choose another brand. When she declined and asked for a refund, he got rude and obnoxious, essentially trying to bully her into another brand.

Two days later, her glasses arrived, but they were counterfeit. On top of that, she discovered that she had been billed for $125 more than the total she was presented with at checkout.

When she threatened to dispute the charge with her credit card issuer, things got nasty. The proprietor of DecorMyEyes started threatening, harassing, and stalking her in an attempt to get her to drop her claim.

She went to the police, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), her cell phone carrier (to block the harassing calls), his web host (to get his site taken down), and so on, but nobody was willing to help.

No such thing as bad publicity

In case you’re unaware, there are a number of consumer protection websites out there where consumers can post about their experiences. One such website is full of negative reports about DecorMyEyes, and guess what? The owner of DecorMyEyes couldn’t be happier.

Here’s the text of one of his posts on that same site:

“Hello, My name is Stanley with DecorMyEyes.com. I just wanted to let you guys know that the more replies you people post, the more business and the more hits and sales I get. My goal is NEGATIVE advertisement.”

Yes, you read that right. His goal is negative advertisement. The reason for this is that Google drives the majority of traffic on the web, and they rank sites based on the number and quality of inbound links.

Consumer protection sites such as GetSatisfaction are well-respected in Google’s eyes, so links from there carry a lot of weight. And when people complain about the company on their own websites, they’re just adding to the diversity of links. All of these things push DecorMyEyes higher in the search engines, meaning that more and more unsuspecting consumers will be sent their way.

Sure, if you search for the company name, you will see all sort of nasty reviews, but if you search for a certain brand of glasses, you’ll frequently find DecorMyEyes ranked very highly in the Google search results with nary a bad word about them.

In other words, in a world dominated by internet search engines, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

How to protect yourself

While it’s true that you can often get great deals by shopping online, you have to be careful. Fortunately, it’s not all that hard to protect yourself.

One line of defense would be to stick only with known quantities. For example, only buy from companies like Amazon, who are well known and sell just about everything under the sun – and if they don’t sell it themselves, someone in their marketplace likely does.

The good thing about vendors like Amazon is that they run a tight ship, so even if you’re dealing with a marketplace vendor, Amazon has your back. The downside is that you can often find better prices from lesser known vendors.

If you’re intent on finding the best possible deal and are willing to deal with relatively unknown sites, then the easiest thing you can do to protect yourself is to simply run a Google search for the name of the company and look through the results. You might also consider searching for <company-name scam>, as that will turn up even more of the negative results that are out there.

If you see a ton of negativity, look elsewhere. The internet gives you a ton of options, so there’s no need to roll the dice with a company that has a questionable reputation, no matter how good their price looks.

Finally, if you do have a negative experience with a company, don’t be afraid to write about it online. Just be careful not to link back to the site in question, or you’ll be doing them a favor. See my old post about SimplyBunkBeds.com for an example. And also note that, while I mentioned DecorMyEyes repeatedly in this article, I never once linked to them.

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This sort of remote deposit has been around for awhile, though it’s been limited to a relatively small number of banks and credit unions. With this latest development, however, you have the ability to do remote deposit whether or not your bank supports it.

The key is that you have to have a PayPal account to do this, but… With over 87 million people using PayPal, chances are good that you already do. Once you’ve linked your PayPal account to a bank account, then it’s a simple (albeit somewhat slow) two-step to deposit your check and then transfer it to your bank.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Launch the app, login, and tap “Add Money From Checks.”

Step 2: Tap the “Continue” button to dismiss the welcome screen.

Step 3: Take a picture of the front of your check*.

Step 4: Take a picture of the back of your check*.

Step 5: Enter the amount of the check.

Step 6: Patiently wait… Up to six business days.

That’s it. It’s a very simple process, though it’s a bit disappointing that the check approval process takes so long. I’m not sure why it’s so slow, but I suspect it has to do with PayPal just being the middle man. In other words, they presumably need to work through their own bank to get the check cleared.

When you add the time required to transfer the money from PayPal to your bank, you may be looking at close to two weeks to get the money from your phone to your bank. Not great, but there are still times that I can envision using it – e.g., to deposit a check when I’m on the road and don’t have access to the bank.

Of course, once our bank adds remote deposit functionality to their iPhone app, I’ll probably never deposit another check into my PayPal account. But until then, it’s a potentially handy alternative to have.

*Note: The actual pictures are much clearer than this. These are just screenshots from my phone, and are thus a bit blurry.

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» ING Direct Now Offering Paper Checks
» PayPal Buyer’s Complaint Resolved
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Not surprisingly, we do virtually all of our travel planning online. What follows is a rundown of our favorite travel sites, and a few words about how we use them and we like them.

Kayak/Sidestep

My first stop when planning a vacation is often Kayak. I’ve lumped it together here with Sidestep because they’ve historically offered very similar services, but Kayak ultimately bought Sidestep.

Kayak has by far the best interface of any travel site that I’ve used in recent years, and they also have a very hand iPhone app. You can easily search prices at all major airlines (except Southwest) using Kayak, and they’re live-updating results make it easy to quickly find the best deals.

To be honest, I usually end up booking through the airline website itself (habit, I guess), but Kayak allows me to quickly identify which airline(s) I should be searching.

Bing Travel

This is a relatively new entry on the list, but I’ve recently started checking Bing Travel before booking flights. Why? Because they have a great fare forecasting tool that tells you whether you should buy now or wait.

While no tool can make perfect predictions, my experience has been that Bing does a good job of tracking price trends and letting you know if now is a good time to buy. They also include a confidence rating to give you an idea of how much weight you should give their prediction.

As a quick example, we’re considering a trip to visit family for the holidays, but the prices are a bit too high for our tastes. As for Bing’s view, they’re saying that we should wait, as they’re 84% confident that fares will drop or hold steady over the next week.

SeatGuru

I’m tall, so choosing the right seat on an airplane can mean the difference between a reasonably enjoyable trip and hours of discomfort. Enter SeatGuru. They have seating charts for all major plane types on all major carriers, along with comments about the comfort level and amenities associated with each seat type.

If you’re concerned about comfort, I highly recommend checking with them before choosing the seats for your next flight.

TripAdvisor

If you’re traveling to a new area and want to get the lay of the land, you need to bookmark TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor is an online travel guide that is filled with tons of great user-generated reviews.

While they offer a number of services, TripAdvisor is particularly useful for identifying the best hotel for your needs as well as for finding good restaurants. Like Kayak, TripAdvisor has a handy iPhone app so you can easily check everything on the go (if you have an iPhone).

Hotwire & Priceline

I’ve lumped these two together because I usually use them in tandem. For those that are unaware, both Hotwire and Priceline fall into the category of “opaque” discount travel sites. If you’re willing to forego knowledge of certain details, you can get a great deal by using them.

In short, you retain control of the dates, times, and locations of your travel itinerary, you don’t find out the name of the hotel, airline, or car rental agency until after you accept a price and make the purchase. Purchases are pre-paid and non-refundable, but you can save 30-60%.

The key difference between the two sites is that Hotwire operates on a fixed price model, whereas Priceline allows you to “name your own price.” Of course, there’s no guarantee that they’ll accept it, but it’s worth a shot.

I’ve mostly used these sites for car rentals, though you can get great deals on airfares and hotels, as well. For cars, I start by checking Hotwire. I then take that price, subtract 15-20% and then submit a bid over on Priceline. If they accept, great. If not, I either wait 24 hours and re-bid, or I go back to Hotwire and purchase the rental.

VRBO.com

If you’re looking for a vacation rental, I’ve yet to find a better resource than VRBO.com. VRBO stands for Vacation Rentals By Owner, and it’s a great resource for finding independently owned vacation homes and condos.

If anything, VRBO can be a bit overwhelming because of the sheer number of options out there. Nonetheless, you can find some great deals if you’re willing to put in a bit of time. This past summer, we used it to book a vacation in St. Augustine Beach, Florida and we couldn’t have been happier with the place we found.

What are your favorites?

Now that I’ve shared my favorite travel sites, I’m interested in hearing about yours. Which sites do you rely on for making travel plans, and why do you like them?

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In short, I love this service. Yes, I could wait until I have at least $25 worth of items to order, and then be patient as my items slowly work their way across the country, but with Prime I don’t have to. Amazon Prime also lets me ship last minute gifts directly to the recipients

Of course, this convenience comes at a price… Amazon Prime costs $79/year, but guess what? It’s now available for free to students or just about anyone else if you’re willing to jump through a hoop or two.

Free Amazon Prime for students

For starters, if you’re a student, you can get a free year of Amazon Prime by signing up through this link. While you have to be prepared to show proof of enrollment upon request, it appears that the primary means of validating your eligibility is a valid .edu e-mail address.

If you’re not a student, but you have a valid .edu address, use this at your own risk. If you are asked to provide documentation, and you fail to do so, you may have to reimburse Amazon for the benefits you’ve received.

Free Amazon Prime for parents

The other major promo that Amazon is running right now is free Amazon Prime for parents. To get started, you have to join the Amazon Mom program, though you don’t technically have to be a mom to sign up.

Amazon Mom is a free membership program aimed at helping parents and caregivers, from the prenatal days through the toddler years, use Amazon to find all the products their family needs. To join, simply sign into your Amazon account and tell us whether you are a Mom, Dad, or other caregiver of a child…

Despite the name, Amazon Mom is open to anyone who is responsible for caring for a baby or young child – “Amazon Primary Caregiver” just didn’t have the same ring to it.

With Amazon Mom, you’ll start out with three months of free Amazon Prime. From there, you can extend it by spending money in the Amazon baby store. For every $25 you spend within a single order, you get an additional month. You can earn up to an additional year from when you signed up.

In addition to the above, Amazon Mom members get discounts on baby products, such as 30% off select diapers and wipes. Whether or not this is a good deal likely depends on brand preference – I haven’t investigated because our kids have been out of diapers for several years now.

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A brief history of remote deposit

USAA Bank become the first major bank to offer remote deposit to consumers when they rolled out their Deposit@Home service back in 2009. More recently, a growing number of institutions have begun offering similar services.

Remote deposit was actually first made possible by the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (Check 21 Act), which made digital images of checks legally acceptable for payment purposes.

While the Check 21 Act was primarily intended to keep American commerce rolling in the event that a catastrophe of some sort made long distance transport impossible, it also opened the door to the scanning and uploading of checks.

Banks and credit unions that accept scanned checks

While there are tons of banks and credit unions that offer remote deposit for commercial customers using specialized hardware, many fewer banks offer this service to consumers using standard scanners or cell phone cameras.

What follows is a list of banks and credit unions that definitely offer consumer-level remote deposit. Alongside each entry is an indication as to whether each institution supports desktop scans, Android photos, and/or iPhone photos of your checks.

• Addison Avenue Credit Union (scans)
• Alliant Credit Union (scans)
• Boeing Employees Credit Union (scans)
• Chase Bank (iPhone)
• Digital Federal Credit Union (scans/Android/iPhone)
• Everbank (scans)
• First Command Bank (scans)
• First Internet Bank of Indiana (scans)
• The Golden 1 Credit Union (scans)
• Hanscom Federal Credit Union (scans)
• NASA Federal Credit Union (scans)
• PenFed Credit Union (scans)
• Penn State Employees Credit Union (scans)
• Randolph Brooks Federal Credit Union (scans)
• Sharon Credit Union (scans)
• Service Credit Union (scans)
• Summit Bank (scans)
• Texas Security Bank (scans)
• USAA Bank (scans/Android/iPhone)
• Vystar Credit Union (scans)
• WV United Federal Credit Union (iPhone)

(Source: Paperless Office Wiki)

If you know of any other banks or credit unions that should be included on this list, please leave a comment with the pertinent details.

The future of check scanning

As for the future, US Bank will soon be rolling out their own consumer remote deposit service known as Deposit Express, and other major banks can’t be far behind. While I’m looking forward to Bank of America launching their own service, that’ll be just the tip of the iceberg.

Just think… When you combine ATM fee waivers with online check deposits at banks like ING Direct, most consumers will have very little need for a brick and mortar bank. It’ll be interesting to see how old school banks respond as more and more of their customers flee online.

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As has been the case for years, the “hub” of our online banking system is ING Direct, so today I wanted to share the steps for linking additional accounts to ING. They actually offer two different ways of establishing links: online or via regular mail.

Before we get started, note that ING limits you to three linked accounts, so choose wisely. The good news is that you can remove accounts and establish new links at any time, so your decisions are reversible.

Adding a linked account online

Probably the easiest way to link a new account is to do so online. Here are the steps:

1. Sign in to your account
2. Click on “My Links“
3. Click on “Add Link“
4. Look for two small test deposits in the linked account (takes 2-4 days)
5. Return to “My Links” page, select “Unconfirmed,” and enter the amounts

This entire process takes just a few minutes, though you have to wait a few days in the middle. It’s also worth noting that this approach allows you to link a savings account (at least in theory), whereas the mail-in approach outline below is specific to checking accounts.

Adding a linked account by mail

Alternatively, you can link a new account by sending them a personal check from that account. The check must pre-printed with your name and address, payable to yourself, and made out for at least $1.00. Write your customer number and the word “Link” on the memo line of the check and sign it (but do not endorse it).

Mail your personal check to:

ING Direct
P.O. Box 60
St. Cloud, MN 56302-0060

Assuming that you add an account by mail, ING Direct will temporarily restrict transfers to the new account for five business days as a security measure.

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Being a search marketer and online entrepreneur, I am on the web approximately nine hours per day, seven days a week. It is safe to assume that Google search takes no less than three hours of that time daily. So let me tell you, I have had the opportunity to see and try in practice all the beauty of Google search.

And like in any area of your life, Google can be really helpful for saving money when shopping. Let me share a few tips:

1. Use Google to convert currencies

The simplest, yet one the most useful Google hacks is to just type something like:

[5 pounds in USD]

and you got it:

2. Use Google as a calculator

Can’t tell how much you save with the coupon? You don’t have to go anywhere — just type it in Google and you’re done:

3. Use Google to search through reviews and forum opinions

Google has recently introduced quite a few cool features to its interface, many of which help when it comes to shopping on a budget. The first feature I want to talk about is “reviews and forums”. Here’s what you need to do:

• Search for whatever you plan to buy
• Click “More option” below the search field
• Click “Forums” or “Reviews” to see what people are saying about that thing you need to purchase

4. Use Google to find recent product news and reviews

That’s another option within the left-hand pane that we discovered in the previous tip. As you may have noticed, Google sometimes (but not always) tends to rank old pages higher just because they are supposed to be more trustworthy. Oftentimes, however, you need to know what has just been said about some product you are considering. So:

• Click “More Options“
• Choose “Reviews” or “Forums“
• Click “Past 24 hours“, “Past week“, “Past year” or “Custom date range“

5. Use Google to compare prices

Yes, you heard me right! You can let Google show prices right on your search results page for quick comparisons:

• Click “More Options“
• Click “Prices from the page“

6. Use Google to compare prices from various brands

Say, you want to search for Sony laptops as well as Acer laptops to compare prices right within the results page. If you search [sony laptop acer laptop] you will only get results where all of these terms are used on one page. Instead, you want either of the pairs [sony laptop] or [acer laptop]. So what you need to type is:

[sony laptop OR acer laptop]

Now, just click “Prices from the page” to the left of the search results and you get the list of prices for both laptops on one page throughout various stores:

7. Use Google to search within any money-saving site

This one is actually my favorite. I am so used to Google search that I never care to even look for the search option on any site. All I need is to type site:sitename.com and search within any site using the above mentioned wonderful options.

Let me demonstrate this with an example. Let’s say you want to quickly search through Buxr.com (a coupon directory) for laptop deals. You could easily do this with the following search string:

[site:buxr.com laptop]

Not only will Google show you the most recent updates from the site, it will also let you know the exact time the deal was published:

Hopefully, you will be able to take advantage of these Google search tips!

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While $30 isn’t a life-changing sum, I spent very little time earning it, and it seems like it would be easy to earn considerably more. Beyond that, who wouldn’t want a bit of extra money every month to help them get out of debt, pay down their mortgage, or save for retirement?

How does Cash Crate work?

For starters, CashCrate is free to join. Once you give them your name and contact info, you’re ready to roll. Upon logging in, you’ll be presented with a list of opportunities. You can switch between cash offers, points offer, and research surveys. I’ve typically focused on the cash offers and research surveys.

Payouts vary widely, and are generally proportional to what’s expected of you. Most of the offers don’t pay a whole lot (generally $0.25 to a few dollars) but they also require very little. In some cases, it’s as simple as signing up to receive an e-mail newsletter — just be sure to use a secondary e-mail address.

Here’s a screenshot of an offer that I just completed this morning. It paid $2.25 and required nothing more than signing up to receive a newsletter.

While most of the offers are free, there are some that require an upfront payment. For example, you can get $9.00 in return for signing up for a one day trial with Driving4Dollars, which costs $5.95. Obviously, they’re hoping that you’ll stick around and become a paying customer, but you’re free to cancel and pocket the difference.

CashCrate can make these offers because companies need consumers to try/review their products or services, and are willing to pay for that sort of feedback. They pay CashCrate to find participants, and CashCrate passes along a piece of the action.

Shop online

Another way to earn money is to click through to shopping sites from Cash Crate before making a purchase. While their list of participating retailers isn’t huge, there are some big names there. For example, you can get 3% cash from Disney, and 5% from iTunes and WalMart. Note that these bonuses are in addition to any credit card rewards that you might receive.

Refer a friend

Finally, you can make a bit of additional money by referring others to CashCrate. For example, I get a $3 bonus for every person that signs up and earns $10, and I also earn 20-25% of what my referrals earn, and 10% of what their referrals earn. Note that this comes at no cost to the individual being referred — they keep everything they earn. Once you’ve signed up, you are likewise free to refer others.

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Movies by mail

Both Netflix and Blockbuster offer movies by mail using a monthly subscription model. Add movies to your online queue and they’ll be mailed out to you in order of preference. There are multiple levels of service, with the most popular being the three-at-a-time plan.

Based on personal experience, both Blockbuster and Netflix have very quick turnaround. In fact, we almost always receive movies the day after they’re mailed, though this will likely vary based on your proximity to the nearest shipping center.

In terms of selection, Netflix has always gotten rave reviews, especially when it comes to indie films and foreign films. That being said, our tastes are pretty mainstream, and we’ve never noticed a difference.

Finally, while both service offer free returns by mail, Blockbuster also offers the ability to return their movies to a local store — more on this below.

In-store rentals and returns

This is where Blockbuster really shines, though they’ve recently take a major step backwards. When we first switched to Blockbuster, it was for their “Total Access” service, which allowed us to get a movie by mail and return it to the store.

Not only did returning it to the store trigger the next movie in our queue to be shipped right away, but we also got a free in-store rental. On top of that, we they also have us a printable coupon for a free in-store rental (DVD or game) every month. It was very nice while it lasted.

Unfortunately, about a year and a half ago, Blockbuster dropped the printable coupons and also capped the number of in-store exchanges at five per month. You could still return movies to the store after you hit the cap, but you couldn’t get a free rental. Instead, you had to pay a reduced rate of $2/DVD. Oh, and they also raised prices. Definitely not as good as before, but a pretty darn good deal.

Unfortunately, Blockbuster recently took another step backwards… While you can still trade a movie in for a free in-store rental, the next movie in your online queue won’t be shipped out until you return that movie to the store. This slows things down dramatically, and largely erases the main advantage of Blockbuster.

For their part, Netflix doesn’t offer an in-store exchange option. Why? Because they don’t have any retail locations!

Streaming movies online

This is where Netflix really shines. In addition to your ‘regular’ queue, you can add certain titles to an instant queue. You can then stream these titles using your computer (PC or Mac), an Xbox 360, or the Netflix Roku player (it’s a set-top box). I especially like being able to stream movies to my laptop when I’m on the road.

All in all, this is a great feature. Unfortunately, the movie selection is pretty bad. Yes, they have a fair number of titles, but there’s not much in the way of recent releases. The bright spot here is that they have a lot of TV shows (entire seasons) available for streaming.

Another minor benefit of the Roku player is that you can now use it to stream Amazon movie rentals to your TV. These are available on a per-rental basis, and they’re not cheap (most cost from $2-4/each) but it’s a nice option to have.

Blockbuster vs. Netflix: Pricing

Both Netflix and Blockbuster offer a number of pricing plans, and it’s hard to compare them all. For the sake of simplicity, let’s just look at the most popular three-at-a-time plans…

The Netflix three-at-a-time unlimited plan costs $16.99/month. This plan gives you an unlimited number of movies by mail (though you’re limited to having three out at once). You also get unlimited streaming to your Mac, PC or TV for no additional fee.

The Blockbuster Total Access three-at-a-time plan costs $19.99/month, and likewise gives you an unlimited number of movies by mail (again limited to having three out at once). You also get five free in-store exchanges, though these exchanges now count against your three movie limit. Additional in-store exchanges cost $1.99/each, but do not count against your three movie limit.

Blockbuster vs. Netflix: Which is best?

If you had asked me this question a few months ago, I would’ve said Blockbuster by a mile. Having in-store exchanges that triggered the mailing of the next movie in your queue was just too good to pass up. But now that Blockbuster has crippled their Total Access plans…

I’d have to say that Netflix comes out on top. While their online movie selection leaves a lot to be desired, the implementation is great, and we’ve discovered a number of great new TV shows. On top of that, Netflix is a few bucks cheaper.

Still undecided? That’s okay… Both Netflix and Blockbuster offer free two week trials. This should be enough to give you a pretty good taste of both services, and help you make up your mind.

Netflix Free Trial	Blockbuster Free Trial

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» Blockbuster Total Access Looks Good So Far
» Another Blockbuster Price Increase
» Streamlining Our Netflix Subscription
» Netflix Changes Shipping Policy for the Worse?
» Update on the Blockbuster (Non)Deal for Switching
» Blockbuster Total Access Gift Card Promotion

Introducing Tip’d 2.0

And now… The Tip’d team is announcing version 2.0, which adds a number of new features to their already feature-rich service. The new additions include:

• SocialTickers – Pages that track stock tickers and aggregate news across the Social Web. (link)
• Video Integration – A special category for video news stories. (link)
• Tip’d Top 100 – A list of the Top 100 most popular sites in terms of articles “made popular” on Tip’d. (link)
• Tip’d Greatest Hits – A listing of the most popular stories ever featured on the Tip’d front page. (link)

After perusing these links, I was pleased to discover that FCN is ranked in the Top 100 sites, and also that three of my articles are amongst the most popular ever submitted to Tip’d. Here they are:

• Money Tips from Twitterville (Tip it!)
• What Goes Into the Price of Gas? (Tip it!)
• Reduce Debt With a DIY Balance Transfer (Tip it!)

In addition, my article on how to save money on groceries fell just one vote short of the list.

How to use Tip’d

If you’ve never used Tip’d, I encourage you to check it out. It’s a great source for finding interesting finance-related articles. Moreover, once you’ve created your (free!) account, you can vote on articles that others have submitted, and you can also submit articles yourself.

Oh, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve included Tip’d links at the end of every article so it’s very easy to submit and/or vote for things that catch your eye.

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» Tip’d Goes Public
» Sunday Roundup – Baker’s Dozen Edition
» Why Doesn’t Sam’s Club Accept Visa Credit Cards?
» Update on the Blockbuster (Non)Deal for Switching
» Self-Employment, Taxes and SEP-IRAs
» Don’t be Stupid: Rotate Your Tires
» Kids & Money: Tweaking our Allowance System

As I noted previously, the big advantage of a site like this is the increased granularity over a general site like Digg. In fact, Tip’d has 12 different finance-related categories, so it’s easy to focus in on specific sub-topics. The targeted nature of this site also selects for a more finance-savvy audience, resulting in more effective filtering of the articles that get submitted.

Anyway, Tip’d is now out of beta, and is officially launching today, complete with the following feature improvements:

• Published stories get direct links. No redirects, and no ‘nofollow’ directives
• Two new categories – ‘business’ and ‘entrepreneurship’
• The ‘Topple’ functionality (for down-voting) has been overhauled
• You can now subscribe to receive published articles via e-mail
• Upcoming stories can be sorted chronologically or by popularity
• More effective duplicate submission detection
• Better spam handling

At the time of this writing, Tip’d has over 1700 members who have submitted thousands of articles. It’s a pretty active place, so if you’re interested in financial news, you should definitely check it out.

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» Debt Reduction on a Grand Scale
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» Sunday Roundup – Baker’s Dozen Edition
» The Upside of Costly Gas
» National Tax Advice Day

After a bit of investigation, I heard from the Quicken team that:

“The service is free and has been since the announcement with no intentions of going back to the pay-for-service model.”

Apparently this problem was caused by a glitch when they converted from a subscription-based service to a free service, and it only affected a subset of customers. Regardless, they had the problem sorted out within an hour to two. So… Quicken Online really is free if you’re interested in checking it out.

And if the online version isn’t your cup of tea, then check out the available Quicken 2009 discounts — you can get up to 36% off the list price.

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» PSA: Export Your Quicken 2007 Data Before Upgrading to Mac OS X Lion

To be completely honest, my first reaction upon seeing this site was to ask “why bother?” For those that aren’t aware, this sort of thing has been attempted numerous times in the past, and they’ve died out pretty much every time. Moreover, Digg has a Business & Finance category, so why do we need a dedicated financial site? Now that I’ve had a chance to poke around, however, I’m a believer.

The big advantage of a more focused site is that there is far more granularity. Rather than lumping everything into a single financial category, Tip’d has ten different categories with more being planned before their official launch next month. In addition, this site has the backing of some fairly well-known internet personalities. Hopefully they’ll be able to pull it off.

Of course, there will be some challenges in making this work. First and foremost, they need to build a large and active user base. Without lots of people submitting stories and even more voting on them, the site just won’t be that useful. I’m also curious to see how they’ll deal with the deluge of “get rich quick” and “make money online” spam that they’ll inevitably receive.

Anyway, if you’re interested in financial news, you should definitely check it out. If you decide to register an account, be sure to add me as a friend.

Hat tip to Jim for pointing this out.

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» Tip’d Turns Two
» Tip’d Goes Public
» Social Security Taxes in 2008
» Social Security Taxes in 2010
» Social Security Benefits to Increase in 2012
» Social Security Taxes in 2009
» The Social Security Tax Ceiling
» Social Security and Retirement Planning

Quicken is excited to announce that Quicken Online will become FREE starting Monday, October 13th. Until recently, Quicken Online was free to try, but cost $2.99 per month after a trial period. Beginning October 13th, there will be no charge to use the Quicken Online program.

If the online version isn’t your cup of tea, then check out the available discounts on Quicken 2009 — you can get up to 36% off the list price.

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» Accounting for Your Home’s Value in Quicken (or the Like)
» How Do You Keep Track of Your Finances?
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» Yes, Quicken Online Really is Free
» More Discounts on Quicken 2009
» Quicken 2009 Discounts Extended
» Quicken 2009 Discounts

Here’s my take… Instead of asking around online, relying on the advice of friends, or even inquiring at your bank, you should go straight to the FDIC for an answer.

Here’s how:

• Use their online deposit insurance estimator
• Drop them a line via their online contact form, or
• Give them a call at 1-877-ASK-FDIC (1-877-275-3342).

The bottom line here is that nobody can speak for the FDIC except for the FDIC. If you have any concerns, it’s best to get the answer straight from the horse’s mouth rather than relying on third-party information.

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» FDIC Insurance Coverage: Limits and Strategies
» What Happens When the Increased FDIC Insurance Limits Expire?
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» FDIC Insurance Limits Increased to $250k

Several months ago, I put together a list of options for reducing our long distance phone expenses. Since we get crappy cell service at home, we needed to consider other options. In the end, we decided to: (1) switch our landline to a cheaper long distance plan, and (2) add a Skype phone to the mix.

Considering our alternatives

As noted above, our first step was to change our regular long distance service from Sprint to Uni-Tel. This gives use long distance service for $0.025/minute for out-of-state calls and $0.042/minute for in-state calls. There’s not monthly fees or minimums, so that move was a no-brainer.

But could we do better? After listening to reader feedback, it seemed that our best option for saving even more was Skype.

What is Skype?

Simply stated, Skype is software that allows people to communicate over the internet. It supports instant messaging, voice chat, and video chat. On top of that, they offer services known as Skype Out and Skype In. The former lets you place calls over the Skype network to a real phone number, whereas the latter provides you with a phone number for receiving calls over the Skype network.

After poking around a bit, I was impressed with what I saw. Free computer-to-computer calling anywhere in the world, and both the Skype Out and Skype In services were quite cheap.

Settling on Skype

While many Skype users rely on a headset attached to their computer, we didn’t want to be tethered to a computer. Fortunately, there are a number of options out there when it comes to going wireless. For example, you can get a cordless phone that connects to your computer, a cordless phone that plugs straight into your router, or even a wifi-enabled portable phone.

Since we don’t have a desktop computer in the house, we didn’t want to be forced to plug the phone into a computer. Also, while the wifi-enabled phones are undeniably cool, they’ve received somewhat mixed reviews, so we shied away from them. In the end, we settled on the Philip VOIP841.

While this thing is astronomically expensive right now ($399 through 3rd party sellers on Amazon), it’s actually quite affordable when Amazon themselves have it in stock. In fact, we paid around $120 for ours, and I expect to earn that back in terms of “free” long distance in a relatively short period of time. If you’re willing to route the calls through you computer, you can get started for even less.

Our Skype experience thus far

All in all, we’ve been thrilled with our decision. We bought a year’s worth of Skype Out service back in June for around $20 (they were running a 33% off special at the time) and it’s been great. Voice quality is somewhere between that of a cell phone and a “real” landline. Honestly, if we didn’t need a landline for other reasons (e.g., 911 service, our alarm system, etc.) I’d be happy to add Skype In and drop our phone service altogether.

That being said, I have enjoyed having a second outgoing phone line in the house. We have pretty crappy cell coverage at our house, and we sometimes run into situations where more than one person needs the phone at that same time. Given that Skype Out can be used for both local and long distance calls, this is no longer an issue for us. If the regular phone is tied up, we just make a Skype Out call instead.

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1. Save your boxes and instruction manuals. This is especially useful for consumer electronics. While you can’t stockpile this stuff forever, having the original box and user manual can substantially improve your final sale price.
2. Focus on the right sort of stuff. eBay is far more effective for smaller, easily shippable items. Got an appliance to sell? Try selling it locally (for free!) on craigslist instead.
3. Schedule your auctions to end on a Sunday. I’ve always run seven day auctions starting on Sunday evening Eastern time. This allows your auction to run for a full week, and my experience has been that Sunday evenings are a particularly good end time. An argument could also be made for running ten day auctions starting on Thursday evening.
4. Do some research to figure out a fair price. You can easily search completed auctions to get a sense for how much similar items have been selling for.
5. Use a low starting bid. Low starting bids not only reduce your costs, but they also encourage bidding activity. This is especially true for popular items. If you’re selling a niche item that you don’t think will attract much interest, you might want to start closer to fair market value.
6. Don’t try to make a killing with inflated shipping. People aren’t stupid, so just play it straight. While it’s okay to pad your shipping a bit to cover your time and the cost of packaging materials, don’t be ridiculous. In fact, it’s possible to get in trouble with eBay if they think you’re trying to cheat them out of their final value fee.
7. Take good pictures. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. I always try to include large, clear pictures in my listings. Depending on what you’re selling, it might also help to take pictures from multiple angles. If you still have the original packaging and paperwork, spread it out and include a picture.
8. Write an honest description. Be thorough, but keep it short. List the key features of your item and specify its condition. Does it work? How well? What about the cosmetic condition? Refer to the picture(s) if appropriate. And don’t hesitate to tell people why you’re selling it. If it’s so great, why aren’t you keeping it? Maybe you just upgraded and no longer need it.
9. When formatting your ad, keep it simple. Feel free to use bold or colored text to highglight key aspects of your listing, but don’t go overboard. Keep it simple, readable, and clean.
10. Clearly state the terms of your auction. Specify who can/cannot bid (low or negative feedback? no thanks), list the shipping details, let people know how quickly you expect contact/payment, specify the types of payment that you will accept, etc.
11. Clearly state your return policy. Selling an item as-is? Fine, but be sure that potential buyers know this. Whatever you do, don’t leave any grey areas or you’re setting yourself up for trouble.
12. Answer questions. If potential bidders ask a question about your auction, be sure to give them a timely answer. Unless you’re selling something rare, they have a ton of options and are likely to move on if you’re not quick.
13. Communicate with your buyer. Once the auction is done, get in touch with your buyer right away and stay in touch with them until the transaction is complete. Let them what they owe, when you received payment, and when you shipped their item.
14. Ship in a timely manner. Once the winning bidder has made payment, get the item shipped ASAP. I typically shoot for next business day. The sooner you send it, the sooner you can stop thinking about it and the happier the buyer will be.
15. Save your listing for future reference. When all is said and done, save a copy of the text used in your auction for future use. I have a boilerplate listing that I can customize as necessary. This saves me from have to re-create the Terms & Conditions, etc.

I think that just about covers it. If you have tips of your own, please be sure to share them in the comments, below.

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While this only happens in Firefox (Safari is fine — I use a Mac, so I have no idea how IE behaves), it doesn’t appear to be a straight-up browser incompatibility. In fact, it works properly more often than not. But when this happens, I have to clear my browser cache before I can get it working again. This isn’t a huge deal, but I do wind up losing all of my cached data on occasion. Has anyone else seen this sort of behavior?

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In case you missed it, we recently decided to open an online savings account with FNBO Direct where we’re collecting a healthy 3.50% APY* (current as of 08/15/08). During my behind-the-scenes tour, I also noted that FNBO Direct offers an online billpay account that can be linked directly to your online savings account. Well…

They’re now offering a $25 bonus for any FNBO Direct account holders that activate the billpay feature:

Limited Time Bonus Offer: If you are a current FNBO Direct Online Savings Account customer, you can earn a $25.00 bonus for opening a new FNBO Direct BillPay Account. We will credit the bonus to your BillPay Account within 30 days after it is opened. In order to earn the bonus, your BillPay Account must remain open for 90 days and you must make at least one BillPay payment during that period (we reserve the right to deduct the amount of an unearned bonus from any account you have with us). This offer is only applicable to BillPay accounts opened on or after 08/06/08 and is limited to one bonus per household. This promotion is set to end on 09/30/08, however, we may change or discontinue this offer at any time.

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» HSBC Drops APY, FNBO Direct and WaMu Hold Steady
» Opening an FNBO Direct Savings Account (Update)
» A Peek Inside Our FNBO Direct Online Savings Account
» Online Savings Account Rate Changes
» FNBO Direct has the Best Online Savings Account
» HSBC Direct is Trying to Attract New Money
» WaMu Increases Online Savings Interest Rate
» How to Close an FNBO Direct Savings Account

A couple of weeks ago, I noted that we opened an online savings account with FNBO Direct. All in all, the account opening process was incredibly easy, and the test deposits showed up in our linked (local) checking account within one business day. Two days after that, our $1 minimum deposit had been pulled from our checking account and was sitting at FNBO Direct earning 3.50% APY* (current as of 08/14/08). While I haven’t had an opportunity to move additional money over to FNBO Direct, I wanted to go ahead and give you guys an idea of how things look under the hood.

Gaining access

The login process is pretty standard for a modern online bank. After entering your username, you’re prompted to answer a pair of security questions, and then you’re greeted with a personal message. Once you verify that the personal message is indeed yours (indicating that you’re really on the FNBO Direct website, as opposed to an impostor, you enter your password and you’re on your way. Note that the security questions or only necessary for your first login, or if you switch to a different computer.

Behind the scenes

Inside the FNBO Direct website, you’ll find a very clean interface including all of the standard options for an online bank (see below; click to expand). In fact, it’s so clean that it borders on boring. But guess what? Boring is good when you’re talking about an online bank. The pages all load quickly, and it’s easy to find what you want.

I had planned on including more screenshots, but there’s not that much more to see. There are tabs for managing your account settings, transferring funds (either amongst accounts within the bank or with external banks), and online billpay.

As I’ve noted in previous posts, I’ve been quite impressed by FNBO Direct so far — the combination of safety, a high interest rate, and a user-friendly website is pretty hard to beat.

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» Online Savings Account Rate Changes
» FNBO Direct has the Best Online Savings Account
» The Best of August 2008
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This is just a quick note to let everyone know Amazon.com is currently offering a free 30-day trial of Amazon Prime. If you’re not familiar with Amazon Prime, it’s their shipping program that provides you with free two-day delivery of just about anything that would otherwise qualify for their Super Saver shipping, but with no minimum purchase amount, as well as dirt cheap overnight shipping ($3.99/item).

We’ve been members of Amazon Prime since last October and have been very happy with the service. Sure, you can get most of this stuff shipped to you for free if you’re patient (Super Saver shipping can be s-l-o-w depending on where you live and what you order), and willing to group your purchases together to exceed the $25 minimum for Super Saver shipping. Even despite that caveat, I can honestly say that our Amazon Prime membership has been well worth the price in terms of convenience and time saved. This has been especially true as gas prices have moved higher and we’ve shifted more and more of our purchasing online.

Just a quick word of caution… The free trial auto-renews into the annual (paid) version at the end of the month, so be sure to go in and tell them that you want to cancel if you decide you don’t want to keep it.

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Strengths of FNBO Direct

One of the biggest reasons that people have given me for liking FNBO Direct has been their high interest rate. In fact, they have consistently outpaced online bank stalwarts such as ING Direct. Another strength of FNBO Direct is that they don’t have a minimum balance requirement, and there are no monthly fees.

In addition to the above, FNBO Direct is not only FDIC insured (as are all of the major players), but they also have a Bankrate “Safe & Sound” rating of 4 stars, which makes them one of the safest online banks.

Finally, while I have yet to test this out myself, I’ve heard from at least one reader that it’s dead easy to get a real, live human being on the line when you call customer service.

Opening an account

Given the above, I decided that I’d give FNBO Direct a try. What follows is a walk-through of the account opening process. All told, the process took about 10-15 minutes for a joint account (it would be a bit quicker for an individual account).

Step 1: Initiate your application.

Simply visit FNBO Direct and click on “Open an Account.” You should be greeted with a page that looks something like this:

Simply check the box for starting a new application and then click “Next Step.”

Step 2: Enter your personal information.

On the subsequent pages, you’ll select whether you’d like to fill out an individual or joint application, and then you’ll be asked to provide your name, social security number, date of birth, address, etc. Pretty standard stuff. If you’re opening a joint account, you’ll have to provide this information for both account holders.

Step 3: Confirm your identity.

Next, you’ll be asked a couple questions drawn from your credit record to make sure that you are who you say you are. In our case, we were asked about which bank holds our mortgage and how much we pay per month. These are multiple choice questions, so you just select the proper answer from a list of option.

Step 4: Fund your account.

At this point, you’ll be asked how you’re planning on funding your new account. While they don’t have a minimum balance requirement, you have to deposit at least one dollar to get the account up and running.

You have two options when it comes to funding your account. You can other do so electronically, via an electronic bank transfer, or you can send in a check. We opted for an electronic transfer. At that point, you’ll be present with a screen that looks something like this:

Simply provide the requested information, choose a deposit amount, and then choose an account verification methods, as follows:

We opted for trial deposits, which means it will be a day or two before we have full access to our account. The online verification provides you with instant access to your account, but it requires that you provide the username and password associated with your linked bank account.

The next step

That’s all there is to the account opening process. As I said, very quick and easy. In the next day or two we should be getting an e-mail saying that they’ve made the trial deposits. At that point, I’ll just have to check exactly how much they deposited (it’s usually a few cents) and then hop back on over to the FNBO Direct website to verify the amounts.

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Opening an FNBO Direct Savings Account (Update)
» $25 FNBO Direct Online Billpay Promotion
» HSBC Drops APY, FNBO Direct and WaMu Hold Steady
» Online Savings Account Rate Changes
» FNBO Direct has the Best Online Savings Account
» Opening an Emigrant Direct Savings Account, Part III
» WaMu Increases Online Savings Interest Rate
» Opening an Emigrant Direct Savings Account

1. FNBO Direct – 4 stars
2. Everbank – 4 stars
3. Ally (formerly GMAC) – 3 stars
4. WT Direct – 3 stars
5. ING Direct – 2 stars
6. HSBC Direct – 2 stars
7. E*Trade Bank – 2 stars
8. Dollar Savings Direct – 1 star
9. Emigrant Direct – 1 star

Or… If you’re looking for a significantly higher yield than a regular bank can offer, and you don’t mind taking on some additional risk, you might want to check out Lending Club. It’s not FDIC-insured, but annual returns have averaged 9.05% APY over the past 18 months. It’s free to open an account, and you can get started with as little as $25.

Also be sure to check out my list of online bank interest rates, which I update frequently.

*Definition of ratings:
5 stars – Superior
4 stars – Sound
3 stars – Performing
2 stars – Below peer group
1 star – Lowest rated

See also: The Safest Banks (Updated!)

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When we first started doing this, I worried that check payments might end up getting improperly credited. After all, we can’t include the payment stub when we initiate the payment online. Fortunately we’ve never had a problem — until this week…

Our six year old recently had a tonsilectomy and adenoidectomy and, as a result, we’ve been getting bills from everyone under the sun. The doctor, the anesthesiologist, the pathologist, the hospital, etc. Anyway, two nights ago, my wife told me that the hospital had called about an overdue bill. I was a bit surprised by this, because I clearly remembered having scheduled the payment.

Yesterday afternoon I double-checked with the bank and, sure enough, the check has already cleared. I assumed that the hospital’s billing department had simply gotten their wires crossed, and the people making the phone calls were working from an outdated list of overdue accounts. Upon calling, however, I learned otherwise.

After pulling up our account, the billing rep got back on the phone and reported that the bill was indeed unpaid. When I told him that I have a cancelled check showing that it’s been paid (Bank of America scans all of your checks and puts them online), he paused for a moment and then asked if I could fax it to him.

That’s where things stand right now — I’ve faxed an image of the cancelled check and am waiting for them to respond and (hopefully) clear our account. The most frustrating thing is that I’m still not sure what went wrong. All I know is that this clearly isn’t our fault, nor is it our bank’s fault. While we didn’t submit the payment stub, the check had the correct account number clearly printed on it and it went to the right place.

Regardless, I’m glad that they went to the trouble to contact us. If they hadn’t, we’d likely be getting another call from a wayward collection agency.

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In case you’re not familiar with the concept of correlation, it’s simply a statistical measure of the degree to which two variables change in concert. A correlation of +1 refers to an increasing linear relationship, whereas a correlation of -1 refers to a decreasing linear relationship. A correlation of zero means that two variables move independently of one another.

While I’m grossly oversimplifying things here, a properly diversified portfolio contains a variety of different security classes with low or even negative correlations. Having this sort of investment mix helps to ensure that when some of your investments are suffering, others are thriving (or at least suffering less), thereby reducing your overall investment risk.

Note that the fund correlation tool reports the correlation coefficient in terms of percentages, so the data points can actually range from -100 to +100.

Some examples…

Large Cap Index vs. Small Cap Index: 89%
Total Stock Market Index vs. Total International Index: 74%
Total Stock Market Index vs. Total Bond Market Index: -17%

Even if you don’t have access to Vanguard funds, this is a great tool for getting a feel for how different asset classes perform relative to one another.

As you can see from above, domestic equities exhibit a relatively strong positive correlation with each other, even when comparing between large and small cap stocks. Likewise, domestic and international equities are reasonably well correlated, though less so than large vs. small cap stocks.

In contrast, stocks and bonds have a slight negative correlation, meaning that increasing in stock values are typically accompanied by decreases in bond prices, and vice versa.

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