This is a guest post from Ann Smarty, a blogger, search marketer and social media enthusiast. If you like what you see here, please consider following Ann on Twitter.

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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Back in December, I put together a list of ways to earn extra money. Embedded within that list was the suggestion to sign up with a site like CashCrate, which pays you to fill out forms, take surveys, and/or sign up for free trials. While I’ve only messed around with it a bit, I received a check for over $30 in May.

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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We’ve been renting DVDs online for several years now, and we love it. When we first started, Netflix was the only game in town. Not long thereafter, Blockbuster started offering DVDs by mail, and we eventually switched. Most recently, we’ve switched back to Netflix. So which one is the best, and why?

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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Last fall, I wrote about a new social media site called Tip’d, which specializes in financial news. At the time, they were still in beta, but it wasn’t long before they staged their public launch. Since their launch, Tip’d has established a base of 6000+ users who have submitted over 12,000 articles.

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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About a month ago, I wrote about Tip’d, which is a bit like Digg, but with a financial focus. People can submit links, and Tip’d users vote on them. If an article receives enough votes, it makes it to the front page. Thus, Tip’d

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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Last week I wrote about Quicken Online’s transition from a paid subscription to being totally free. Not long thereafter, readers started reporting that they were getting a login message telling them that their free trial had expired.

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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Earlier today, I ran across a new social media website called Tip’d, which specializes in financial news, ideas, and tips. It’s a bit like Digg, but with a much narrower focus. In case you’re not familiar with this sort of thing, people can submit links for other users to vote on. If it receives enough votes, it makes it to the front page for all to see.

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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Late last week, I received an e-mail announcing that Quicken Online will be available for free effective today. Here’s the scoop:

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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With all of the recent financial turmoil, I’ve received a number of questions from readers on topics ranging from the safety of their bank to whether or not their money is FDIC insured, etc. While I’ve written about these topics in the past, several of the questions that I’ve received have outlined very specific scenarios, and then asked whether or not their deposits are covered.

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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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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If you ask around for quick ways to raise cash, one of the most common answers that you’ll get is to sell your stuff. When it comes to selling second-hand stuff, eBay is King. But how do you get started? What follows is a list of fifteen tips for selling your stuff on eBay.

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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This is just a quick note to share my recent annoyance with Bank of America’s online interface. While we’ve had a fairly good experience with Bank of America overall, I’ve run into a periodic snag over the past few months when trying to login. In short, I load up their homepage, click to sign in, and am then get the following error instead of their SiteKey page, where I’m supposed to enter our password:

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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» Online Savings Account Rate Changes
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» FNBO Direct has the Best Online Savings Account
» WaMu Increases Online Savings Interest Rate
» Frequency of Online Billpay

This is just a quick note to say that, as good as FNBO Direct is, I’m no longer recommending them as my top pick in the online banking realm. Instead, you should check out Everbank. They’re one of the safest online banks, they have a slick online interface, and they offer an excellent yield.

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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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» $25 FNBO Direct Online Billpay Promotion
» Opening an FNBO Direct Savings Account (Update)
» HSBC Drops APY, FNBO Direct and WaMu Hold Steady
» Online Savings Account Rate Changes
» FNBO Direct has the Best Online Savings Account
» The Best of August 2008
» WaMu Increases Online Savings Interest Rate
» FNBO Direct Review and Account Opening Process

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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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Don’t Forget to Cancel Your Amazon Prime Membership
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» Signed up for Amazon Prime
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» Singing the Praises of PriceProtectr
» Blockbuster Deal for Switching
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Over the past few months, a number of readers have recommended that I check out FNBO Direct as an online savings alternative. Given the interest out there, I thought I should investigate. After a bit of digging, I was impressed enough with what I saw that I decided to open an account this weekend.

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
» HSBC Account Opening Process Complete

Given the recent spate of bank failures, I though I’d put together a quick rundown of the safety ratings of eight of the best online savings banks. This list is based on Bankrate’s “Safe & Sound” ratings* of the financial condition of their parents companies:

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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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Online Savings Account Rate Changes
» WaMu Drops Interest Rate, Alternatives Abound
» HSBC Drops APY, FNBO Direct and WaMu Hold Steady
» The Safest Banks (Updated!)
» Bank Failures: Two More Just Bit the Dust
» The Recent History of Bank Failures
» A Peek Inside Our FNBO Direct Online Savings Account
» Online Bank Interest Rates (Updated!)

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of paying our bills online. We’ve requested e-bills from every company that we can, and we also use our bank’s online interface to send checks to payees that don’t accept electronic payments. All in all, it’s very convenient and we save a ton on postage.

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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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

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» Erroneous Medical Bill Update
» Our Online Banking Changeover
» The Accidental Deadbeat
» Be on the Lookout for Medical Billing Errors
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» Surviving Income Tax Season Without an Audit
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Not long ago, I asked readers to list the best online discount brokers. The results are now in, so I thought I’d compile the results here, for your edification. What follows is a list of the best online brokers.

» Scottrade (Click to Apply)

Scottrade has received rave reviews from numerous readers. They feature low commissions ($7/trade), no inactivity or account maintenance fees, and a low minimum deposit. In 2008, J.D. Power named them “Highest in Investor Satisfaction with Self-Directed Services.” On top of everything else, they cover up to $100 in transfer fees if you already have an account elsewhere.

» OptionsHouse (Click to Apply)

OptionsHouse offers rock-bottom commissions, including a flat rate $2.95/stock trade. In 2009, Barron’s named them the “#1 in Trade Experience” for options traders. As above, they cover up to $100 in transfer fees if you already have an account elsewhere, and they have a referral program where you can get paid $50 for each friend you refer to them.

» Zecco (Click to Apply)

It was a close race, but Zecco came out on top. Zecco is best known for it’s free stock trades. This makes it particularly powerful if you’d like to invest in ETFs instead of mutual funds, but don’t want to pay the commissions. If you don’t qualify for free trades, or if you use up your allotment, their base commission rate is a rock-bottom $4.50/trade.

» TradeKing (Click to Apply)

TradeKing was the only other online broker with multiple votes. They feature low commissions ($4.95/trade) and a wealth of investing tools. TradeKing was also rated the best online broker by Barron’s, and their customer service was rated #1 by SmartMoney.

» E*Trade (Click to Apply)

E*Trade is an uber-convenient online broker. In addition to their brokerage services, they also offer a high-yield savings account. E*Trade was also rated as the best overall broker by SmartMoney magazine, and “best of breed” by Money magazine. Their commissions are a bit higher, starting at $6.99/trade, but they have a very efficient online trading interface as well as numerous trading tools.

» Sharebuilder (Click to Apply)

Cheap, convenient, and backed by ING Direct. What more could you ask for in and online discount broker? Sharebuilder has no account minimum, no inactivity fees, and you can invest any amount (i.e., they can handle fractional shares). It’s not free, but it’s darn close in that it only costs $4/trade.

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Which Online Broker is Your Favorite?
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This is just a quick note to point out a useful tool that I ran across while researching our ideal asset allocation. Simply head over to Adviser Online’s Fund Correlation Tool and you can easily determine the correlation between any pair of Vanguard mutual funds.

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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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

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» Index Mutual Funds vs. Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)

Using the above online savings rate comparison tool will allow you to compare the top 50+ rates across banks, and I’ll also update the list below with accounts that FiveCentNickel readers have identified as their favorite online savings accounts. As the interest rate landscape is constantly changing, be sure to check current rates using the widget above – it will have more recent updates for the best online savings accounts than the list below. Here goes…

» Everbank (Click to Apply) - 2.51% Bonus Rate!

Everbank offers a fantastic promotional rate for the first three months on their online savings account, and their standard APY is also amongst the best available. There are no fees associated with your account as long as you maintain a $5000 minimum balance. While you may not have heard of them, they’re FDIC insured and, according to Bankrate, they have a 4-star “Safe and Sound” rating. They also have a high interest checking option. Definitely worth checking out.

» WT Direct (Click to Apply)

WT Direct offers a variable rate currently at 1.515% APY on all balances for first 60 days. Beyond that, accounts >$10,000 continue at the variable 1.515% and lower balances are adjusted to a lower variable rate. No Fees. FDIC Insured. No minimum deposit to open the account and no checking account required in order to get the high rate.

» ING Direct (Click to Apply)

While they don’t have the most competitive interest rates, ING Direct is a perennial favorite. They offer both an online savings account and a high-yield checking account (Electric Orange checking). There are no fees, and they have an ultra-slick web interface that lets you create sub-accounts for different savings goals. We’ve actually zeroed out the balance in our Orange Savings account and moved those funds over to our Electric Orange account.

» Lending Club (Click to Apply)

If you’re looking for a significantly higher yield than a regular bank can offer, you might want to check out online investing (Click to Apply) company Lending Club. They are a good option if you don’t mind taking on some additional risk. It’s not FDIC-insured, but annual returns have averaged 9.65% APY over the past 18 months. It’s free to open an account, and you can get started with as little as $25. I’ve been using them for the past few months, and have had a great experience thus far.

» Ally Bank (Click to Apply)

Formerly known as GMAC Bank, Ally is one of my favorites. They offer one of the highest savings rates out there, and they also have very competitive CD rates. Accounts with Ally have no monthly fees as well as no minimum balance requirement. We’re actively holding a portion of our savings with them.

» HSBC Direct (Click to Apply)

HSBC Direct offers an online savings account with no fees and a $1 minimum. We’ve used HSBC Direct quite heavily in the past, and have been very happy with them. While their rate has slipped a bit, that’s true of all banks right now. Worth a look.

» DollarSavingsDirect (Click to Apply)

DollarSavingsDirect features no fees and a $1k minimum. Their interface isn’t the prettiest, but they offer an extremely competitive interest rate, and that’s what really counts, isn’t it? DSD is the newest offering from online savings veteran Emigrant Bank, and they’re FDIC insured just like everyone else on this page. If you’re looking for a high rate, be sure to check out DollarSavingsDirect.

I should also note that USAA was a popular option amongst those that have access to it. I did not, however, include it in the main list, as it’s only available to members of the armed services (active duty, reserves, or retired) and their families.

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

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eBay sellers, listen up… Starting in May, eBay is changing their feedback policy such that sellers will no longer be able to leave negative feedback. The logic here is that they don’t want buyers to withhold negative feedback against a bad seller for fear of retaliation, even if their complaint is legitimate. According to eBay, sellers are 8x more likely to leave retaliatory feedback than are buyers.

While I can understand their reasoning, this change creates an uneven playing field, where sellers with excellent reputations can be held hostage by buyers with unreasonable expectations. Let’s say that something gets lost or delayed in the mail. In the past, the buyer was more likely to follow up with the seller and try to work things out, as they didn’t want to jump straight to negative feedback and receive the same thing in return. But now buyers are free to fly off the handle without trying to get things resolved.

On the upside, negative feedback will only figure into your percentage for 12 months, and you can get negatives from non-paying bidders removed. Just file a non-paying bidder report and, if they don’t respond within 21 days, the negative goes away. Likewise, if the buyer gets suspended, the negative goes away.

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I just got an e-mail from Blockbuster that purportedly contained “Important Account Information.” Upon opening it, I discovered that, in order to continue providing us with “the unmatched convenience of both online and in-store DVD rentals,” they’ll be raising our monthly rate from $17.99 to $19.99. Yuck. For reference, we’re on the unlimited 3-at-a-time by mail plus 5 free in-store exchange plan.

I’m not sure how (or if) their other plans are changing, as they haven’t updated their website to reflect the changes. But given that they just reduced service/raised prices in August, I’m not thrilled about this news. Perhaps it’s once again time to consider NetFlix…

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Blockbuster Price Change – We’re Still on the Older, Better Plan
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Last year I relied very heavily upon Amazon.com for my Christmas shopping. And now that we’ve signed up for Amazon Prime, I’m relying on them even more heavily this year. The combination of convenience, generally low prices, and their price drop guarantee is pretty hard to resist.

But wait… It gets better! If you hop on over to PriceProtectr, you can create an account (this only takes about a minute) and then let them monitor the prices of items that you’ve purchased. Entering items is dead easy — simply paste in a link to the item and hit submit. They’ll fetch the item info and price for you and then all you have to do is click a button to confirm. That’s it. If the price drops, they’ll shoot you an e-mail and you can head over to the Returns and Refunds Contact Form to request a credit.

While I’m primarily using this for purchases from Amazon.com, PriceProtectr actually supports over 70 different merchants. In fact, I also loaded our new Sear Kenmore vacuum cleaner into their system in hopes of getting an even better deal.

So how much have I saved thus far? Well, I only started my Christmas shopping (and using PriceProtectr) at the end of last week, and I’ve been buying mostly low-dollar (and pretty popular) items, but… I’ve already saved a total of $12.48. Here’s the breakdown:

Nikon Coolpix L11 — three price drops totalling $7.00
Force Action Light Saber — One price drop of $3.55
Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7 QuietPoint Headphones — Two prices drops totalling $1.93

The latter item wasn’t actually a Christmas present — rather, I recently bought this for myself for use on long flights.

Note that really small price decreases might not actually be worth chasing down. That being said, the e-mail notification contains a link to the Amazon contact page, and you can simply check a box alongside the item whose price has dropped. I also have a boilerplate refund request letter than I can pull up with a keystroke. Thus, it takes me less than a minute to submit the request. Here’s what I send:

The price on this item has decreased to $XXX.XX. I am thus requesting a price adjustment commensurate with this decrease.

But if you’re not interested in such small you price changes, you can check a box to stop PriceProtectr from notifying you about priced drops of less than a dollar.

All in all, I’d have to say that PriceProtectr is a very useful service, and I highly recommend it to everyone. I can see it being even more valuable if you’re buying high end items, as the potential price drops (in terms of dollar amounts) are likely to be substantially greater than what I’ve been seeing.

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Interesting… I just ran across a list of the most expensive items purchased at Amazon.com during 2006. To be honest, the items on this list aren’t nearly as expensive as I would’ve expected…

Indeed, it seems that nobody is buying things like the $204,000 IWC watch or the Antique Russian Floral Bouquet Paperweight even though they’re both in stock and the watch is being offered for a whopping $36,000 off list price.

Returning to the list reference above, I’m not sure about you guys, but I’d much prefer my own personal set of bleachers to a 60 volume biographical collection. Sadly, the reviews aren’t great, and there’s a 3-5 week wait on the bleachers. Then again, this may be for the best given that shipping costs a bit over $1500.

What’s the most exotic thing that you’ve seen for sale at Amazon?

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As I noted the other day, we’re changing our reward credit card strategy, in part due to perceived inflexibility on Citi’s part when it comes to making automated payments. It turns out that I may have been wrong about what you can and cannot do, so I just hopped on over to the Citi website to request the enrollment kit for the Autopay service. While I was there, I ran across the following message:

Please note: Customers using comment or blog tracking services on their computers run the risk that information submitted here could be displayed on those websites. Please disable your comment and blog tracking service before using the Citi Cards Message Center.

I’m assuming that they’re talking here about services like coComment, which allows you to track your conversations (primarily weblog comments) across websites. I’ve never used any of these services, but it seems like this could be a relatively major security hole if using them does indeed result in things like supposedly secure conversations with your bank being slurped up and deposited on a third-party site.

As an aside, there’s no need to use these sorts of services to keep track of conversations here at FiveCentNickel… Rather, simply check the box labeled:

“Notify me of followup comments via e-mail”

before submitting your comment and you’re good to go (and you can cancel these notifications at any time).

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This is just a quick note to let you know that I’ve created a discount code (97BONES) through Dreamhost that gives you $97 off your first year of hosting. Given that a year of hosting costs $119.40, this works out to an 81% discount. Your final cost for the entire year will be $22.40, and you even get a free domain name registration.

In case you’re not aware how this works, Dreamhost customers can create promo codes that offer discoutns of up to $97. If you set it up for less, you get to keep the difference when someone signs up. In this case, I’ve set it up to give you guys the maximum discount available. Since $97 – $97 = $0, it’s a good deal for you and a push for me.

Full disclosure: I ultimately outgrew Dreamhost and had to move on to greener pastures (with a dedicated server). Early on, Dreamhost served my purposes very well, and it’s a great way to get your feet wet without risking much money (here’s a rundown of what they offer). If nothing else, it gives you a place to back up files online since you get 500 GB of space (to start with – it increases by 2 GB every week), and it supports WebDAV such that you can map your storage space to your desktop like a virtual hard drive. In fact, even though I no longer host with Dreamhost, I’ve kept my account open for these sorts of uses.

Note that you can also create your own promo codes after you get started to help reduce your costs even further (or even turn a profit).

If you’re interested, hop on over to Dreamhost and use promo code ‘97BONES‘ to get started. And if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

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Well, this is interesting… Earlier this week I wrote about how Zecco relies on their free online stock trades to land customers, as opposed to bankrolling major marketing campaigns. But just the other night I saw a primetime TV ad for Zecco on Comedy Central (I think). Maybe I’ve just had my head in the sand, but I don’t recall seeing TV spots of this sort in the past.

There’s nothing terribly significant about this, it just makes me wonder if they’re re-thinking their marketing strategy. I guess now that they’ve tightened up their commission structure a bit, they can afford to do more in the way of mainstream promotion. Regardless, Zecco still looks like a pretty solid deal if you’re in the market for a cheap (free) online broker.

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» Zecco Modifies Commission Structure
» Building a Cocktail Party Portfolio

Have you ever wondered how a free online broker like Zecco makes money? In case you’re not familiar with them, Zecco offers free online stocks trades — up to ten per month as long as you maintain a minimum account balance of $2500. Gone are the days of paying “discount” brokers anywhere from $10-$30/trade.

I’m particularly intrigued by the possibility of using Zecco to invest in Vanguard ETFs, which are a good bit cheaper than their index funds once you get past the commissions.

So how does Zecco manage to offer free trades while still staying in business? They are a business, after all…

According to their FAQs, Zecco makes money from: (1) interest on margin balances, and (2) commissions on “premium” brokerage products like options trading. They also recently starting requiring a minimum account balance of $2500 in order to get the free trades, so I’d imagine that they also make money from holding your uninvested funds. Finally, they claim to keep costs down by minimizing their marketing efforts. Thus, instead of spending hundreds of dollars trying to attract customers, they simply let their fee structure do the talking, stating that they “attract customers by having the best deal in the market.”

This really is an interesting business model, and it’ll be interesting to see what sort of an effect their approach has on the rest of the industry.

If you’re interested in trying them out, click here for more info…

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

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» Zecco Modifies Commission Structure

Last week we took the plunge and signed up for Amazon Prime. In case you’re not familiar with Amazon Prime, it’s:

“An exclusive membership program that gives you and your family the benefits of unlimited express shipping on eligible Amazon.com purchases.”

It costs $79/year to join. In return for your membership fee, you get free two-day shipping and $3.99 overnight shipping on a ton of items. Basically, if it’s eligible for Super-Saver Shipping, then it’s eligible for Amazon Prime. Unlike Super-Saver Shipping, however, there is no minimum purchase required — and your stuff comes quicker.

While this is admittedly a bit of a luxury, it opens up a whole new spectrum of convenience for us. For example, our smoke detector started beeping the other night because the battery was low. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any spare batteries around the house. Had we been signed up for Amazon Prime at the time, we could’ve ordered a 9 volt battery and had it delivered to our door in two days for just $1.46. When extrapolated out over a year, this has the potential to save us a substantial number of trips to the store, and thus a good bit of time.

Sure, we could plan ahead, group our purchases together to get over the $25 minimum, and then wait patiently for our stuff to arrive. However, as our lives get increasingly busy (we’re raising four boys, coaching three soccer teams, etc.), that gets more and more difficult. In fact, I ended up pulling the trigger on Amazon Prime while gift shopping for our oldest son’s birthday just three days before the big day.

Well see how it goes over the course of the next 12 months. For the time being, however, I’m perfectly happy to pay a bit extra for some conveniences.

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Just a quick note to say that I received an e-mail from Zecco today saying that they’re changing their pricing structure. For accounts opened prior to October 1, 2007 you’ll continue on the old commission structure through December 31, 2007.

This means that existing account holders will continue getting 40 free trades per month (up to 10 free per day) and paying $3.50 for each additional trade through December 31, 2007. After that, you’ll switch to the new commission structure (see below), which also applies to all accounts opened on or after October 1, 2007. The new structure is as follows:

All in all, this is still a great deal that should result commission-free investing for all but the most active traders. And even for active traders, the price per trade is dirt cheap after you exhaust your free trades. It’s definitely worth a look if you’re in the market for a low cost brokerage account.

Click here for more information or to open an account.

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Zecco Ramping Up Mainstream Advertising?
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» Zecco: Still the Best Online Broker?
» The Best of October 2007
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Update: HSBC recently increased their interest rate.

Just a quick interest rate update… On the heels of ING Direct’s decision to cut their interest rate, HSBC Direct has now decided to drop their APY by a whopping 0.55%, from 5.05% to 4.50% 3.55%. As of this writing, Emigrant Direct is still holding out at 5.05%, and WT Direct is at 5.15% for accounts balances of $10k or more. Also keep in mind that ING’s Electric Orange Checking offer 4.90% APY on balances over $50k.

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

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» Online Banking Roundup: WT Direct vs. HSBC, ING, and Emigrant

Now that I have a Treo smartphone, I’ve been exploring ways to take advantage of having the internet in my pocket. Since I have a strong interest in personal finance, that seemed liked a logical starting point.

What follows is a list of ways you can use an internet-enabled phone to help you manage your money when you’re out and about. To be fair, some of these things can be done with a regular phone, or a simple PDA. That being said, a smartphone lets you combine all of this functionality into one handy little package.

» 1. Online Banking - An increasing number of banks are offering mobile-friendly web sites that allow you to check balances, transfer funds, and pay bills on your phone. For example, Bank of America (our brick and mortar bank) offers mobile banking at http://www.bofa.mobi/ (they also have a demo).

The biggest surprise here is that online-only banks aren’t really taking the lead on this. In fact, of the three banks where we have online savings accounts (ING Direct, HSBC Direct, and Emigrant Direct), ING is the only one that offers a mobile-optimized interface. While ING’s interest rate has been slipping, this is a pretty compelling feature.

» 2. PayPay Mobile - Did you know that PayPal lets you send money on the go? Simply send a text message PayPal (729725) saying something like this:

send 10 to 2025551414

or:

send 10 to name@domain.com

You can also call 1-800-4PAYPAL to send money, which you can do even if your phone isn’t capable of texting. This is a pretty cool application of mobile technology, and I think this sort of thing has the potential to revolutionize the way people handle cash transactions.

Think about it… The next time you meet a stranger in a parking lot to buy something off craigslist, there’s no need to carry a wad of cash in your pocket. Rather, you can check out the item in person, then whip out your phone and text the money to their account.

» 3. Check Prices - Have you ever been out shopping and wondered if a certain price is actually a good deal? Well, wonder no more. Simply hop on over to Google Product Search for Mobile and check out what it would cost you online. Alternatively, you can shoot a text message to Google (466453) saying something like:

price nikon d80

or:

ipod nano price

» 4. Track Your Finances - Software packages such as Pocket Quicken or MS Money for Windows Pocket PCs allow you to carry your entire financial history around in your pocket. Also not that online financial data aggregator Yodlee offers a mobile solution.

» 5. Manage Your Passwords - Last but not least, recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of usernames and passwords that we have to manage. And what good are uber-convenient mobile financial services if you can’t remember the access information? Fortunately, there are a number of password-managers out there that allow you to encrypt your private data on your phone or PDA. The best of these apps allow you to synchronize your data with your computer, such that your login information is always at your fingertips.

Being a Mac user, I’ve used Web Confidential for years, and have also dabbled with their Palm version (which works great, by the way). More recently, I’ve been playing around with SplashID which likewise offers computer and handheld versions that can be kept in sync, and also offers a more flexible interface with fully customizable categories and fields.

So there you go… Five tips to get you started managing your money on the go.

If you have any of your own, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

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Just quick note to let everyone know that ING Direct has dropped the rate on the Orange Savings account to 4.30% APY. The driving force behind this decrease was the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut the federal funds rate by 0.50% earlier this week. While I would expect other banks to eventually follow suit, it’s important to remember that ING was already lagging behind the pack. Banks such as HSBC Direct, WT Direct, and Emigrant Direct pay substantially more and, even if they cut rates in the coming days/weeks, I would expect them to remain well ahead of ING Direct.

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

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Well, this is kind of interesting… As you may or may not know, Blockbuster recently announced changes to their online movie rental service. In order to increase profitability, they’ve decided to increase their prices and/or decrease service.

At first we were told that they would automatically change us to a new plan (same price, $17.99/month) with 3 at-a-time movies by mail, 5 in-store exchanges (previously unlimited) and no monthly e-coupons for free movie/game rentals at the end of our current month. In a subsequent e-mail, they said that we had to go in and make the change ourselves or our service would stop.

Being the busy (and somewhat lazy) guy that I am, I never got around to making the change before our monthly renewal date. Guess what? Yesterday afternoon I received an e-mail saying that our new e-coupon was ready to be printed, and when I logged in I saw that they had renewed us for at least one more month on the old plan (unlimited in-store exchanges and monthly e-coupons). It’s unclear to me if this is a one-time thing on their part, or perhaps there was something in the language of the original agreement that prevents them from making changes to our plan without our permission, and since I never went in and made the change they have to keep us on the old plan.

Regardless, I’m happy to have received another at the old service level month, as their Total Access service has been great for us.

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

While their homepage trumpets a four star rating in 2006, WT Direct currently scores a single star on the Bankrate star rating. In case you’re not familiar with this metric, it reflects institutional solvency. The rankings top out at five stars (Superior), and they were rated as “Sound” a year ago, but… Their one star rating means that they’re currently considered to be amongst the “Lowest Rated” banks. At least they’re FDIC insured… You might need it!

So what about the other options out there?

My personal favorite is HSBC Direct. HSBC offers a competitive rate with no fees and no minimum balance, and a pretty good online interface. This is where we keep the vast majority of our liquid savings.

Next up, ING Direct. ING lags behind a bit in terms of interest rates, but has no fees and no minimum balance. They also have a slick online interface, and they really shine when it comes to creating sub-accounts for tracking your money. We used to use ING fairly heavily, but ultimately switched to HSBC for the substantially higher rates. We still have an account there, however, and use the sub-account feature to manage our kids’ bank accounts.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Emigrant Direct. Like HSBC and ING, Emigrant has with no fees and no minimum balance. While their online interface is serviceable, it’s nothing to write home about. Moreover, they lost my trust a little over a year ago when they shut down their web site over a weekend for a planned upgrade and then struggled for a week or two to get back online. As far as I’m concerned, locking people out from accessing their funds (even if it’s unintentional) is the cardinal sin of banking, so they’ve lost our business and we likely won’t be going back. That being said, I do have to admit that I’ve left $10 on deposit there to keep the account open just in case we have a change of heart.

I know there are other options out there, but in this case I’m really only focusing on the new kid on the block as well as those online savings banks with which I have firsthand experience.

So just to summarize:

HSBC Direct – Two thumbs up. Great rate, solid interface.
ING Direct – Less competitive rate, but great for managing multiple subaccounts.
Emigrant Direct – Great rate, serviceable website, but shaky performance in the past.
WT Direct – Excellent rate, high minimum, poor Bankrate.com ratings.

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Last night I noted that Blockbuster is revamping their online movie rental service. In short, they’re cutting back on what their plans offer and/or raising their prices. One thing that they didn’t mention was what would be happening to the monthly, printable free rental coupons. These were particularly valuable because they could be used for game rentals, which are just shy of eight bucks a pop. Curious to know if this was just an oversight, I e-mailed them. Here’s their response:

Thanks for contacting Blockbuster Online Customer Care.

I sincerely apologize if you were affected by the program change. Like all retail businesses, we must periodically review our pricing structure. In introducing a wider range of subscription plans, we considered a number of factors including the number of in-store exchanges on a given account. We’re giving our most frequent renters like yourself the option of either continuing with unlimited in-store exchanges at a higher price point or moving to a plan where the number of in-store exchanges is fixed if you’d like to continue with the same rate. Unfortunately, eCoupons are no longer available on all plans.

We feel we are still delivering a great consumer value and encourage you to continue your membership by selecting one of the new plans we offer. You can find the details of what is available via “My Account” in the “Subscription Plan” area. Please remember that if you do not select one of the new plans we have to offer before your next regular billing date, we will not be automatically renewing your membership. Thank you very much for your inquiry.

First off, they start by apologizing if I was affected by the program change? These are wide-sweeping changes that adversely affect all of their customers. Every. Single. One.

Next up, the eCoupons… The wording in their message is a bit strange, as one could intepret it as “the coupons aren’t available on all plans, but they are available on some plans.” Unfortuantely, that’s not the case. The eCoupons are now a thing of the past. Even if spring for the extra 40% to keep the old-style unlimited Total Access plan, you’ll lose the eCoupons.

Finally, their initial e-mail stated clearly that we would be automatically switched to the new $17.99/month plan with 5 in-store exchanges (i.e., same price, but less than “Total” Access). But in this followup message, they state that they “will not be automatically renewing” our membership if we don’t go in and select a new plan. Assuming this to be true, an awful lot of people have been misled by the original announcement, and I’m guessing that this will result in the non-renewal of an awful lot of accounts. Nice move.

If you’re a current customer and want to stick around beyond the end of the month, it might be a good idea to swing by and pick a plan just to be on the safe, even if it’s the $17.99/month plan that was originally described as the default selection for non-respondents.

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Just a few minutes ago I received an e-mail from Blockbuster regarding changes to their online movie rental service. Up to this point, we’ve been receiving their Total Access service for $17.99/month. That includes unlimited online rentals (3 at-a-time) as well as unlimited in-store exchanges — i.e., if you turn your movie in at a local store, they’ll immediately ship you a new one plus give you a free in-store rental.

All in all, we’ve been very happy with our Total Access service. There have, however, been rumblings of an impending price increase, and tonight that became reality.

At the $17.99/month price point, they’ve replaced the old Total Access plan with a 3 at-a-time unlimited online plan that’s capped at five free in-store exchanges. They’re also offering $1.99 in-store rentals for Total Access customers that want more movies per month. Note that this new $17.99 plan is the default. If you do nothing, you will automatically switch to this plan at the end of August.

If you want to retain the ability to make unlimited in-store exchanges, you’ll have to pony up $24.99/month for the 3 at-a-time plan (that’s a whopping 39% price increase), or drop down to a 2 at-a-time plan for $21.99/month. This amounts to a 22% price increase for a lesser service!

For those that are curious, this is a screenshot of the full pricing grid…

All in all, I’d have to say that the new $17.99/month plan remains the best value in all of this. You still get 3 at-a-time online rentals along 5 in-store exchanges. While it’s not quite as generous as it used to be, that’s exactly 5 more in-store exchanges than you’d get with Netflix. Granted, this plan costs $2/month more than the Netflix 3 at-a-time plan (free trial), but those 5 in-store exchanges are wellworth it in my book. And don’t forget, dropping the movie at the store shaves a couple of days off your next online rental, as they ship that out as soon as your movie is scanned in. Oh, and if you go over the allotment of 5 free in-store rentals per month, you’d have to rent 3.5 more movies at $1.99/each before you’d hit the price of the 3 at-a-time plan unlimited in-store exchanges.

The main thing that remains unclear in all of this is what will happen to the free monthly rental coupons. Up until now, they’ve given out a printable monthly coupon good for one free movie or video game rental. This has been huge for us, as we purchased a Nintendo Wii this past spring and have been using the monthly coupons to test out new games. Without the coupon, game rentals run nearly $8/each. For now, I’m assuming that they’ll be dropping the coupons, as there’s no mention of them anywhere on the pricing grid. If so, that’s a pretty major blow to what used to be a fantastic deal.

All in all, we’ll probably stick it out. Given the size of our family and the disparate movie tastes between grownups and kids, the added flexibility of being able to swap out movies in a local store has been great. We haven’t once regretted dropping Netflix in favor of Blockbuster Total Access.

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Well, looky here… It seems that Money Magazine has finally stepped into the 21st Century and is now fully embracing online banks. That’s right, in a recent article, they state that:

“Online-only banks have finally come of age. It may be time to leave the corner branch behind.”

They then go on to list the following four advantages of online banks…

(1) Yields. Given that many brick and mortar banks are paying almost nothing in interest, the 5-10X higher rates that can be found online certainly are attractive. In fact, even amongst online banks, there are some disparities. Click through to see my list of online savings account interest rates.

(2) Convenience. With the advent of online-only checking accounts, such as ING Direct’s Electric Orange, you can now easily access your funds via ATM or electronic check. And guess what? Many online banks reimburse ATM fees (to a point). To be honest, I’ve never felt that electronic transfers were an inconvenience. In fact, to this day, we just transfer funds to our local checking account whenever we to access our money.

(3) Service. As they say in the article, “With an online bank, the only thing you’re giving up is the opportunity to sit with someone in a poorly decorated cubicle.” Amen to that. I’m a total do-it-yourselfer, so I’m happy to have a self-service interface. In the rare instances that I need it, there’s always phone and/or online support.

(4) Control. This is so very true. It’s incredibly easy to switch from one online bank to another in the event that rates change. In fact, you can do it while sitting on your couch in your underwear eating Cheetos.

What’s funny is that, with the exception of online-only checking accounts, none of these things are particularly new innovations. So what’s the news here? In my opinion, online banking came of age years ago.

As for my favorite online banks, I’d have to go with the following as my top two choices:

» HSBC Direct
This is where we keep a lot of our money. The high APY and convenient (if not particularly flexible) interface make this one of the most competitive options out there.

» ING Direct
We also have an account at ING. While the interest rate is significantly lower, ING is fantastic for managing money in subaccounts. In fact, we have subaccounts set up there for each of our boys, and they love to log in and check on their money.

To be fair, we also have an account with Emigrant Direct. However, after their online “upgrade” debacle of a year ago, I no longer trust them.

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Well, I’ve found yet another reason to be annoyed with TIAA-CREF… Ever since I opened an account with them to hold my 457(b) contributions, I’ve been unable to login to their site from home. I can navigate the site just fine, but it hangs and times out whenever I go to the login screen and submit my username and password. Oddly, this is only a problem at home (connecting over DSL). It works fine from work using the same computer (I have a laptop), and I’ve never had this sort of problem from home with any other site.

To be fair, this is almost certainly not TIAA-CREF’s fault. Rather, it’s likely some sort of odd connection glitch between my ISP and TIAA-CREF’s secure server(s). Anyway, after beating my head against the wall, I came up with an extremely simple solution…

I created a Yodlee account and added my TIAA-CREF account to it. If you’re not familiar with Yodlee, they offer a free online financial “dashboard” called Yodlee Money Center that can be used to aggregate your financial information and display it all in one place.

Guess what? Yodlee can connect to TIAA-CREF just fine, which means that I can now access my transaction data indirectly via Yodlee. Yes, I still need to sort this out with my ISP, but at least I’ve solved the problem in the near-term. So… If you ever have trouble connecting to your financial institution, try accessing your data through Yodlee.

As an amusing aside, Yodlee automatically categorizes transactions when it downloads them. While they correctly guessed that the TIAA-CREF International Equity Index Fund is a “Security,” they listed the CREF Equity Index as “Unknown,” and they categorized the CREF Bond Index as “Groceries.”

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I just ran across an interesting blurb by Asa Fitch in the July issue of Money Magazine about a service called “Bill Me Later.” Apparently an increasing number of e-commerce sites, including WalMart.com, Apple.com, Hotels.com and over 400 others, have begun offering this as an alternative payment option for people that are concerned about online security. Rather than submitting your credit card number, you’ll instead receive a hard copy invoice and you then write a check and mail it in.

Sounds pretty harmless, doesn’t it? Well… The first time you select “Bill Me Later” you’ll be asked for you date of birth and your social security number. Guess what? You’ve just applied for a revolving credit line which comes complete with a 19.99% APR and late fees of up to $39. To be fair, there’s really no other way to set something like this up — if they’re going to send out the product without having received payment in advance, then they’d be fools not to secure it with a credit line.

So how necessary is a service of this sort? Not very… As it turns out, less than 1% of all cases identity theft begin with an online transaction. In fact, far more ID thefts start with stolen mail, so you’re really not protecting yourself if you select “Bill Me Later.” And if you can’t afford to pay for whatever your buying, then you should probably wait until you have the cash on hand before buying instead of relying on “Bill Me Later” as a credit line.

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Did you know that you can make PayPal payments using your cell phone? And I’m not talking here about a fancy-schmancy web-enabled phone, although that would allow you to simply surf on over to PayPal.com. Rather, I’m talking about a run-of-the-mill cell phone. Here’s the deal…

First off, you need to activate your phone. You can then send money to a friend’s phone number or e-mail address simply by sending a text message like this:

send 10 to 2025551414

or simply this:

10 2025551414

or maybe this:

send 10 to name@domain.com

to 729725 (PAYPAL). PayPal will then call or text you to confirm your PIN.

Alternatively, you can call PayPal at 1-800-4PAYPAL (1-800-472-9725) to send money. Thus, you can take advantage of this even if your phone isn’t capable of texting.

Currently, the following U.S. carriers can handle PayPal Mobile for texting:

Alltel
Cinci Bell
Midwest Wireless
Sprint
T-Mobile (regular and pre-paid)
Verizon
Virgin Mobile

While I realize this has been around for a little while, I still thought it was worth mentioning. In fact, this sort of technology (if widely adopted) could revolutionize person-to-person transactions, as you’d be able to effectively pay individuals electronically while out and about.

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After having moved a year ago, we finally got around to closing our old checking account (we had long since drawn the balance down to zero) and updating some of the links to our online savings accounts. In case you’re wondering how to link additional accounts to your Emigrant Direct savings account, wonder no more… I have the answer for you right here.

First, login to your account. Then click on the “Funding” tab and click the “Add Funding Account” button. Once you’ve entered the particulars of your account, click continue. After that, you’ll be instructed to write your Emigrant Direct account number on the memo line of a voided check and mail it to:

EmigrantDirect
Attn: Account Fulfillment
13 Croton Ave.
Ossining, NY 10562

After they receive your check, they’ll make two small deposits in your newly linked account (just like when you set up your initial funding source). Once you’ve confirmed the amounts, you’re good to go. Given that you have to submit a check, I’m guessing you won’t be able to get away with linking a savings account. That’s not really a problem for me, though, because I established links between ING Direct, HSBC Direct, and Emigrant Direct back in the day before they tightened up the linking procedures.

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Linking ING Direct and Emigrant Direct
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I know that I’ve written about this in the past, but I love the Google’s currency converter feature so much that I thought I’d mention it here again. Besides, hardly any of you were reading me two years ago when I first mentioned this.

Anyway, in case you didn’t know, running a Google a search on:

XXX [currency units] in [different currency units]

will return the conversion instead of search results. The example that they give is “3.5 USD in GBP” which, as of this writing, returns an answer 1.7560584 British pounds. You can even do more complex queries, such as converting the price per gallon in U.S. dollars to the price per litre in Indian rupees. Very cool.

Where else could you find out so quickly that 1,000,000 Chinese yuan is equal to 536,049.092 Israeli shekels?

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I just wanted to give a quick shout out to the good folks over at PFBlogs.org… As you may or may not be aware, they run an aggregator of personal finance weblogs from across the world. The site is completely devoid of advertising, and they’re currently tracking over 800 sites. While this might sound like a lot (and it is!), you can slice and dice the content by topic (Personal Finance vs. Real Estate vs. Investing). Moreover, each category also has a list of the most popular recent articles (based on outclicks) so you can get a sense for what’s hot. And of course, you can subscribe to any of these things via RSS. Here’s the link to the most popular personal finance articles (RSS) to get you started.

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As I mentioned a week or so ago, we’ve decided to try out Blockbuster Total Access. While I realize that it’s been just a week, I have to admit that I’m already in love with this service… It started on Sunday, April 1st, when I signed up, put some movies in our queue, and then printed out the once-a-month free rental coupon so I could grab a free movie when I was over near Blockbuster later that day.

On Monday, I received e-mail notification that they were shipping three movies with a projected arrival date of Wednesday. As has always been the case with Netflix, however, they under-promised and over-delivered — the movies arrived the next day. We promptly watched a couple of the movies and then, this past Saturday, dropped them off at our local Blockbuster in return for two free movie rentals. The beauty of this is that we were able to skip the delay from mailing the movies back in, which greatly increases our throughput. Sure enough, the movies shipped out on Monday, even though they hadn’t received the others back at the warehouse yet.

Another thing that I like is having the freedom to pick up an extra kid or grownup movie on a whim depending on what came in the mail that week, the kind of weekend we’re having, and what sort of mood that we’re in. All in all, I’m a happy camper so far, and I’ve now transferred the contents of our queue from Netflix to Blockbuster. We still have a movie or two from Netflix, but will be canceling our membership before the next payment is due.

Anyone else out there care to share their experiences with Blockbuster Total Access?

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Just a quick note to let you know that Raising4Boys bested FiveCentNickel and was crowned the champion of the Money Madness tournament over at FreeMoneyFinance. There were nearly 128 entries from a ton of great websites, “Teaching Kids the Value of a Dollar” somehow managed to defeat them all. Thanks to all who voted, and thanks also to FMF for organizing the tournament.

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Earlier this week I talked about jumping ship from Netflix to Blockbuster Total Access. Then yesterday I received an e-mail that may have driven the final nail into Netflix’s coffin…

While we have a Netflix shipping center just 50 miles from our house, their e-mail specified that our next movie (Wild America; it’s for the kids) would be coming from a center four states away. Their excuse? The movie wasn’t in stock.

What’s strange is that, in the past, their policy has been to simply move to the next movie in your queue when something isn’t in stock. The problem here is that, instead of getting the movie overnight (as per usual), it’s going to take an extra day or two to get here. And since movies typically ship in and out of the same shipping center, it’s going to take an extra day or two to get back. The end result? Fewer rentals. Good for them and bad for us.

Oh well, this makes our decision to switch to Blockbuster Total Access even easier.

Have any of you run into similar problems?

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» Netflix vs. Blockbuster: Which is Best?

We’ve been happy customers of NetFlix for quite some time, but have been recently considering Blockbuster Total Access. We actually tried Blockbuster’s online movie service a couple of years ago and, to be totally honest, we weren’t crazy about their service. At the time, we found it to be slower than Netflix, in part because the DVDs shipped from about 1,000 miles away. But we’ve since moved, and their shipping network has apparently expanded. On top of that, their Total Access plan makes it far more convenient to swap movies. Here’s how it works:

(1) Join Total Access (Free trial!)
(2) Receive movies in the mail
(3) Return movies by mail or to the store
     (a) Return by mail: another movie ships once it’s received
     (b) Return to store: next movie ships immediately and you get a free in-store rental
(4) You also get one free in-store rental coupon/month

The free in-store rentals are in addition to the number of DVDs that you can have out via your online plan, so you can really crank through the movies. While I’ve grown to love the convenience of Netflix, I really like the idea of combining movies-by-mail with the flexibility to pop into a local store.

We’re gonna give it a shot. Have any of you tried them out since they introduced Total Access?

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Blockbuster Total Access Looks Good So Far
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» Another Blockbuster Price Increase

This may be old news to some of you, but I was just going through a stack of unopened mail when I ran across a flyer for ING Direct’s new “Electric Orange” checking account. In short, it’s a fee-free online checking account with a current APY of 3.00% for balances under $50k. This bumps up to 5.05% for balances between $50k-$100k, and 5.30% for greater than $100k.

Of course, a major concern with online accounts is ATM access… In this case, you get free ATM transactions at over 32k locations nationwide via the Allpoint Network. I’ve never heard of Allpoint, but a quick search of their website reveals that there are 119 Allpoint ATMs within 50 miles of my house, and 560 within 100 miles.

The Electric Orange account also offers a MasterCard-branded debit card, free online billpay, and $0 liability for unauthorized purchases. The wording on this latter point is kind of strange; does it only cover fraudulent transactions if they involve a purchase, as opposed to a withdrawal?

If you have an ING Direct savings account, and you’re looking to expand into the realm of checking, the Electric Orange account might be right up your alley. I’m guessing that ING is hoping that the convenience of having checking and savings in one place is enough to offset the fact that their savings rate is at least 0.50% behind that of the competition. In fact, if I was looking for an online checking account, it very well might be.

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