My wife’s cell phone finally died and we called up our provider to see what options we had to get an replacement. Unfortunately, any new phone would require a new two year contract and to add misery to injury, her old plan would no longer be available and the new plan would go up $10/month…
Month: November 2006
Almost Opened a Zecco Account
I have been researching brokers to open a new “arbitrage” brokerage account as an experiment on my fairly successful ETF covered call trades. I’m planning on executing a few covered calls on ETFs to gain at least an 8% return on my money over a 60 to 90 day peroid. The biggest bite out of…
Closed Down HSBC Retail Card
I wrote about my HSBC fiasco on Monday and while that situation hasn’t been resolved yet, I’ve decided that I don’t want to take any chances with my HSBC Retail Credit Card.  Last year I purchased an LCD TV on a 0% APR for 18 months credit card offered by a retail store. It turns…
Closed Down INGDirect Account
I wrote yesterday that I was doing some house cleaning on various financial accounts. One of the accounts I closed down was my ING Direct account. Over the past year, ING simply hasn’t kept up with HSBC’s or Emigrant’s yields and I didn’t see any point to leaving the account open. I’m also leaning towards…
Warning about HSBC
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been reviewing all my accounts, closing down some unused accounts and updating the balances on all my credit card accounts. I was shocked this weekend to learn that my 12 month 0% APR HSBC Credit Card account began charging interest ($100) right in the middle of my 12…
Happy Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving! As a special holiday treat, I ran the ETF-Cashinator™ last night and posted the results over at http://www.etfcoveredcalls.com.  Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving Holiday.
It’s not Spend Less Than You Earn, it’s Make More Than You Spend
I wasn’t completely satisfied with my earlier post today. Something kept bothering me about the whole “spend less than you earn” mantra and I couldn’t put my finger on it until now. As long as inflation exists the cost of everything will always go up, you will ALWAYS need to spend more no matter what…
Save! Save! Save! But don’t forget to increase your income!
I’m always amused by advertisements claiming 50% off or 75% off of a product with a strong proclamation that you will SAVE money! You can easily save 110% by not shopping at all; you get to keep 100% savings of not shopping and you save another 10% in gas, vehicle maintenance, tolls, parking and other…
What’s in Your 401k? Getting Rich Slow
I’ve written extensively about my disdain for mutual funds and the ONLY time I would recommend investing in mutual funds is when you’re a captive investor. When are you a captive investor? When you work for a living and your company has a 401k plan then you’re pretty much a captive investor. My game plan…
The Tortoise and The Hare
Everyone’s heard the story of the tortoise and the hare. The childhood story tries to teach a lesson that slow and steady will always get you to your final destination. While I agree wholeheartedly, you can’t help but appreciate the hare’s quickness and potential for a quick win. If you were a betting person, who…