Three Online Banking Choices

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We are conducting more of our activities online. We meet potential clients online. We meet potential mates online. We make major purchases online. We can even get college degrees online now. Did you know there was something else you could use the Internet do to? Banking. Yes, that’s right you can buy a fly handbag and a Certificate of Deposit right from the comfort of your own computer. The rest of this article will list some online banking options and the pros and cons of each.

ING Direct
ING Direct has many options available to you. You can open a checking account or a savings account. You can also get a mortgage through ING Direct. You can even link your ING Direct account to a Sharebuilder account so you can buy stocks. There are no minimums with an ING Direct account. You also won’t keep getting hit with fees every time you turn around. The only bad part of having an account with ING Direct is that they don’t have their own ATMs. They also don’t have many physical branches. This may be cumbersome if you have a paper check to cash right away and you don’t live near one of their physical branches known as cafes.

Ally Bank
Ally Bank is another good option for a bank account. You can also get auto loans through this bank. Another good thing about banking with Ally is that all checking accounts are eligible for earning interest no matter what the balance is.

American Express
American Express also has an online savings account. What’s great about this account is that you get the same benefits as the people that have American Express cards. Also their interest rate is higher than most of the other online banks. The only drawback here is that it is difficult to retrieve your password if you forget it.

Online banking can be one convenient tool to use, especially with gas prices being as high as they are. I wouldn’t recommend doing all of your banking online. Keep an account at a traditional branch for emergencies.

Filed Under: Save Money

Five Sensible Tips for Creating a Nest Egg

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nest eggWildlife use their nests as a position of protection for their unborn egg. They warm them and check over them until they are prepared to hatch. But this article isn’t about wildlife and what they do with their nests. This article is about you and your financial nest egg. Here are a few guidelines you can use to nurture your future savings.

At some point in time everyone will stop working. When that happens, life still keeps going though and so will your money if you get everything in order and plan right. Don’t think that if you haven’t started putting away money yet that it’s too late – it’s never too late to start setting some finances aside and nurture that until you need it.

The first thing you need to do is figure out a plan and start with that. This will help you have something to reach towards and strive for. Here are some tips to help you with a financial plan.

1. Map out your needs. Not your current financial needs but your future financial needs. However, you will include your monthly bills in this (mortgage, car payments, insurance, utilities, etc). Also include your retirement plan. Do you want to travel or live in a house on the beach or start your own business? Obviously all these things require money so you need to plan out a ballpark figure of how much you’ll need each and every month to do the things you want to do.

2. Financial options. It’s up to you to take the initiative and learn about different financial options. Search the internet, read magazines and books, talk to a financial advisor, join online forums, etc. If you talk to a financial advisor ask all kinds of questions because that’s what they are there for. A few suggested questions you should ask are: what are mutual funds and stocks? Is a traditional IRA better than a Roth IRA? Remember there is no stupid question!

3. Use many different financial options. Now that you are familiar with the different financial options out there, decide which ones are best suited for you. You should use more than one option because remember that old saying ‘it’s never good to put all your eggs in one basket’. It’s definitely true when it comes to your finances. You should spread your money in different places so that you can help it grow. Things to keep in mind when making decisions are: your age, your retirement plans, how old your children are – college funds, etc – and how far away from retirement you are.

4. Minimize. It takes money to invest money so you should look at all areas of your life and see where you can minimize or cut costs so that the money saved can be used to invest for your future. What are ways you can minimize your lifestyle? Here are some examples:

  • cancel cable (pick up Netflix instead)
  • stop smoking
  • stop eating out
  • downsize your home
  • brown bag your lunch
  • cancel gym membership
  • consolidate services
  • and many more

5. Evaluate. When it comes to your investments it’s important to check (and recheck) them so that you know what’s going on. Your portfolio can change based on different circumstances so keep an eye on it regularly and stay on top of new trends/developments.

If you’re nest egg isn’t where you want it to be, use these tips to help you get it to where you want or at least on the right track to building it up. It might not be easy to make all these changes but in the long run it will pay off having given up cable or that gym membership!

Filed Under: Save Money

Four Steps to Investing for Your Future

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InvestingInvesting can seem scary and confusing.  In fact is can be so scary that it becomes easy to avoid investing because it brings up so many uncomfortable feelings.  We know that we should start but find it easier to avoid the issue than to take action.  So how do you get over those feelings and begin investing for your future?
Below is a four step plan for you to eliminate the fear and get started saving for your future.

  1. When you are doing something new it naturally comes with fear.  Without having a good enough reason for starting the new activity you will continue to avoid it.  Instead of hiding discover why you want to build a financially secure future.  Create a detailed vision of exactly what you want from life.  What do you want to do and have?  What does your retirement look like?  Do you want to travel? Spoil your kids and grandkids?  Be able to donate more to charity?  Get specific with what you want to do, the more details the better. Understanding what you want to gain can help you move beyond the initial fear; otherwise the reason for investing is all hypothetical and you have no reason to move beyond that fear.
  2. Once you know what you want, you need to determine exactly what it is going to require financially for you to make this happen.  Let’s say you want to purchase a beach house during retirement.  Research what it would cost to do that today in your desired location, then add on for inflation.  Maybe it is something simpler to figure out such as having $50,000 a year to live off of in retirement.  Whatever your goal is try to put as accurate a dollar amount to it as possible.  (Yet don’t stress about having the perfect number as your life and everything around you will adjust as you grow older.  This is simply an estimate to get you headed the right direction.)
  3. The next step is to figure out exactly how much money you need to save to achieve your goal.  Luckily you don’t have to be a math whiz to figure this out.  There are plenty of good financial calculators on the web.  Simply type in retirement calculator and lots of options will pop up.  One that I like because of its simplicity is the Bankrate retirement nest egg calculator.  It allows you to play with a variety of factors all on one page to figure out how much you need to save!
  4. Now that you know why you want to save and how much you need to save hopefully you are more motivated and ready to get started investing.  The easiest way to get started is to participate in your 401k.  You can start with a small percentage contribution and slowly increase the amount until you reach your desired savings amount.  This allows you to get used to living on less than you make each year and saving more.  If you don’t have access to a 401K you can begin to save with an IRA on your own.  While it is more complicated to get started without the use of a 401K, it is not as hard as you may think and it is worth the extra effort.  For help with detailed step by step help on you can visit the Smart Step How to Invest series designed for beginners that have as little as $25 to $50 a month to get started investing with.

Now that you have overcome the investing fear and are investing, sit back and enjoy watching your dreams become a reality!

Andrea Travillian has loved personal finance from an early age; her first stock purchase was in 6th grade!  Deciding to make a career of it she got her BBA and MBA in finance.  She currently covers personal finance topics including investing, debt and money emotions on her site Take a Smart Step.

Filed Under: Investing
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