Earn Money Over 10 Times In a SINGLE Transaction

BonusThe system is rigged in your favor.  There are multiple ways you can make money when purchasing an item.  If you don’t think so, I am going to walk you through backwards as to how you can make money over 10 times in a single transaction.

Lets say you found an extremely nice fancy camera on Amazon.  You are a camera addict so you don’t use point and shoot cameras, no you want that fancy Nikon camera.

You can simply just pay for this on your debit card and be done with the transaction, get the camera, and be happy with your purchased that you thoroughly researched.  But you are a frugal shopper, and you wouldn’t just pay with a debit card. Continue reading →

Choosing a Broker for the ROTH IRA

QuestionSo, you may have read that I am looking to transfer my wife’s ROTH IRA and I have been looking at options as to where to transfer this to.  So I decided to pull together a few options to compare.  Although there are many brokers, there are a few in particular I wanted to take a closer look at and go through some of the reasons why I may choose a certain broker for the ROTH IRA. Continue reading →

Life Is Short – You Only Live Once

I Fancy-Caram feeling a bit sentimental this evening.  My dad earlier today had “the talk”.  And no, not the one about a guy liking a girl and how babies are made, the talk about the end.  As in what he would like to happen if he were to die.  You see, tomorrow he is going in for a stent operation, a procedure that my Grandmother (his mom), did not survive some 15 or so years ago.

All of this makes me just think about how life is short, that we need to seek the most fulfilling path that we can now.  But the difference lies in trying to find what makes us truly happy.  Will a mountain of possessions, new cars, fancy clothes, or a house make me more happy?  Or would spending more time with our loved ones while we are all still here?

Life is more than items.  Life is more than exotic trips.  More than ever, I realize life is about who you spend it with, not what you spend it on. Continue reading →

Frankly Frugal Finance: Weekender Edition #3

IMAG0067Another week has passed, which crazily means I have been blogging for a full two weeks since my first post was in the middle of a week.  Crazy, huh?  Well previously for articles I liked I was keeping a list and waiting to share those with all of you on here.  Now that I recently signed up for twitter, @FranklyFrugalFI, I have been tweeting the blog posts I enjoy as they come along.  So if you want a sneak peak as to is likely to appear in this article you can cheat and follow me on there.  As always, check out the blogroll for more articles from other fabulous bloggers. Continue reading →

Liebster Nomination x2

  Liebster Nomination x2 4

Liebster

Well this was certainly a surprise, Kirsten at Indebted Mom and No More Waffles both nominated me for the Liebster Award.  So from my understanding, this is kind of like a networking award to promote new bloggers, but hey I’ll take what I can get!  There is no lack of appreciation here, because I am grateful that other bloggers are enjoying what I am doing here.  The problem for me is to find 5 NEW blogs that I follow that appear to have not received this award to-date.

Anyways, I feel that this is a great way to provide more information about myself to my readers as well as connect with other bloggers in the community, so that is why I decided to go ahead and do a post about the award.  With that said, I have 10 questions to cover, so I better get to work! Continue reading →

Should I Transfer my Wife’s ROTH IRA?

QuestionSo back in the fall of 2011 I knew I needed to save more for retirement, I just didn’t know how much and what to do.  So my wife and I setup a ROTH IRA in her name with Edward Jones.  We have made more money than we would have if we sat out of the market, but it is clear that this isn’t the best thing for us going forward (and we have stopped contributing to it in June of this year as my wife just became eligible to contribute to her 401(K)).

What isn’t clear is, when is the right time to EXIT or rollover the Roth?  Here are the facts: Continue reading →

Life Insurance – A Penalty of Debt

GraveYou may have noticed that on my income and expenses  that I pay for Life Insurance.  Its not that I expect to die, but if I did, I don’t wish that my wife or I would be burdened with debts that one salary cannot repay.  Now once our accessible funds passes our debts I would feel safe in cancelling our policy.  This is one of the many ways that past financial decisions can haunt you and even though we pay about $44 a month for the policy, it is $528 every year that can be cut from the budget… eventually.

Now, what do I mean by “accessible funds”?  To me, my accessible fund’s is money in a brokerage account, checking, savings, and contributions or conversions to a ROTH IRA that you can withdraw.  Once these amount exceed the debt levels I will feel safe about cancelling the life insurance policy because I know worst-case scenario that my wife can kill off all debt and be able to get by financially. Continue reading →

Frankly Frugal Finance: Weekender Edition #2

IMAG0067The week went by so quickly, but here is the weekend!  That means it is time for a quick recap of some of this weeks articles around the web.  Now remember, this isn’t all of the articles that I have enjoyed throughout the week (I am going to try to get better at posting them on twitter as I find them), but I usually add the blogger to my blog roll if I like what I read (although I should have been a bit better at saving some links). Continue reading →

July Stock Purchases

So last week I had liquidated my holdings in two different mutual funds, the Fidelity Contrafund and Equity Income Funds freed enough cash that I decided to invest in 4 different companies.  Previously, I already owned positions in Ford (F), International Business Machines (IBM), and Exxon Mobile (XOM).  These previous purchases were more in regards to gut feelings than any in depth research.  I think that the gut-check will still play a part in purchases, but probably only after passing some financial checks in the future.  The current amount in these holding is:

  • 33 Shares of Ford (F) provides $16.50 in annual dividend income
  • 7 Shares of IBM provides $30.80 in annual dividend income
  • 12 Shares of Exxon Mobile (XOM) provides $33.12 in annual dividend income

So my beginning annual dividends totaled to a whopping $80.42!

With that said, here are my four recent stock purchases:
Continue reading →

3% Interest in a Checking Account!?

Yes.  I said 3%.

I know many people complain about the low interest rates in banking these days.  I just feel that people need to know they don’t have to settle if you don’t mind banking online. LMCU, or  Lake Michigan Credit Union (non-affiliated link), offers their members 3% interest on their checking accounts for balances of up to $15,000.

They have a few requirements to earn the 3% interest which include:

  • Direct Deposit
  • Minimum 10 Debit Card Transactions a month
  • 4 Logins a month
  • Receive an eStatement

Now LMCU traditionally offers it’s services to the residents of the lower peninsula of Michigan.  Don’t live in the lower peninsula of Michigan you say?  Well they apparently made a work-around that if you donate a minimum of $5.00 to the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Association of Michigan you can still sign up for an account (they make this possible in the signup process).  So if you don’t mind online banking and feel confident that you can meet these requirements, then the $5.00 investment may be worth while so your cash can actually earn some interest.
Continue reading →