Money Walks

So today I decided to take a look at my Money Market account, which I usually try to check only once a month, and saw that the interest rate went from 5.30% to 4.90%. I was surprised that my initial reaction wasn’t disappointment but rather quite passive. There was a point in time where I used to think that every one hundredth of a percent counted and mattered and that I would find the best money market account accordingly. But the truth is, unless you have a nice amount of money, say a million dollars, it really doesn’t matter too much.

I think people who are new to finance and just started saving have this same problem just as I did. People are always looking to get the highest percentage rate on their interest, but the thing is, the percentage rate really doesn’t matter unless you’re dealing with substantial amount of money. Instead of concentrating on trying to find an account that offers a percent higher than the current one you’re considering, you should put that energy into concentrating on how to stay saving for more than 3 months. Most Americans fall short on their savings goals, I don’t have a percentage rate to offer you but I’m sure its quite high. The personal savings rate in the United States is a negative number, but majority of Americans think of themselves as people who “always look for ways to save money“.

So back to the money market account, lets do a quick example to demonstrate what I’m talking about.

For the sake of my story, lets use my interest rate(in case you were wondering, my account is with Gmacbank) at 4.90%, which used to be at 5.30%. We’ll say account 1 has $5,000 and account 2 has $500,000. Lets crunch some numbers.

Account 1($5,000):
In one year, at 4.90%, this would make $245/year ($20.42/month).
Now at 5.30%, we get $265/year ($22.08/month).
So not a huge difference eh? Just 20 more bucks a year or $1.66 a month. I somehow doubt I’ll even notice this small difference. Now account 2 on the other hand…

Account 2($500,000):
In one year with 4.90%, this account would make $24,500/year ($2,041.66/month).
At 5.30%, this account would be $26,500/year ($2,208.33/month).
Now in this case, the difference is quite notable. This account dropping by as little as .4% makes a difference of $2,000/year and $166.67. If I was in this case, my reaction most probably would have been quite different than that of today.

The point I’m trying to make is don’t worry about the percentages now and focus more on getting our accounts to $500,000. Lets continue saving and worry about the minor details later. Chances are, you don’t have $500,000 so percentage rate is not going to help you become rich, well at least not now. The idea of saving on the other hand is a complete different story.

Quick note: If you are looking for a place to put your money into for savings and also concerned with not having to worry about commitment, then you should really consider looking into getting a money market account. I strongly suggest going with Gmacbank. I’m not saying this because they’re paying me or anything like that but just from my personal experience, they really have it well together. They are really helpful each time I call and all my calls end with the feeling of satisfaction. For more information, you can go here.

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Today I just opened up a Money Market Savings account with GMAC Bank. It’s great because it’s just like a checkings account with a super high interest rate. I mean why not make some interest while my money sits in my checkings account right? So my plan is to make this new account my primary checkings account and also as well as my savings account.

Here are some Benefits of the account:

• The interest rate for this money market account is currently going for 5.30 %, which is fairly high.
• The minimum opening deposit is only $50.00
• FDIC-insured up to $100,000
• I get my atm fees reimbursed up to $6.00.
• Just like a checkings account, I get a check card and a check book.
• No monthly fee as long as the monthly average balance is over $500.00.
• Interests are compounded daily.

Some of the negatives:

• It’s an online banking firm so that means I can’t go into a physical branch for assistance.
• I’m limited to only 6 electronic transactions per statement cycle (ATM withdraws and electronic transfers.
• Along with many other money market accounts, the interest rates are not fixed.

Those are the main negatives I can think of at the top of my head. If you know of any other, please feel free to comment.

So I’m really excited about this account. It’s neat to think that I can move all my money from my checkings account and savings account and now make interest on it. My old savings account was going for something like %1 - %2 percent so its an upgrade from it. For my first deposit amount, I tranfered $1,000 from my savings account to this account and eventually I will move all my money from checkings and savings to here. I’m hoping to have $5,000 - $6,000 in this account by the end of the summer.

Scenario: So you’ve got a nice stash of cash just laying around and you want them to be put to work. You also figured that you didn’t want to be too aggressive buy investing directly in stocks and at the same time you don’t want to invest in long term either so that rules out mutual/index funds.

So then you ask, “should I put my money in a CD or a Money Market”?

Good question. In order to make the right decision, you have to define your goals and needs. Getting it wrong the first time is all it takes for it to cost you the big bucks so you want to make sure that you do your homework first.

For those who do not know, Certificate of Deposit or simply CD, are debt instruments issued by banks and other financial institutions to investors. In exchange for lending the institution money for a predetermined length of time, the investor is paid a set rate of interest.

While on the other hand, Money Market offers many of the same benefits as CD’s but with the added features of a checking account. As far as the interest rates go, they are fairly close. Last I checked, CD’s were running at 4.90% and Money Market at 4.80%.

Here are a short Pros and Cons of Money Market and CD’s.

Money Market:

Pros: Depositing money in a money market is as easy as depositing cash into a savings or checking account. Cash is immediately available for alternative investments so you’re a lot more flexible with Money Market.

Cons: Money Market’s interest rate is not fixed. The rate of interest is directly proportional to the investor’s level of deposited assets, not to maturity as is the case with certificates of deposit. Hence, money markets are disproportionately beneficial to wealthier investors.

Certificate of Deposit (CD):

Pros: The investor can calculate his expected earnings at the outset of the investment since the interest rate is fixed. Certificates of deposited are FDIC insured for up to $100,000 and offer an easy solution for the elderly who desire only to maintain their capital for the remainder of their life.

Cons: Not as flexible as Money Market and will be penalized for withdrawing before it reaches maturity. If the investor opts for a longer maturity and, thus, higher rate of interest, he will lose access to his funds and forgo alternative uses of his capital.

Final Analysis: So if you are absolutely certain that you will not be needing that $10,000 for the next year or so, then I say go for the CD, but if you are not sure, then Money Market is the way to go.

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As many of you know, the importance of investing is crucial. Since investment is tied with time, it’s also obvious that the sooner you start your investment portfolio, the better and bigger your outcome.

Today we’re going to look at the individual retirement account, or also known as the IRA. In short,  IRA is an personal, tax-advantaged retirement plan. An employed person can contribute earned income into an IRA account up to $4,000 per year if you’re younger than the age of 50 and $5,000 if you’re over. In 2008 this amount will increase by a thousand dollars. If you need some more information on IRA accounts, you can get more details here.

Although there are more than just two types of IRA accounts, I want to just pick on Traditional and Roth today.

So how do you know what account is best for you?

If you compare a Traditional IRA with a Roth IRA, a Traditional IRA may be a better move for you than a Roth IRA if you:

• Don’t qualify for a Roth because of your income level but still want the tax deferral on earnings in a Traditional IRA.
• Believe that income tax will decrease in the future.
• Expect to be in a lower tax bracket during retirement.
• Qualify for a tax-deductible IRA contribution.

Now, if you compare a Roth IRA with a Traditional IRA, a Roth IRA may be a better choice than Traditional if you:

• Anticipate remaining in your current tax bracket after your retirement.
• Believe that income tax will increase in the future.
• Expect that when you retire, you will be in a higher tax bracket.
• Have income below the MAGI limit for a Roth IRA, but still too high to qualify for a deductible Traditional IRA.

Even though you may have an idea on what kind of account you’re interested in, its always a good idea to ask your personal finance advisor and seek their opinion. From personal experience, they always seem to have some useful information.

Time, more than money, can help you achieve your life goals.

If you have a future in mind, whether it’s a home, starting a family, going to college, or building a nice nest egg, the main problem of achieving your goal is that money is tight and hard to come by.

The best tool you could use to help achieve that goal is time. It doesn’t take that much,  but just good time management and a simple plan which you can stick to. When is the best time to start investing? The sooner the better.

There are certain circumstances in which you might want to wait before starting to invest. An example would be, say you have a credit card debt of 5,000 and your interest rate is over 12%. In this case, it’s probably a smarter move to pay off your credit first before starting to invest because you don’t want to be losing 12+% each month from your debt.

Otherwise, the sooner you start the better. You don’t even need a lot of money to invest. You can start with as little as $20, $50 or more a month.

The more you save, the more you will have. The more you have, the harder your money will work for you.

Start now while time is on your side. The younger you are the more time your investment has to potentially grow. What is why it is important to start investing as soon as possible.

Lets do a recap of your possible future investment lineup:

Say you invest $100 a month at an 10% return.

1 year —- -$1,320.00 ($120.00+)

5 years  —-$8,058.73 ($2,058.73+)

10 years —$21,037.40 ($9037.40+)

15 years—$41,939.68 ($23939.68+)

20 years—$75,603.00 ($51603.00+)

In twenty years, you can turn $24,000 into a little over $75,000. And this is just with $10o a month. The sooner you start, the longer you have to let it grow.

When is the best time to start investing?

I’d say today is looking pretty good.

One of the most important life lessons you can teach your kids is to develop successful money management habits  and  a sense of financial responsibility. When it comes to teaching your kids about money, the sooner they learn the better.

1. Help your child understand the value of saving money.  Here is where you start showing them the importance and the  benefits of saving money. This can be done with a simple but balanced form of an allowance. While they are young, giving them small amount of money will help them prepare for the future when the amount becomes larger.
2. Discuss the privileges and pitfalls of owning a credit card.  Show that credit cards can be a very powerful tool which could help you dramatically with your finances and also in return, how you could misuse a credit card and how much that could affect your life.
3. Give your teen ‘real world’ experience with money and budgeting. Instead of buying their yearly school clothes yourself, give them a set amount and let them decide what they need and what they don’t need. Emphasis that that is all they are getting so chose wisely.
4. Teach your child how to track spending. Get them in the habit of tracking their spending by either getting a notebook or a creating a simple excel spreadsheet on your computer.
5. Cover the basics of investing. It’s never too early to start explaining the general overviews of investing. The earlier you start, the better they’re equipped when it’s actually time for them to start investing.