Owner: Geek and Cheap URL:http://www.geekandcheap.com Join Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 12:22:21 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: A geek's guide to Money, Investing and Technology. Site statistics:Click here
Online savings accounts are a perfect place for your Emergency Fund 2007-10-18 07:08:26 First off, do you have any kind of emergency fund that you are contributing to in case something happens and you need some cash fast? If not, I hope that you pay special attention to this post and open up an savings account. DO NOT open up a savings account at a normal brick and mortar bank. The interest rates and fees on these accounts are terrible. Often times the fees that you are charged are more than any sort of interest that you might make in any given month. Instead, go online and open up a savings account through one of the growing number of online banks. Do not be afraid, these banks are FDIC insured just like your local bank so you do not have anything to worry about. Some of the more popular online banks are listed below with the rate that their savings accounts are currently paying:
FNBO Direct (First National Bank of Omaha)- 5.05% - No fees, No minimums
EmigrantDirect - 4.75% - No fees, No minimums
ING Direct - 4.30% - No fees, No minimums
(more…) Read more:Emergency
Paying off your mortgage in 7-10 years — too good to be true? 2007-10-17 07:21:58 For fun, I recently went to a “seminar” for a company which advertised that they will help you pay off your mortgage in a significantly reduced amount of time. There are several companies which are touting this “revolutionary” idea. The general gist of this product is that you open up a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) with your bank and you then use it as a checking account to pay down all your bills. These companies then offer a software program that tells you when you need to transfer money between accounts to utilize your money for the longest amount of time possible. They threw around the term “discretionary” income and showed that if an extra $800/month were paid toward the principle, your mortgage would be paid off in no time. What they failed to mention is the fact that you are still paying extra towards your mortgage no matter if you have a HELOC or not. I don’t think the people in the “seminar” realized that if they just set aside some extra money th Read more:mdash
Use Rewards cards to earn extra Cash 2007-10-16 07:31:29 I am not sure if you are like me, but I am tired of the large credit card companies making millions and millions of dollars of interest off of their customers. So, I decided I would only use credit cards for what I could afford and I would pay them off every month. If you are disciplined enough to do this, you should definitely look into some sort of reward card. There are hundreds out there, and a website called Cardweb has a list of some of the most popular.
Two of my personal favorites are the PenFed VISA, and the Costco Trueearnings American Express card. The PenFed VISA gives you 5% cash back on gas purchases and 1.25% cash back on everything else. There are no special restrictions for this card and the cash rewards are awarded to your statement every month which is great. The Penfed Visa also doesn’t have any sort of annual fee. The Costco American Express card is a little different. It gives you 3% cash back on dining out, 2% on travel and 1% on everything else. This card als Read more:Rewards
Cheap VOIP Options 2007-10-15 23:48:23 Over the past few months I have been keeping my eyes out for cheap alternatives to a land line at home. I currently just have a cell phone, but wanted something to use in the early evenings to minimize my cell phone bills. I have been looking at two different VOIP options that are a great deal cheaper than services like Vonage which cost at least $20+/month.
The first is MagicJack which is a nifty device that plugs into your USB port and acts as a phone jack. The device is similar to a USB flash drive but allows you to plug in any type of phone to have telephone service. This device is incredibly inexpensive at $40 which includes the device and an entire year of service. The only reason as to why I haven’t signed up for this yet is because the service does not offer a phone number in my area code as of yet. Apparently they are adding more area codes each week, but I am still waiting on a North Carolina area code.
The second option is a long time player in the industry—Skype Read more:Cheap
, Options
Geek Info 2007-10-15 23:47:44 Hello, everyone! My name is Blair and this is my first attempt at any sort of blog. I am a 26 year old geek who is fascinated with all sorts of investing, computing and saving money. I hope that I can share a few tips that I have picked up and that others can share some insight on emerging technologies, saving money and building wealth.
I’ll give you a little background to help explain how I became interested in this sort of thing. I have been around computers since I was a young kid, and started programming in middle school. In the mid 90’s, I began designing web sites for Duke University and learned a great deal about HTML and graphic design. I then started a landscaping company in 1997 and actually sold it in early 2007. I still do a fair amount of web design work when the opportunity arises. I have always had that entrepreneurial spirit and hope to continue to feed it as I grow older. I am now working with a Real Estate Investment company and trying to begin to invest in some R Read more:Geek
Palm Centro - Sprint’s newest competitor to the Blackberry 2007-10-26 08:01:01 I have been a Blackberry user for the last 2 years and for the most part have nothing but good things to say about it. The only downside to the service is the huge extra monthly fee to use the Blackberry service. With my cell phone provider it cost me $40 extra per month for a sufficient data plan to send and receive email as well as surf the web. That is a LOT of money. So, after my contract expired I have been looking around for a cell phone and plan that would still allow me to receive email and surf the web.
I think I have found the answer. It is Palm’s newest treo-like device, the Centro
.
(more…) Read more:Sprint
, competitor
It’s Almost Halloween — Avoid Financial Horrors! 2007-10-29 20:27:00 It’s AlmostHalloween
!
Something that can be as scary as Halloween’s ghosts and goblins is the
thought of recovering from a disaster for which you were unprepared. If
you have not already, now is the time to learn what steps you can take
to prepare yourself. Financial
Planning - A Guide to Disaster
Preparedness .
If you are recovering from an unexpected crisis, the information in this
guide can help you through the steps you need to take to recover,
Disaster Recovery: A Guide to Financial Issues .
The guides above were developed by the AICPA, Red Cross,
and the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE).
Visit www.FeedthePig.org
<http://www.feedthepig.org> for more money-saving tips. Read more:mdash
, Avoid
, Horrors
A New Twist on Priceline 2008-03-21 22:16:37 I have been a big fan of the popular web site Priceline.com for several years. If you are not familiar with the web site, it allows you to “name your own price” for hotels, flights, rental cars, etc.. I have used their site to book hotels many times and have had moderate success. [...]
Magicjack review 2008-06-15 15:35:12 Several months ago, I posted about a new VOIP technology called magicjack. At the time my local area code was not available and so I decided to hold off on testing it. A few days ago I noticed that my area code had become available and I decided to take advantage of the [...] Read more:review
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