FDIC Insured

Did you know...

Your accounts at your banks that carry FDIC insurance, are insured up to $100,000 and up to $250,000 for an Individual Retirement Account.

$100,000 is each account under different ownership. Example, you've got $100,000 in an individiual account in your name, and another $200,000 in a joint account with your spouse. The individual account is covered and the joint account is ALSO covered up to $100k. To cover more, you can spread your accounts across several banks ( not branches- different banks ) soo if you have $1m in checking you should ideally have 10 seperate accounts at 10 different institutions.

What accounts are included- checking, savings, money markets, and CD's- PS a money market MUTUAL fund is not FDIC insured.

Fannie and Freddie, is this the right time to buy you?

FRE and FNA are down roughly 85% over the past year.

The housing bill just passed the Senate, could this be a good time to buy and make some quick money?

Hmm.

Money Saving Tips for the Weekend

1) Eat at home- enjoy making a meal at home together, add in a cheap bottle of wine ( try to find the best bottle you can for under $10)

2) Walk - try walking to do your errands, visit friends, do your shopping- great excercise and you'll save money on gas!- or try taking your local transportation

3) Before you do your weekend grocery shopping, try visiting this website first http://www.coupons.com/

4) Having the Saturday morning shopping itch? Skip the boring mall, check your local paper for yard sales! Try for ones that are in your neighborhood and walk to them!You can find great stuff for cheap by buying other people's cast offs - Craigs list often posts yard sales as well with desciriptions and pics of what is being sold.

5) Going to see a movie this weekend? Try going to the matinee- often a couple bucks cheaper than the prime times

6) Find the two for ones - my fav. smoothie place, Xtreme Juice, does 2 for 1 smoothies on Sunday, does your fav. place do something like that?

7) Find a fresh market- for my Tampa peeps, Ybor has a great fresh market- the veggies and fruits are about 20% cheaper than store bought, and it supports your local farmers

8) Find a free wine tasting

9) Bill paying time on Sunday? Try the automatic online bill paying- saves you money in stamps, everything gets paid on time ( good to build your credit ), and saves you time. While you are at it, sign up to have all of your mail done Paperless via online delivery- helps the enviroment!

10) Have fun!

Bulls Vs. Bears

No, we aren't talking sports.



On Wall Street, you will often hear the terms bullish or bearish or we are in a bear market vs. a bull market. So what is a bull and bear market?

There are several definitions of a bull and bear market, but rule of thumb a bull market is marked by an increase of 20% and a bear market is marked by a Decrease of 20% or more.

Bull markets are often marked by low unemployment, economic growth, and high consumer confidence; typically a bear market is the opposite- hello today's economy.

Where are we now? Unemployment is rising ( up to 5.5% from under 4.5% in 2007 ), the S&P500 is down YTD 16.32 and is floating around close to the 20% down mark since October, consumer confidence is hitting all time lows, gas and food prices are up, an election year, war in the Middle East and inflation is on a rise- just had its biggest jump since 1991!

But don't run for the hills yet-What does this mean for you Mr. Investor? If you have a long term outlook, then take a breath and relax, don't freak out when you get your June statements. The old addage, buy low, sell high...well, this is the WORST time to be selling, bc then you are actually taking a loss, bc once the market swings back, it will do so quickly and you don't want to be on the sidelines when it does- bc then you will be buying high. If you have any extra money, I would try to put it in the market. There is a lot of value out there right now, and don't worry even if you lose, it will be in the short term.

Love and Money

Most of the time when you read a love poem, hear a love song or watch a romantic movie, money is rarely mentioned. But, I believe money is a driving factor in a relationship. It's not necessarily the amount of money one person does or does not have, it's really how money is managed. Money is not taught in school. Your teacher never sat you down and explained to you how to balance a checkbook, what a mortgage is, why you should save in a 401(k) or even what a mutual fund really is. Mostly everything we learn is from our enviroment- family, friends etc. So, sometimes a person has a great money background and is a "saver" and when a "saver" falls in love with a "spender" ie a person who typically does not have great money background, it can sometimes lead to well, chaos. And it's not necessarily money as a medium, but it can be the catalyst for other deep rooted problems.

My parents got divorced over money. They were married 23 years and then boom, it was done. My perspective from hearing both parents talk about it is this: My mother grew up poor, never really had any financial independence on her own, got married at 18, divorced at 25. met my father, married him and had kids. She worked part time when I was little in the same job she had since she was 18. When my Dad's business was stable enough, she quit to stay home with us kids. Yes, in the beginning she would help with the real estate business. But, it was really my father's business, so she really never has had her own money. So eventually this led to excessive spending out of sheer boredom, in my opinon. My father took this as rejection, he worked hard, wanted to reinvest a lot of his earnings back into the business and became to see my Mom's spending as a rejection of his hard work.

In my own relationship, I strive to not make the same mistakes. My Mother has always taught me to make my own money, don't be dependent on someone else, this is one reason I strive to work so hard at my own career.

My boyfriend knows this is a fear of mine. In the beginning, at times I felt like things were unequal. I am a woman and make more money than my boyfriend. However, he is in a surgery residency so he will eventually make good money, so there is no resentment from him about making less. But, I still felt like things were not equal.. So, we talked about it-we sat down and figured out an agreement on our bills and other expenses and came up with a plan that made us both feel like we were having equal contributions based on the percentage of our incomes. Now, that we've done this, we have zero money issues, which is wonderful. So, to make love and money work- talking about it is most important. Everyone has different views about money, so getting it out in the beginning of your relationship hopefully won't lead to money issues later down the road in our happily ever after :)

Money Matters

I can still remember my first day of finance class at UF. I can't tell you my professors name, but I can tell you that he taught me something that has shaped the direction of my life and my career. He taught me the power of....COMPOUNDING INTEREST. Huh? This amazing math can work for you and it can work against you. He showed me how compounding interest can work AGAINST you when you ( at this time he was addressing us students who just discovered the freedom and dangers of having our own credit cards ) pay only the minimums on credit cards...WOW, I thought. I will NEVER EVER carry balances on a credit card. And to this day I don't. Well, I lie. I carry a balance on a 0% card at Lowe's that I will pay off as soon as it is not 0%. That is okay, and I'll explain why in later blogs. Anyways. Compounding Interest, let me illustrate how dangerous Mr. Compounding Interest can be....
For example, we've got Mr. and Mrs. Like To Have a Good Time. They are new in their marriage and careers. Throughout their college years and early twenties, they have racked up about $10,000 in credit cards on a Visa Card that has an APR of 10% and are paying just above the minimum payment at $100 per month. When does this get paid off?....August of 2028!!! How much interest do they end up putting in the Visa's pocket...$11,590. So their $10,000 of purchases ended up costing more than twice what they paid for it. Change their payment to $250 per month, when does it get paid off...July 2012 and they pay $2,212 of interest...just by increasing to $250 of a monthly payment from $100, they saved $9,378 of interest. When I learned this I thought to myself, "I want to pay $0 in interest", which is why I don't use credit cards. But, if you absolutely have to..increase your payment, stop paying minimums. Think of what you can do with an extra $9,378. ( Invest it, downpayment on a house, go back to school etc. ) Soo...this is why the light bulb went off for me, if you can learn HOW money works, YOU can get money to work for you.