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During my trip a few months ago to New York City, I picked up some "I Heart NY" t-shirts as souvenirs. After some haggling with at one of the hundreds of tourist shops near Times Square (enough so I felt like I didn't have to take the subway ...
Other
Sure, email is great, but there's something uniquely heartwarming about the kind of card that comes in the actual mail — especially for folks who don't hear from us as often as they should, simply because they aren't online.
So we've made it as easy to send snail-mail holiday cards as ...
Stocks
On December 1st, Fidelity Investments made significant reductions to the management fees on the 529 college savings plans that they manage. From this AP article:
Fees on indexed plans will be cut in half, while fees on actively managed and advisor-sold plans will be cut by a third, the ...
Other
Stimulus Plan
If you don't know the name David Swensen, he is an investment manager who is best know for managing Yale Universities huge endowment. What makes him interesting is that even though he does invest in some hedge funds and private equity, he doesn't believe that the common investor ...
Currencies
Wow, December already...
Credit Card Debt
Up until now, I have taken money from credit cards at 0% APR and placed it into online savings accounts, bank CDs, or savings bonds that earn up to 4-5% interest (less recently), and keeping the difference as profit. However, given the ...
Other
You may have gotten a notice from your bank recently stating something like "Effective January 1, 2010 Your Bank will no longer be participating in the FDIC Transaction Account Guarantee Program." Citibank is opting out, along with over 1,000 other banks (complete list).
What is the Transaction ...
Government
FDIC
Citibank
No, I didn't get an iPhone. But I did get an iPod Touch over Thanksgiving weekend. (Hurray for Amazon matching Apple Store Black Friday prices!) I know, I know, as a financial blogger I'm supposed to shun such trendy toys, but it was a gift! ...
Stocks
Personal Finance
Amazon.com
Apple Inc.
Hungarian Telephone and Cable
Restaurant.com is offering a 80% off with the coupon code SAVE, resulting in a $25 "certificate" for just $2. Offer good until end of today, November 30th. I just checked it and it still works:
Despite my initial skepticism about these things, many readers responded that they indeed ...
Other
Kroger and affiliated stores are offering $10 off for every $100 in selected gift cards bought until December 13, 2009. Limit five $10 rewards per household, need to have shopper's card.
Participating stores include City Market, Dillons, Jay C, Food 4 Less, Fred Meyer, Fry's, King Soopers, QFC, ...
Stocks
Kroger
Best Buy
Applebee's
[image credit]
I'm still in a tryptophan coma, but here's a timely mention of the story of the turkey from Nassim Taleb's book The Black Swan which I am (supposed to be) reading. The following excerpt is taken from the transcript of a Charlie Rose interview.
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CHARLIE ROSE: And ...
Other
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Yeah, you read that right. You should make the credit card companies pay for your holiday spending! (You thought I meant something else?) Since they offer juicy incentives to get you to switch to their credit card, take advantage of these loss-leaders and use the money ...
Stocks
I've decided to go without cable TV for at least 6 months from January 1st, 2010. I actually don't mind paying for cable that much, it is simply an entertainment expense and given the overall convenience, not that expensive in my mind (especially if you haggle every so ...
Stocks
Televisa
Amazon.com is offering $3 in free MP3 downloads with the code MP34FREE. No purchase required. See directions and details at this link. It should increase your gift card balance by $3, but the may be restricted to music purchases only. You must redeem the code ...
Stocks
Amazon.com
Amazon Prime, in case you don't know, is a premium service where you get free 2nd-day shipping on most items with no minimum order amount, even if you're just spending $5. Very convenient, especially since not all items qualify for the "Free Super Saver Shipping". The normal ...
Stocks
Amazon.com
I was walking through Costco today and saw that they starting to promote the Costco memberships as gifts for the holidays. I got one last year, and I thought it was a nice, practical gift idea for these frugal times. But hey, why not give them a ...
Stocks
Costco
Still not much action in interest rate land, but here's another update.
Reward Checking Accounts
These are checking accounts, usually through local credit unions, that pay a very high interest rate if you jump through some hoops each month. However, if you make a mistake you'll forfeit ...
Government
Interest Rate
Just a quick note that Sprint conditional call forwarding is now free of charge. This means that Sprint customers can now forward all busy and unanswered phone calls to Google Voice without incurring the previous $.20/minute for conditional call forwarding – normal minutes usage still applies. ...
Stocks
After having some more issues with our 15-year old car, we may be in the market for a new or lightly used car. We were looking at the Honda Fit (the newest gen looks even better than the previous one), and went to a local dealer for a ...
Stocks
Costco
Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK) recent announcement that it was buying railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI) also included a provision for a 50-to-1 stock split of B shares so that smaller shareholders of BNI would be able to be converted to Berkshire shares and avoid capital gains. Warren ...
Stocks
S&P 500
Berkshire Hathaway
Exchange-Traded Funds
CSI 300 Index
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.
Speaking of LendingClub, I saw that they now offer a IRA with no opening fees and no annual maintenance fees. Previously, there was a $250 annual fee. However, it does now require an increased $15,000 minimum opening balance, which essentially restricts it to a ...
