December 2nd, 2008 — , Credit Cards, personal finance from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
This article comes from DR at The Dough Roller, a blog about money management.
With the holiday buying frenzy in full progress, there is no better time than the present for some money saving strategies. One of them is simple, easy, and free–using the right credit card to make holiday purchases. Yes, credit [...]
Online Stores Related Websites - Pimp My Listing #1 -- Blessed with Triplets I am starting a new semi-regular feature. Pimp my listing. I don't yet know at what frequency I will post this feature. These listings will be the best of best extended credit AA-C credit grades and good rates. Most will be larger loans and most will have caught my attention.......
- Signs That Your Teen Needs Money Management Help If you teen went off to college tomorrow, how soon would they call you asking for money? Would they be able to purchase their own groceries by the end of the month? Would they end up moving back into your basement when they cannot afford their apartment any longer? The......
Continue reading → 5 Credit Cards That Will Save You Money On Holiday Purchases
November 25th, 2008 — , credit score, personal finance from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
Mint.com is offering free FICO scores to members. Today is the very last day, so don’t waste any time and go get yours now! I got mine with absolutely no problems. Please note that they provide only your score. If you want your entire credit report, you’ll have to order that seperately.
[...]
Related Websites - Restore Your Fico Score – Part One While obsessing over a FICO score is not a good idea, this is a number that will have a lot of bearing in your life. This number determines whether or not you will be able to get a house, a new credit card, or in many cases, whether or not......
- 6 Easy Tips on Raising Your FICO Score In today’s world, it’s easy to define your self worth by your FICO score. Whether you are trying to buy a house, get more credit or just get back on the right track, a low FICO score can really impact your entire life. However, there are some easy steps that......
Continue reading → Last Day for Free FICO Score on Mint.com
October 15th, 2008 — , Investing, peer to peer lending from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
Today I received an email from Prosper to notify me that they are entering a quiet period, as they register with the proper securities authorities for a secondary lending market. What is a secondary lending market? It is a market where you can buy and sell loans that have already been originated. [...]
Online Stores Continue reading → Prosper to Provide Secondary Lending Market
October 13th, 2008 — , bargain shopping, personal finance from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
A few weeks ago, I spoke about a family trip to the farmer’s market where we managed to buy all of our produce for $20. The cost savings of purchasing from the farmer’s market doesn’t cease to amaze me. This weekend we spent $15 on the following items:
Basket of 7 (small - med [...]
Online Stores Continue reading → $15 Produce Shopping List
October 10th, 2008 — , Economics from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
This morning a friend of mine shared an article titled: AIG borrows 57 percent of government loan. The very first thought that came to my mind was, “I don’t remember hearing anything about AIG ever receiving any government loans.” The article states:
The U.S. government had originally said it would loan AIG, once the [...]
Online Stores Related Websites - 2009 Federal Energy Tax Credits What you may know as the $700 billion dollar bailout is actually called the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Much of this act probably made you feel upset and even alienated. One of the positive things that is coming from this Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, however, is......
- Federal Reserve Notes Coins and Paper Money -> Paper Money: US -> Large Size Notes -> Federal Reserve Notes One of the most interesting collectibles in the field of coins and paper money are federal reserve notes. However, there is quite a bit of confusion out there about what these notes really are.......
Continue reading → Media Does not Understand the Federal Reserve System
October 6th, 2008 — , Economics, stock market from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
On Friday, Congress passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Since its peak on Friday, the Dow has gone down as far as almost 1000 points, or nearly 10%. Asian and European markets tanked on opening Monday and the U.S. markets have followed suit. If you’re confused as to why the [...]
Online Stores Related Websites - Managing Stocks in an Economic Crisis 2008 is showing all of the hallmarks of being a difficult year financially, and for this reason, having control over your cash flow is absolutely vital. Managing stocks in an economic crisis is one of the best possible defenses that you can take during the credit crunch. By monitoring the......
- Staying Solvent in Bad Economic Times Every day, the news about the economy seems to be getting worse and people across the world are concerned that they will be personally affected by the changes. In many cases, they already are when you consider how the cost of living has gone up, gas prices that seem to......
Continue reading → Bailout Passes - Stock Markets Down
October 1st, 2008 — , Economics from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
Last week I asked if democracy will prevail, and earlier this week it did. The Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 was defeated in the House of Representatives by a vote of 225 to 208. Although the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered the largest point loss ever, I was pleased to see that the majority of [...]
Online Stores Related Websites - Federal Reserve Notes Coins and Paper Money -> Paper Money: US -> Large Size Notes -> Federal Reserve Notes One of the most interesting collectibles in the field of coins and paper money are federal reserve notes. However, there is quite a bit of confusion out there about what these notes really are.......
- Bush Plans to Host World Summit to Address the Current Credit Crisis The United States President George Bush recently announced his intention to hold a world summit involving leaders from all around the world in order to discuss the global financial crisis in the near future. What he did say however is that any financial reform should absolutely not come at the......
Continue reading → Democracy Prevails - Round 1
September 26th, 2008 — , Economics from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
Due to massive losses, uncertainty, and loss of confidence, credit markets have seized up and it is becoming more difficult for banks to borrow from each other. Congress is working on putting together a purported $700 billion bailout package to assist firms that are in danger of collapse because they cannot find sources of [...]
Continue reading → Will Democracy Prevail?
September 24th, 2008 — , Debt Management, personal finance from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
When it comes to personal finance, most people are very familiar with the concept of cash flow. They know that their monthly pay represents cash flow in and checks written and automatic draft payments each month are cash flow out. As long as cash flow remains positive (the more positive the better), everything [...]
Online Stores Related Websites - New Loan Funded #5989 -- $2850 in 45 loans A new loan funded this afternoon (#5989 -- PAYING OFF CREDIT CARDS AND HOME IMPROVEMENT -- $22,000 14.55%). I participated via my standing order: High DTI -- NAF. Which is this loan was funded as high debt to income ratio and was a non auto-funding loan. Here is the credit of the......
- Get Your Lending Club Loan Documentation Early For a Few Days of Free Money I was reading about LendingClub loans (I forget where, sorry) and I came across the following statement from Lending Club made to a lender on LC. Our loans expire two weeks after posting. This expiration date is the borrowers actual payment date, however some loans will fund early. Here is......
Continue reading → Improving Cash Flow vs. Accumulating Wealth
September 19th, 2008 — , Investing, stock market from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
Yesterday the SEC and UK’s Financial Services Authority made very drastic moves by disallowing traders from shorting financial stocks. Selling short is the practice of selling shares of securities that are not owned by the seller. Shares are borrowed on margin, sold, and then purchased at a later date. If the price is lower when [...]
Online Stores Related Websites - Managing Stocks in an Economic Crisis 2008 is showing all of the hallmarks of being a difficult year financially, and for this reason, having control over your cash flow is absolutely vital. Managing stocks in an economic crisis is one of the best possible defenses that you can take during the credit crunch. By monitoring the......
Continue reading → Stock Exchanges Curtail Short Selling
September 17th, 2008 — , Economics, Investing, stock market from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
The New York Times has a very interesting interactive graphic that depicts what has happened within the financial sector over the past year. $4 trillion in market capitalization has been lost as the stock prices on financial firms have plummeted since last October. I still believe that the worst is not yet behind us as [...]
Continue reading → Evaporation of $4 Trillion in Under 1 Year
September 16th, 2008 — , Economics, federal funds rate, fomc from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
In the wake of the turmoil in financial markets, the Federal Reserve met yesterday with representatives of the U.S. Treasury, financial services companies and state officials. The Fed took steps to prevent a short-term cash crunch, as interbank rates jumped to more than triple the official rate. They are also discussing measures to prevent a catastrophe [...]
Online Stores Related Websites - Protecting Your Investments In Times of Economic Crisis The United States economy is currently experiencing a serious financial shake up. No one really understands just how deep or how far reaching the damage is going to be, but what we do know is that there is going to be damage, and that we are going to be at......
- Just How Safe is Your Money Right Now? Even after the government took the opportunity to step in and bail out one of our largest insurance companies, the stock market still managed to find a way to completely tank, because many investors were not persuaded that this intervention was going to protect their investments. This is when you......
Continue reading → Another Rate Cut Coming?
September 8th, 2008 — from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were both originally established as government agencies. Years later, each agency became publicly owned corporations and remained that way until this weekend. Today, it was announced that the government will bail them out and the Treasury Department is seizing control of the companies. The financial markets reacted [...]
Online Stores Related Websites - Protecting Your Investments In Times of Economic Crisis The United States economy is currently experiencing a serious financial shake up. No one really understands just how deep or how far reaching the damage is going to be, but what we do know is that there is going to be damage, and that we are going to be at......
Continue reading → Federal Government to Reassume Control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
August 26th, 2008 — , Uncategorized, bargain shopping, personal finance from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
With the recent run-up in fuel prices, you have likely been seeing prices rise in your grocery store too. This weekend, I went with my wife to buy our produce. She first asked me to stop at the ATM to get $20. Going to the ATM is unusual for us in the [...]
Online Stores Continue reading → All Your Produce for $20
August 4th, 2008 — , Investing, Prosper, peer to peer lending from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
I’ve been lending on Prosper for a bit over 7 months now. I’ve seen quite a few loans move in and out of late status. I suppose some borrowers prefer to “optimize their cash flow” by allowing their loan payments to lapse a few days. This is just fine with me, as [...]
Continue reading → Prosper Investing Tips and Testimonial
July 31st, 2008 — , Alternative Income, Uncategorized, enviromax, gas prices from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
A few months ago my neighbor and his dad came over to talk to me for a few minutes. They told me about a great new product to help improve gas mileage. They showed me a small 2-oz. bottle of a product called EnviroMax Plus, which I thought was a sample for me [...]
Online Stores Continue reading → Multilevel Marketing Fuel Additive
July 15th, 2008 — , Economics, gas prices from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
I believe that Bush’s proposal to drill offshore is almost as bad as his proposal to increase ethanol content in gasoline. I see two major problems with his proposal:
It will not help in the short run
In the short term, gas prices will remain high. It takes time and tremendous capital investment to get [...]
Online Stores Related Websites - SF Bay Oil Spill I am deeply saddened by the recent oil spill in the bay when a container ship struck the Bay Bridge. 58,000 gallons of oil were released. With the winds and the tides the oil is as far as Farallon Islands... what a shame. They have been cleaning birds and skimming oil......
- Green Hybrid Electric Vehicles and Toyota Prius Hybrid vehicles are being converted by their owners into vehicles that run purely on electricity. People who drive hybrid vehicles that are easy on gas to begin with are becoming increasingly interested in the idea of converting their vehicles from completely gasoline powered to completely electricity based. Drivers who own......
Continue reading → Why Drilling Offshore is a Bad Idea
June 13th, 2008 — , Investing, stock markets from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
Well, it’s official. Yahoo! has blown the deal with Microsoft. Yesterday afternoon before the official announcement was made, it was obvious that the cat was already out of the bag. Many stories began to break about the deal falling through, and Yahoo! shares dropped over 10%. The stock value had topped [...]
Continue reading → Yahoo! Blows the Deal
June 5th, 2008 — , Prosper, Prosper Day's, Uncategorized from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
The Prosper Days 2008 videos are up on the Prosper website. There is a wealth of information to be gotten from these videos, so be sure to check them out. I was fortunate enough to participate in the Blogger panel. It was an excellent experience and I hope I have the opportunity [...]
Continue reading → Prosper Days 2008 Videos
June 2nd, 2008 — , peer to peer lending from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
TechCrunch has an article about a new p2p student lending site called GreenNote. In addition to facing many of the same challenges that await Fynanz, GreenNote will have additional obstacles to overcome in order to attract investors. Perhaps the biggest challenge is that the interest rate is not set by lender bidding and [...]
Continue reading → Another P2P Student Lender
May 27th, 2008 — , Economics from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
I read a TechCrunch article today about how much it would cost to convert all fuel vehicles into electric vehicles. According to the article, Philip Greenspun calculates it will cost us nothing to convert to electric cars, but I beg to differ. He deduces that for the cost of annual vehicle fuel consumption, [...]
Online Stores Related Websites - Hybrid Yacht Hits the Water The popularity of hybrid cars has been spreading, and as a result, many people have been preaching the benefits of hybrid vehicles for some time now. Hybrid cars like the Prius are well on their way to becoming available as mass market products, but hybrid yachts are not quite there......
- How Efficient Are Heat Pumps Heat pumps come in three varieties: geothermal, electric, and a duel source system. These systems utilize various sources to move heat from various sources into and out of your house. Air source electric heating systems are more energy efficient than the traditional electric heating system. They come in sizes suitable......
Continue reading → Will Converting to Electric Cars Will Cost Us Nothing?
May 5th, 2008 — , Investing, stock markets from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
This weekend Microsoft withdrew their bid to buy out Yahoo! for $31/share. They reportedly look the offer as high as $33/share, but Yahoo! was looking to get $37/share. Now in premarket trading, Yahoo! shares are down over 20% at around $22/share. I think it was a good move on Microsoft’s part. [...]
Online Stores Continue reading → Time for Microsoft to Go Hostile
April 16th, 2008 — , Prosper, peer to peer lending from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
I finally downloaded and tried out Greasemonkey for Firefox extension the other day. I had heard of it before, but never installed it until recently. Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that allows you to manipulate any web page you visit in Firefox. It uses JavaScript code that runs as if it were [...]
Continue reading → Prosper Greasemonkey Script for Firefox
April 10th, 2008 — , Prosper, peer to peer lending from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
As I was writing my Rule of 72 on Prosper article for the official Prosper Blog, I began to think about developing my own ROI calculation based on what I had written. I had attempted creating an ROI calculation once before that was based on actual payments received, but I became frustrated with the [...]
Related Websites - The WealthBoy Strict ROI for Prosper Lenders WealthBoy, whom I met at Prosper Days, has just released The WealthBoy Strict ROI for Prosper Lenders -- an open source, sql based ROI calculation for Prosper Lenders. His calculation makes use of the public and private data files from Prosper. He was inspired by his Prosper Blog post: The Rule......
Continue reading → The WealthBoy Strict ROI for Prosper Lenders
April 9th, 2008 — , Free Money, Uncategorized from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
Earlier this week I came to learn about Revolution Money Exchange. It’s a totally legitimate money transfer website, similar to PayPal but without the fees! There is a daily transfer limit of $1,000, and a monthly transaction limit of $2,500. You can also hold no more than $2,500 in the account. [...]
Online Stores Continue reading → Free Money for You and Me
April 1st, 2008 — , Economics, mortgages, real estate from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
There are many lenders currently under investigation for fraud, perhaps most notably the nation’s largest mortgage lender, Countrywide Financial. Even if Countrywide is found to be guilty of fraud, one company alone (even if it is responsible for 20% of the mortgages in the U.S.) cannot be to blame for the woes of the [...]
Online Stores Related Websites - Fed Cuts Rate 75 Basis Points -- I bought a Zopa US CD at 5.1% I have been stalling. I have said I would try all the P2P lending platforms available to me and up until reading the esteemed bamalucky (I bought a Zopa CD today) I hadn't pulled the trigger on my Zopa investment. While I suspect our reasons for wanting a Zopa CD are......
- Zopa CD Drops to 4.5% A few days ago I wrote about the Zopa CD being the best national cd rate at 5.1% after the federal reserve cut the fed funds rate by 75 basis points. RateLadder locked in the 5.1% rate with a 1 year $500 CD. Alas if you did not take advantage of the......
Continue reading → Who is to Blame for the Credit Crunch?
March 25th, 2008 — , Investing, stock markets from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
Yesterday I saw an interesting poll on Yahoo! Finance that asked, “With the stock market showing renewed strength is it safe to buy?” As of now, the results are as follows:
Yes. We’ve bottomed.
28%
Stocks will trade sideways.
30%
No. This is a head-fake.
42%
64410 Votes to date
It is rare for me to be in the [...]
Online Stores Related Websites - Managing Stocks in an Economic Crisis 2008 is showing all of the hallmarks of being a difficult year financially, and for this reason, having control over your cash flow is absolutely vital. Managing stocks in an economic crisis is one of the best possible defenses that you can take during the credit crunch. By monitoring the......
Continue reading → Is the Worst Behind Us in the Stock Markets?
March 20th, 2008 — , Personal Finance Education from WealthBoy @ Prosper Blog: Prosper, the online marketplace for people-to-people lending
Do you know the rule of 72? If you have an investment earning interest, if you divide 72 by that interest rate, you will know approximately how long it will take for you to double your investment. For example, if you have an investment earning 6% interest, it will take you approximately 12 years to [...]
Online Stores Related Websites - My Lowest Interest Rate Loan is a Payoff in Progress I have to laugh... Early in my use of standing orders I had my best rate for low amt, low DTI, AA borrowers set at 9.40%. (I didn't have any rhyme or reason for 9.4% it just seemed "right".) Sure enough, the very first loan found by my standing order......
Continue reading → The Rule of 72 on Prosper
March 19th, 2008 — , Investing, peer to peer lending from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
Techcrunch has an article today about a new peer-to-peer lender for student loans called Fynanz. According to the lender FAQ, they will guarantee 50-100% of the loan if the borrower defaults. There are a few reasons why I have my doubts that Fynanz will work:
Interest rates on student loans tend to be pretty [...]
Related Websites - Tips for Paying Off Student Loans Right now, the student loan industry is going through one of its worst periods in decades. New Federal regulations have forced many banks to stop offering student loans, and students are being forced to either find a direct loan or start paying back what they owe. Enrollment figures are being......
Continue reading → New Peer-to-peer Lender for Student Loans
March 18th, 2008 — , Investing, stock markets from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
Today Yahoo! announced that they filed an investor presentation which details the company’s three-year financial plan and strategic initiatives. If you ask me, it is simply a meager attempt to raise the stock price so that Yahoo! can justify the denial of Microsoft’s bid to buy them out for $31 a share. It [...]
Online Stores Continue reading → Yahoo! Attempts to Increase Market Value with Investor Presentation
March 17th, 2008 — , Investing, real estate from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
I met with my friend’s wife this weekend to learn more about her thriving real estate business. She helped to confirm what I suspected to be the number one mistake that new investors make: they expect to make good returns by paying “retail” prices for real estate. By “retail” prices, I mean that [...]
Online Stores Related Websites - Debt Decisions If you are thinking about putting into practice debt leveraging in order to start creating more than one stream of income, it can seem like there are thousands of avenues open to you. For those just starting out, this can be very confusing and it is all too easy to......
- Best Reasons to Use Unsecured Loans Prosper is a p2p lending marketplace for unsecured loans. Borrowers can borrow money up to $25,000 via an unsecured 3 year fully amortized note. New lenders recieve a $25 bonus on entering your first loan. The following is a guest post anybody else interested in a guest post should email......
Continue reading → The Number One Mistake that Would-be Real Estate Investors Make
March 12th, 2008 — , Investing, options from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
If you own 100 shares or more in a company that does not pay dividends but that does trade options, you can still receive income from your stock by writing covered calls. When you write a call, you are selling a derivative (financial contract whose value derives from the value of the underlying stock) [...]
Continue reading → Receiving Dividends from Non-Dividend Stocks
March 6th, 2008 — , Debt Management, peer to peer lending from WealthBoy @ WealthBoy
I was talking with a friend that recently purchased his home with an ARM and did 100% financing. With little (or possibly negative equity with home prices dropping), he will certainly have a very difficult time refinancing into a fixed-rate when his rate begins to adjust. As it so happens, his mother-in-law recently [...]
Online Stores Continue reading → Having Trouble Refinancing? Borrow from a Rich Friend or Family Member
January 8th, 2008 — Personal Finance Education, Prosper Lenders from WealthBoy @ Prosper Blog: Prosper, the online marketplace for people-to-people lending
I would like to provide the Prosper community with some of my thoughts on building a profitable lending portfolio. Of course, what such article is complete without mention of diversification? Certainly anyone could tell you that diversifying your portfolio by spreading the risk over multiple investments is a good idea. But how many different loans [...]
Related Websites - WealthBoy and Minimum P2P Loan Diversification WealthBoy is new on the scene and assuming he keeps posting I think he will make a welcome addition to the Prosper community. A couple of days ago, he wrote a guest post for the Prosper Blog: Diversification and Setting Limits. In it, he talks about diversification and the MINIMUM......
Continue reading → Diversification and Setting Limits
