When you’re happy, you can start a happiness virus through your social network, according to a Harvard and UC San Diego study.
So update your Twitter and Facebook status with good things and spread the love!
No conclusive info about when you’re down, although I know that’s as good a people repellant as B.O.
You probably have a few goals on your life list to learn things. A new language? Guitar? Should one of your goals be to learn about investing?
A few years ago I got the religion that if I learned how to maximize return on the money in my savings accounts, I could retire earlier. Duh! I bought Suze Orman’s Nine Steps to Financial Freedom
Who This Post is For: All my friends and anyone else whose IRA or savings are underperforming in CDs, savings accounts, or mutual funds that are providing low returns. And it’s for all the people on SuperViva who want to improve their financial situations.
(Note that I am not a financial expert. I’m sharing my own thoughts and knowledge to give you a nudge.)
FIRST: DO NOT BELIEVE THAT BECAUSE YOU’RE YOUNG IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOUR IRA IS GETTING A LOW RETURN! OK now that I got that out of my system.
Is Most of Your Money In One Institution?If so then don’t hesitate to contact a representative to ask their advice on stable funds that give the best return. At times with all the choices it seems impossible to figure this out yourself. They’ll often know right off the bat!
Play With Online Financial Tools to Help You OptimizeTry Etrade’s Intelligent Cash Optimizer
It’s time I took a new look at Etrade. They have lots of tools to help you, beyond their Intelligent Cash Optimizer which helps you “maximize your uninvested cash by instantly calculating its earning potential.”
MSN MoneyCentral has a mutual fund quiz that might be a good place to start your financial education.
ING’s ShareBuilder offers a portfolio builder tool to help you figure out how to allocate your money.
Compare Top Rated Mutual Funds and Savings AccountsQuestion your savings account or CD!
For example ING Direct has great rates. But I recently discovered a series of funds at Fidelity Investments that ensure you won’t get hit with the AMT tax. The tax equivalent yield on the Fidelity California AMT Tax-Free Money Market Fund
(FSPXX) is 4.9%. This fund has a stable $1 price. However it has a $25,000 minimum.
Fidelity Cash Reserves, which is a $1 fund you can add or withdraw from at any time, currently has a 4.28% 7-day yield, which is taxable.
Don’t let all this talk about these brokerage-oriented companies stop you from exploring good savings deals at traditional banks. Citibank has the “Ultimate Money Account” which has no minimum balance and is FDIC insured - currently returning 4.25%. Check their site for the fine print.
If you’re saving $25K, over a year’s time you’ll save a few more bucks by watching which fund is getting the higher return and moving it. There’s often no penalty for moving your money, but check with your bank.
While Mutual Funds fluctuate with the markets, if you’re saving a chunk of money for the long term it’s worth taking an hour to find funds that can pay off over time. Every bit counts.
US Eastern European (EUROX), which has had a 10 year 22.28% return.
Fidelity Canada Fund - $2500 minimum to invest.
Fidelity Capital Appreciation Fund (FDCAX) - also $2500 minimum
From this link you can search for Morningstar Highly Rated Funds based on your investment goals.
You can also browse funds, and sort the columns based on number of stars. Click the fund name to see the return for different periods.
Even if financial things give you hives, it’s worth reading the blurb about the mutual fund’s objectives. Why I’ve even been known to read about the fund manager!
Move Your Money When It Makes SenseMany financial institutions also let you transfer money between other institutions with no fee.
For example on ING Direct you can set up accounts for online transfer, which is effortless once it’s set up. It’s very likely the bank you primarily bank with also lets you do this.
Also, did you know you can open a Brokerage IRA account? You can trade stocks but will only end up paying tax when you cash out your IRA. If you hone your stock picking stills, playing the stock market as part of an IRA from which you don’t plan to cash out for many years may be less risky than using funds from your savings.
Now Read More About Investing
’s view is that you should only hold a few individual stocks. You should spend an hour per week researching each company for which you have stock. If you can’t do that, you have too many stocks. “>Money management books on AmazonMore links to investment advice sites.
*Well if they can say “past performance is no guarantee of future results” then I can too! Take any advice you read here at your own risk.
Got financial tips? Please share them!
This morning after reading a particular magazine I decided there are TOO much talk and books about happiness
My thesis: People re-evaluate their lives in their 40s and early 50s, and of course the 50th year is a big milestone. But are all of these studies making people less happy?
I found myself on a search for the article about the “most depressing day of the year.” In the great randomness of Google, I came across a page whose navigational links intrigued me: The WoodenBoat Forum > The Bilge > Happiness
My formula for happiness and chasing away mid-January blues: Read the thoughts of a few wooden boat aficionados.
(Note to self: “Let go” of the memory of a certain wooden boat I invested in ending up at the dump. 
After hearing about this I may add a goal to my life list to do something that becomes the feel good story of the week!
(What feel good story to you want to star in?)
The Associated Press reported that two fourth-grade boys in Indiana mimicking a scene from the movie “A Christmas Story” wound up with their tongues stuck to a frozen flagpole…”I decided to try it because I thought all of the TV shows were lies, but turns out I was wrong,” Gavin said.
“The nurse asked them, ‘OK, who double-dog dared who?’” Billie Dempsey said, a reference to a phrase that a character in the movie used to dare another child to stick his tongue to the pole.
Are you an unfortunate soul who has not yet seen A Christmas Story?
Do yourself a favor and rent it from Netflix. Or if you have kids just buy A Christmas Story (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Sean Aiken is on week 43 of his One Week Job project. For one year “any company or individual anywhere in the world can offer me a job for one week. The job can be absolutely anything, anywhere - garbage collection, actor, working the family farm, a suit and tie corporate position.”
Perhaps it’s not too late to offer him a job for one of his remaining weeks!
Sean took a few minutes to answer some questions about his resourceful career finding project that I think is a stroke of brilliance:
What one-week job have you liked best?
“I liked working as a Cancer Fundraiser the best. I really enjoyed working in an environment where you know what you are doing is having a positive impact on those around you.”
Which jobs turned out to be totally different than you would have imagined, had you not actually performed the jobs?
“Advertising Executive, Yoga Instructor, Radio DJ - I always thought that Radio DJ’s just had to show up and talk on the radio for a couple hours and that was it, though I realized how much preparation goes into it.”
Any idea what you’re going to end up doing when the 52 weeks are over?
“After I finish the 52 weeks, I will be writing a book about my experience that will be published in Spring 2009 by Random House. It will be about my journey and all that I learned throughout the year making the transition from College into the professional world.”
Is this helping you plan your whole lifetime, where you might pursue a number of these careers over the years or simultaneously?
“It is helping me plan my career. Though I have realized that I will most likely have many different careers in my life. The career that will make me most happy at the end of 52 weeks, most likely won’t be the same that will make me happy 5 years from now when my life circumstances may have changed.”
Has experiencing all of these different career/life options made you re-evaluate your conception of “working for a living?”
“Yes. They say, find something that you love doing and you will never work a day in your life. Well, my goal is to never work a day in my life.”
