Savings - finally makes cents

Do you know that the number of people saving today has decreased dramatically since the days of the early 1900's? We were actually saving more back then than we are now. Maybe it's because we're just not sure how to do it and do it right. Believe me, I always knew about putting money in the bank, but that's where it kind of stopped. Where do I put it? How does interest work? Won't I be better off if I just stick it in my wallet?? haha

Actually there are places where you can earn a nice return just for putting your money away in an account in a bank. Well there are too many banks, which one do I put it in? Let's go for a quick lesson on Savings.

Savings accounts are offered by most banks for free. You open the account by giving them some basic information, then you are able to deposit your money and they will give you a small amount of interest on the money you deposit. The more you deposit, the more money they will give you in interest. But wait, why does it have to be small? Right now, the interest rates on savings accounts are not very high, they're actually less than 1%.

Wachovia Savings: .15%
Bank of America: .20%
HSBC: .25%
Commerce Bank: .25%
Chase Bank: .40%
Webster Bank: .50%

Hey, it's better than how much you make from sticking it under your mattress! Ok, so maybe there's a better way. There is, it's called online banking, but before you jump to put your money in the highest interest account out there check this money girl's advice.

Many of the online banks are actually just a supplement to the regular banks. Many of the regular ones offer online savings accounts. One you may have seen is HSBC Direct. They're offering 6.00% on all NEW money. Don't miss that word, New money. If you already bank with HSBC, this deal won't pertain to you.

Bottom line: Pretty good deal, but the tiny print is a little scary. The 6% yield is only up until April 30, 2007, after that it will vary (read lower) and you are not allowed to have more than $2,000 in the account. So much for a big return.

Citibank also has one, called Citibank Direct. They offer another higher interest rate at 4.65%. It touts itself as a "no fee" account but only if it is a stand alone account meaning you don't have any other accounts with Citibank. They also say you will get a bonus of $50 if you sign up, but you must be a first time Citibank account holder.

Bottom Line: Nice deal for first time Citibank account holders, but know this rate varies too and may not stay the same.

How about E-Trade? Yes, they have an online savings account too. Problem? They do not have FDIC. This in the short form is insurance that protects your account for up to $100,000. E-Trade has something else that protects the money, but you'd best read the fine print on their program and see if it works for you. Want me to decipher it for you? Let me know and I can help consult with you.

Find out how you can make free money just for opening an account.
Read about my personal picks.
Where do I think you should put your money for a first savings?

Now here's the diamond in the rough, and something I use personally. ING Direct. Yes the orange ball bank. haha This is a bank that is primarily online, although they do have some concrete locations in major cities. ING is easy to set up, you can do it all online. As long as you have an account to transfer money from into this account, you can do it. They offer awesome interest rates and you don't have to worry about being a first time customer to get their great rates. They are a member of the FDIC, so your money is protected. Best yet, their rates have stayed at a higher level than the competitors.

Bottom Line: This is my personal top pick. Here's a special gift from me to you. Since I'm part of ING direct already, if you decide to open an account through ING with an initial deposit of $250 or more, you will receive an extra $25 free into your account, but only if you email me first. You can email me directly at kmoneygirl@gmail.com with your name and the email address that ING should send your special link to so you can receive the free $25. Without that link, you won’t be able to receive the bonus.

The Learning Annex Weekend - Part 2
After such a long day at the Annex on Saturday we were feeling it when we woke up bright and early the next morning! It was pretty cold out, there was even ice on our windshield! So off we drove to the West Side Drive in Manhattan where the Jacob Javitz Center is located. It's so big, it spans a number of blocks and I hear they are planning on expanding it even more!
That Sunday we got there but somehow missed Robert Kiyosaki speaking unfortunately. We did go to some more real estate classes on flipping properties, and rehabbing. Also, we went to a class about the importance of a personal mentor and how we all need someone who can help us in every area of life, not just one. I personally believe that God is the one first and foremost to have as your life mentor but I also think it's a great idea to have role models as long as God is first.
Later on that day we were treated to a lecture by Kim Kiyosaki, nice to get some females in there! She spoke about choosing the type of investing that's right for you. Kim mentioned how one of her friends just wasn't into real estate investing and instead she invested in silver and bought some at the local coin shop. Her education on the topic of commodities training soared because she was in the game, she made an investment and began to self - educate herself on the topic. Another one of her friends decided to invest in coin operated laundromats and she enjoys a healthy profit from that. Kim said she's involved in real estate and just loves it. Recently, she began investing for the first time in commercial real estate and since she was new to it she had her lawyers and accountants giving their opinions and almost handling the deal for her. Well, that really went nowhere and after about 5 months of confusing negotiations, the seller pulled the deal off the table. At this point Kim said to herself, "what am I doing? I know real estate?" and in real estate you never let your attorney nor accountant negotiate deals. They are there to handle the legal issues and the money issues, that's it. All the other negotiating is handled by the buyer, who happened to be Kim in this instance. She found an even better deal that she bid on and took the main role in all the negotiations, everything was handled much quicker and the deal was even better than the other one.
After a few more classes we were feeling pretty tired and ready to go home, so we went off to the parking garage, got our car and drove home, Sunday traffic is pretty light and we were glad for that.
Overall, the whole experience was a really interesting one. I learned a lot and plan on researching many different topics. As Mark from the FIO can attest, I have been asking a lot of questions about real estate! haha. Well if any of you who went to the Annex in NYC in November or any of you are going to a future one and have questions or comments, let me know!

The Learning Annex Weekend

I went to the well advertised in the finance world, "Learning Annex." It was a huge event held at the Jacob Javitz Center in New York City. Imagine this, I had never been in the Javitz Center before this weekend event and I was born in New York!! Crazy I know, but sometimes people who travel to NY see more of the "sights" then those who actually live here. Anyhow, we arrived pretty early that morning as we heard Cramer would be the first speaker bright and early around approximately 8:00 am. We got up to the front where we saw Cramer in person "live" up on stage. (He doesn't look any different from on tv, and that's unusual, they tend to always look pretty different, but not him). He talked to us for about an hour or so telling us the more "interesting" stock information that he's not allowed to talk about on his tv show "Mad Money." Cramer also gave us a number of his best stock picks, blue chips and speculative. In addition, he told us how before he started with all this he was homeless, living in his car and then finally landed a job with Goldman Sachs where the whole investments career began. Now he is super successful with his tv show "Mad Money," his website www.thestreet.com, and his many books.
After Cramer we decided to walk around and check out the other classes. Wow, there were a lot of classes going on everywhere in the Center. We went to listen to James Smith another real estate investment tycoon, who gave us many hints and tips about investing in real estate and of course didn't forget to tell everyone to sign up for his real estate boot camp.
That same day Tony Robbins was also there. He spent over two hours with us, pumping up the audience, had everyone jumping up and down and really working on high energy.
The day was pretty long from a little before 8:00 am all the way to about 7:00 pm, then we had our drive home from the city. There were more people going into the city on a Saturday night than leaving, so traffic wasn't too bad. :-)

Where have I been?

Ok so it's been a few weeks, I apologize for not keeping up with this blog, but I'm back and ready to type. So before this little "vacation" from "The Learning Annex" blog, I was on my way to Ron LeGrand's class on Flipping Real Estate. Well I must say that Ron is one smart man and his story is pretty incredible. He was a car mechanic in a job (Just Over Broke) - yep unfortunately that's what it stands for for most people. Anyhow, he was quite broke and came across a real estate seminar. He decided to go for it and while he failed at first he is now doing quite well and wants to teach others to do the same. Ron showed us how to find old broken down looking homes, buy them under contract, rehab them, then flip them. We went through quite a number of different ideas and he firmly believes that as a house flipper you're not to write big checks, ever. The most that should be put out is $10. So any of my house flippers out there agree or disagree with this? Who out there has been to a real estate boot camp?

Let's Talk

I've been thinking about it, and feel it will be a really good idea for all of us (you know who you are) to actually stay in touch so we can keep the energy flowing. So often we take part in these big events and it's so easy to let the "dream stealers" enter in there and all those good feelings of motivation and inspiration you felt after the event seem to just whither away. I don't want this to happen this time. That is why I spent time in putting together topic specific forums for all of us. So I created them just for us to stay in touch, talk out new ideas, see if any of you would like to partner with each other, and just in general learn from each other. Most likely you found this blog address after we met at the event, so I'm glad you're here. To access the forums for now, please email me and let me know who you are so I can give you the URL. They will be awesome and one of the only ways for all of us to stay in touch since I definitely haven't been able to find any others out there. Look forward to hearing from you!

Doing Flips

I understand the next course I'll be taking is all about flipping houses. In our class with Ron LeGrand he touched on this subject which means you don't actually own the house, but it's more of a flip in paperwork, that can result in some nice profits. I'm excited to learn as much as I can and see what this class speaker has to offer. Have any of you taken classes in flipping houses, or actually done it? I'd love to hear from you.
I'll let you know how the class goes after I take it! lol

Isn't Real Estate Grand?

haha Ron LeGrand that is! Well we went to the class yesterday in New York City and the lecturer was Ron LeGrand. I hadn't heard of him either, but I must say, this man is incredibly smart with everything he knows. Is he telling us absolutely everything about each point and topic he brought up? No, probably not, actually definitely not. To expect to learn everything there is to know about Real Estate or just about any topic for that matter, I'd be hard pressed to find someone that could do that in a matter of 6 hours! He did however go over quite a number of different areas of real estate paying close attention to wholesaling and buying beautiful houses in lease - purchase agreements. He also went over the steps in detail how you are to approach just about any deal telling us the two questions and the way to never pay more than you want to in almost any transaction.
The classroom itself was quite big, could easily hold a few thousand people, but yesterday morning there were probably more like 200 or so people. I have over 20 pages of notes from the class, probably on the high end of page counts than most people, lol I tend to be a note writing machine.
Anyway, if you were there at the class in New York yesterday, November 11th and want to talk about the event, or want to just talk about real estate in general, feel free to post here and let me know!