Product Review

Fipath Express Rollover Center Product Review

March 6, 2012
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Fipath Express Rollover Center Product Review

IRA and 401(k) both are retirement funds that ensure you have sufficient money when you no longer work. I though this would be a good followup post after yesterday’s post on IRA Vs. 401 (k). Do you know that in 2010, 11 Million 401 (k) to IRA rollover conversions happened? We do not have data published yet for 2011. But, the highlight is that almost twice the number of people should have rolled over had there been enough help and advice available at their finger tips. Financial Literacy in this country is still not enough. There is a lack of concerted effort in educating people on managing personal finances. Recently I have come across FiPath’s Express Rollover Recommendation tool, while researching for IRA Vs 401(k) roll over options. This is perhaps the only tool/help/guide available in the marketplace today that can guide you in your IRA rollover process. If money is sitting in your previous employer’s 401 (k), you would do a ton of good to get it rolled over to IRA, as you will have a freedom of choice. You can micro manage your retirement fund the way you think best suited to you. You will not be limited to a few target date funds, and you will also lower your overall investment costs. Reasons

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Chase Freedom Credit Card Review

February 18, 2012
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Chase Freedom Credit Card Review

This review will be third in series of reviews for products we use. The previous ones were Credit Sesame Review and Yodlee money center review. I have used Chase Freedom credit card for last 5 years. First applied when the solicitation mail came in my mail box. That time card was offering 2% (sometimes more than 2%) return on all spending. 2% cash back was welcome break from my otherwise no-reward secured card from Bank of America. I readily accepted the offer. Till date the card carries 19.23% interest. I am not worried. I never paid a single penny on interest on this card. Rather, the high interest rate is my motivation to payoff full balance every month, to avoid interest payment. Although not any more as attractive as the earlier days my Chase freedom card is still being used. I now learned to take advantage of occasional promotion offers from card issuers to maximize credit card return. It is particularly designed for the people who are interested in earning reward points in return for charging the card against expenditure. It is preferred by many since it enables one to earn 5 % cash back on select items as well as 1% cash back on the others. You

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The Complete Yodlee Money Center Review

January 30, 2012
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The Complete Yodlee Money Center Review

Across many posts I have written about Yodlee being my favorite personal finance tool. I track my net worth using Yodlee, I track my budget and spending through Yodlee money center. Way more than what mint.com offers. I have also experimented with a few other financial accounting tools like quicken online. My main problem with them is I can’t fully trust them.  I covered this suspicion in detail with my Credit Sesame review post. Why I use Yodlee Money Center? There are many reasons, for the sake of keeping this post to a readable length, I will just stick to a few. 1. Money Center has been around for over 10 years. Thus, you can definitely count on the products and services they offer. In fact, it’s a lot older than Mint.com, which has just been released around 2009. With old age comes wisdom and we generally tend to trust the old guy.  Because of its long history, they have developed a fine collection of tools for tracking your personal finance information. 2. Big financial institutions use Yodlee money center tool for giving value added service to their customers in terms of portfolio management. Bank Of America, Fidelity and American Express are customers of

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Real War Of The Reel World: Netflix vs Blockbuster – The Fight Goes On

September 26, 2011
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Real War Of The Reel World: Netflix vs Blockbuster – The Fight Goes On

I got a flyer in my mailbox – a colorful red and blue 3×5 card – declaring, “Goodbye Netflix, Hello Blockbuster.” It’s now Blockbuster’s turn to fight back in the DVD rental wars. Once defeated, Blockbuster got a fresh start when DISH Network bought it (only after its huge debts were written off due to bankruptcy). Powered by DISH Network’s 14 million subscribers and their set-top boxes, Blockbuster’s latest offerings allow you to stream movies and rent DVDs by mail. Blockbuster Movie Pass customers can exchange the DVD received in the mail at Blockbuster stores as well. If you remember, prior to the price hike, Netflix cost the same amount per month as Blockbuster Movie Pass is charging. I can’t help congratulating DISH-Blockbuster folks on their impeccable timing. I am not a fan of DISH Network – do not consider this post an endorsement of the new rental service. But I believe in fair competition. In any industry, a monopoly is bad for the consumers. We are grateful for Blockbuster’s reentrance as Netflix will think twice before increasing their prices further. Ever since Netflix announced its price hike, it has seen a steady customer outflow. Per a quick reference check

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Product Review : Chaikin Power Gauge Stock Rating Widget

August 20, 2011
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I am very excited about a new tool which was given to me to play around and then penning my thought about it. this tool is another weapon in stock investor’s arsenal. So far I have been following stocks through Yahoo finance and Google finance. It’s pain to go through the numerous pages of data on stocks I am interested in. Chaikin power gauge stock widget is a little handy tool to quickly get the buy/sell prediction on any stock. Although I am not an expert to judge Chaikin model of prediction, even knowing that this model is widely accepted in investors’ community but I am, just that, not an investing genius to critique the accuracy. The most important use I could find here is without having to navigate through pages I can now get 100 different stock information right on this small widget. I pulled up ‘KFT’ on the widget, it gave me a neutral rating. While expert opinion and price/volume data gave a buy signal, the Earnings/performance and financial metrics gave a sale signal. I, then verified this rating with Yahoo finance report and I could see that Chaikin and yahoo data are talking the same thing, one

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Its American Express Serve vs PayPal In Digital Payment Landscape

August 3, 2011
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Its American Express Serve vs PayPal In Digital Payment Landscape

Beware people at PayPal, Your dominance in person-to-person payment is now threatened. You now have competitors in Google wallet, visa and AMEX Serve, to name just the major ones. Mobile payment market is expected to grow to $640B by 2014 and big companies are working hard towards grabbing the largest pie of it. Advent of technology coupled with few fresh ideas resulted in mushrooming of start- ups in digital payment landscape. Companies with big fat wallet were quick to notice this opportunity and grabed the most potential ones. American Express grabbed a company called ‘Revolution Money’ and after the amalgamation the product, which went live in March, is called ‘Serve’.  At present PayPal captures the majority share in P2P payment, with nearest rivals not even close to it in terms of revenue. No wonder that the likes of Google, Visa and American Express are trying to enter in this lucrative and fastest growing payment industry. Since its launch, Serve has really grown bigger piggy backing on Amex’s muscle power and brand value. The recent news of serve tying up with Face Book, Patch.com, Foursquare, Sprint and most recently, Verizon wireless is customary to that fact. Why you should one ditch PayPal in favor

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What Credit Sesame Is All About And Why Should You Opt Out

June 21, 2011
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What Credit Sesame Is All About And Why Should You Opt Out

I have heard about this ‘exciting’ new site called ‘Credit Sesame‘, which gives away credit scores for free, every body talks about them. It seems every one is writing a review for it. Has it become a status symbol to write reviews for every credit products in the market? Saying that let me jump in to band wagon and let’s write a review for them, be it my status symbol too I would start by disclosing that neither did I interview any one in credit sesame, nor have I any interest in their business or income. I am a registered user using credit sesame for some time. I liked it so much that in past 30 days I logged on twice, once just after registering, and then again a while ago just before starting with this post. I am not at all being paid by Credit Sesame for writing this review down. And, I don’t think they will pay me a cent after reading what I am going to write. I am always interested to know latest credit score. After hearing about Sesame, checking it out was one of the pending tasks for me. Once started the registration process, within

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Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in this web site are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”