Why Is ACH Slower At Some Places Than Others?
ACH stands for Automated Clearing House. It’s low-cost method to move money from one account to another. When you have payroll direct deposit, it’s done by ACH. When you give your bank account to an insurance company for automatic monthly payments, it’s done by ACH. When you transfer money from a checking account to an online savings account or to a brokerage account, it’s done by ACH. ACH is everywhere.
ACH transfers take longer at some places than others. When I transfer money from Fidelity to my checking account, I see the money the next day. When I do the same from Vanguard, it takes two days. When I do it from E*Trade, it sometimes takes three days. Why is that?
ACH supports both credits and debits. You can ask one institution to move money to another institution (credit, or "push") or you can ask it to get money from another institution (debit, or "pull").
The Origin of Solo 401k
As I wrote in a previous post Rollover IRA to Solo 401k, I rolled over substantially all pre-tax money in my traditional IRA to my solo 401k plan in 2009. My traditional IRA was left with non-deductible contributions plus a little bit of earnings. For 2010, I made another non-deductible contribution before I converted the whole thing to a Roth IRA.
Because the traditional IRA had mostly non-deductible contributions, I will not pay much tax for this conversion. I plan to do the same contribute-then-convert move in 2011 and beyond unless Congress changes the law.
Having a solo 401k made things easy for me. This post is a sidebar about the history of solo 401k.
My Future Is Not a Game
I beat the market in 2009 … in a mock trading game. My return from $100,000 fake cash was +48.6%.
Among more than 100 Vanguard mutual funds, only 5 had a higher return in 2009 than I did in the game.
No Sugar Coating Please: It Was a Lost Decade
Happy New Year! With the first decade in the new millennium having come to the end, there’s a lot of retrospection in the media. What happened? What should’ve happened but didn’t? In the investing world, some say the decade was a “lost decade” and some apologists say how it wasn’t.
I read articles from both camps. I’m not convinced by the contrarians who say it wasn’t a lost decade. Hence the title of this post. Although it’s not the news everybody cheers for, I have to respect the facts. It was a lost decade. Let’s not sugar coat it and say it wasn’t.
As in any other debate, the definition is very important. What is a lost decade, really? I define it as a decade in which risk taking wasn’t rewarded. You took risk, you did what everybody says you are supposed to do, but you have nothing to show for after ten years. That’s a lost decade.
529 Plans: Age-Based Options Don’t Make Sense
A new-born niece came into my extended family recently. I got the task for looking into setting up a college education fund for her.
I know about 529 plans. Every state has at least one plan. Some states have several plans. I quickly identified Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 plan as the best plan for my niece. Her parents live in a state that does not give a tax deduction for 529 plan contributions. They can use a plan offered by any other state. The Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 plan has low cost Vanguard index funds.
Like many other 529 plans, the Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 plan offers age-based investment options. There are actually four age-based options, three of which offer exclusively Vanguard funds. Within the Vanguard age-based options, there are conservative, moderate, and aggressive tracks. Here’s how the middle-of-the-road Vanguard Moderate Age-Based Option will invest:
Conventional Wisdom "Don’t Buy a Distribution" Is Wrong
I mentioned this last year in my post 3 Reminders About Year-End Mutual Fund Distributions. I see the conventional wisdom “don’t buy a distribution” is still going strong. Vanguard reiterated this conventional wisdom in its blog post The record date: Not a tune you can dance to in early December.
But the conventional wisdom is wrong. I patiently waited until I can have a real life example.
After Vanguard published the blog post, Ella posted on the Bogleheads investment forum and asked if she should invest in two ETFs right away or wait until the ex-dividend date. » Read more …
Money Is Fungible
A woman by the name of Melissa called the public radio program Marketplace Money and said her husband had a 50% pay-cut a few months ago. In order to make up for the lost income, she took up teaching part-time at a college. The college just notified her that she’s now eligible to join the college’s retirement plan.
It sounds like a 401(a) money purchase plan. The decision is one-time: if she doesn’t join now, she won’t be able to join later. If she joins, she must contribute 5% of her pay and the college puts in 8%. But, she’s tight in her budget. You can imagine so after her husband’s pay was cut in half. So she asked the radio program if she should join the retirement plan.
Schwab Invest First Visa: Get In Before The Door Closes
I have been using the Schwab Invest First Visa credit card for several months now. It replaces the Fidelity Investment Rewards Visa I used before.
Both cards are issued by FIA Card Services, a subsidiary of Bank of America. The Schwab card pays 2% cash back to a Schwab brokerage account. The Fidelity Visa card pays 2% cash back only after you spend $15,000 in a year (1.5% cash back for the first $15,000). Fidelity also has a 2% cash back card — Fidelity Rewards American Express Card — which is also issued by FIA. More merchants accept Visa than American Express cards.
2% cash back is on everything. No tiers. No special categories. It can’t be any simpler. You also get ShopSafe, the one-time credit card number generator. ShopSafe is not available for the Fidelity American Express card.
WellsTrade: Free Trades With Easy Qualification
This is old news but since it wasn’t included when I gave TFB Awards three years ago I thought I’d mention it now. WellsTrade is an online brokerage service offered by Wells Fargo Investments, LLC. Its most attractive feature is 100 free trades a year.
To qualify for 100 free trades, you only need $25,000 in any combination of banking, brokerage, and credit balances with Wells Fargo (mortgage balance counts at 10%). The brokerage piece is the key. Bank of America also offers free trades but the qualifying balance has to be 100% on the banking side. You can’t use the brokerage balance to qualify.
100 free trades per account include open-end mutual funds in addition to stocks and ETFs. No other brokerage accounts let you buy Vanguard mutual funds for free. Small online broker Zecco offers free trades with $25k balance but the free trades don’t cover open-end mutual funds.
Grace Period and Double-Cycle Billing
Twitter brought my attention to this article on SmartMoney:
It’s another "banks are out there to get you" article. It alleges that some banks are exploiting a loophole in the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 ("CARD Act") for double-cycle billing.
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