Good Customer Service Appreciation Day!

Did you know that today is Good Customer Service Appreciation Day? It seems all we ever hear about customer service are negative experiences.  I was listening to John Jantsch interview an author the other day and heard an interesting comment; many times people will talk badly about a company that they’ve never even been a customer of simply because they heard “negative buzz” about it from someone else.

I had some great customer service last week so I decided to make today Good Customer Service Appreciation Day.  Check out my good experiences and be sure to leave yours in the comments below.

eBay Express

We needed a rather expensive baby related item last week and needed it in a hurry.  I bought it on eBay for $100 cheaper than at Baby’s R Us and asked the seller how much I could pay to have it rushed to us.  Here was her immediate response:

I dropped your item off at Fedex this evening, tracking should be available on-line within a few hours. I bumped up the delivery time for you without cost, it was only $6 dollars more and should be to you by Friday morning according to Fedex. thanks again for your purchase and congratulations!

Not only did she save us $100 bucks, she rushed it to us at no extra cost.  It doesn’t get much better than that!

Covista Communications

Due to some credit card fraud, we were issued a new card several months ago.  Apparently Covista had our old card number on file and hadn’t been able to bill us since February.  I got an automated phone call letting me know our bill was past due and giving me a phone number & website I could use to settle our bill.  I got the phone number from the Covista website and had a customer service person on the phone immediately, no holding.

I explained to her my situation and she setup my new card right away and in a very pleasant manner.  Unlike the terse responses I’ve become accustomed to getting from customer service reps, this lady was pleasant and helpful. She didn’t sound irritated that I was calling or put off by my questions and was very gracious on the phone.

She didn’t charge me any late fees and when I asked her to help me with another question she didn’t put me on hold or transfer me to another department. 

Within minutes of discovering I had a billing problem, the issue was pleasantly resolved, and I was off the phone and moving on with my life.  It was by far the best customer service I’ve had on the phone for a very long time.

Share your good customer service stories below.

Posted on June 8th, 2009 in Other | 2 Comments

Written by Ben Edwards · Filed Under Other 

Lemonade Stand Money Lessons

Lemonade stands are a lot of work for little kids and aren’t that lucrative but they can be a great way to help them learn the value of a dollar.  This weekend we ran across some neighborhood kids just as they were closing down their lemonade stand for the day.

Excited to get one last customer they gave us their best sales pitch; which was basically a few cute kids with hopeful faces asking us if we wanted to buy some lemonade.  I was with my mom, who’s a sucker for kids selling anything, so there wasn’t even a question as to whether we’d buy anything.  As the cash and lemonade exchanged hands I asked what they were going to do with the money.

The oldest girl replied, “probably just spend it on something”.  Of course my money antennae shot up and I asked them how long they’d been out there.  The boy responded, “we’ve been selling it all day and I made $7 bucks”! 

Knowing it probably wouldn’t have any effect, I decided to try and plant some money seeds anyhow.  I asked, “Since you had to work hard all day for it, why don’t you keep the money until you find something cool you really want to buy”?

The boy answered, “yeah, that’s probably what I’ll do but she’ll just spend it all.  She likes to just buy stuff”. Rather than fight a losing battle with the girl, I just followed up with the boy.  “So what are you saving for”, I asked.  “I don’t know”, he said, “just something neat”.

By that time, my son had finished his lemonade and was ready for us to continue our walk so the attempted money lesson ended there.  Who knows if my suggestion will help them remember how they had to slave away all day in the sun when they’re tempted to spend their money.  Even if the lemonade kids didn’t learn from our little conversation, I certainly took something away from our meeting that night… I’ll encourage our son to run a lemonade stand or some similar endeavor when he gets old enough and hopefully it wil help him learn the value of a dollar.

Marvelous Money Tips

Here are a few of the money stories I enjoyed this week. From the Money Writers:

Around the Web

Mentions

Posted on June 7th, 2009 in Personal Finance | Comments Off on Lemonade Stand Money Lessons

Written by Ben Edwards · Filed Under Personal Finance 

Morningstar for Mutual Fund Research

Morningstar Mutual Fund Research

Morningstar is a good place for mutual fund research that offers investors more information than simply fund performance. Morningstar is known for its unbiased reporting and analysis and it has a tremendous amount of free information available. It does have a premium service that offers fund analyst reports and portfolio analysis tools but everything we’ll talk about today is available for free.

Mutual Fund Research

Important questions to ask about a mutual fund you’re researching are:

  • What is the objective of the fund?
  • What does the fund invest in?
  • What is the Morningstar rating?
  • How old is the fund?
  • How long has the portfolio manager run the fund?
  • What are the expenses of the fund?

To research a mutual fund on Morningstar simply type in the name or ticker symbol of the fund in the Quotes box on the Morningstar site and you’ll be taken to the fund snapshot page. Almost all of the questions listed above can be answered on the fund snapshot page, the rest are just one click away by drilling down from the snapshot page for more detail.

Fund Objective – Mutual funds are listed by their investment style and are also categorized by their investment objective. If, after answering the above questions, an investor has found that they are an aggressive investor, they do not want to invest in a mutual fund that focuses on short term government bonds.

Investment Category – Mutual funds are categorized by the investments they use and where these investments are located. U.S. corporate short-term fixed income funds are different than Pacific Rim technology funds. Many of the most popular funds fall into the category of US Large Cap, which means the fund invests in American companies with large capitalization. These companies are the household names you hear every day.

Morningstar Rating – Morningstar uses a five star rating system where they compare each fund to its peers. They compare apples to apples and not oranges. This helps the individual investor compare funds that are the same category and objective.

Life of Fund/Portfolio Manager Tenure – Past history is all that is available to compare investments. An investor will want to make sure there is a legitimate track record and that the same portfolio manager has run the fund over that period. A five year timeframe is usually a long enough length of time to make any judgments.

Expense Ratio – The more expensive it is to run the fund, the higher the expense ratio. The higher the expense ratio, the more it affects the performance of the fund. A fund that has 3.00% in expenses will have its performance diminished compared to one with lower expenses.

Hopefully answering all of these questions will have helped you narrow your list of mutual funds down to a small handful and now you can look at fund performance to help make your decision. That decision however, is never final. It’s really importance to keep track of the investments and any changes to them. If you don’t have the time or resources to do that, you may want to think about hiring someone to do it for you.

Trying to absorb and process all the information may be a little overwhelming but don’t get discouraged, remember this research is helping you financially prepare for your future. Researching the potential mutual funds is a vital step in investing your money; hopefully this overview will help you feel a little more prepared for the process.

To learn more about the research options available via Morningstar – Click Here.

Posted on June 6th, 2009 in Investing, Mutual Funds | Comments Off on Morningstar for Mutual Fund Research

Written by Victor · Filed Under Investing, Mutual Funds 

The Best Mutual Funds for Your Money

The best mutual funds is a common headline in many financial magazines, followed by a list of the top mutual funds by performance or the best mutual funds of the year.  While these lists of investments can be helpful when trying to put together a portfolio on your own; one of the biggest mistakes you can make is picking an investment of any kind before you do any due diligence.

This investing research pertains not just to mutual funds but also stocks, bonds, ETFs, etc.  It involves not only researching the investment but more importantly, honest research of yourself. We’ve all seen over the past year the disastrous results an investment decision can have if not properly researched and based on good information.

The following questions need to be answered before you ever type in a ticker symbol on a website or flips through the performance section of Barron’s Magazine:

  • What is my time frame?
  • What is my risk tolerance?
  • What is my objective?

Investing Time Frame

The difference between someone who is saving money to buy a house in 18 months, compared to another who is looking to use the funds for retirement 20 years away changes how an investment should be made. The general standard in the financial industry is that 5 years is considered long term. This timeframe is usually a suitable length of time to ride out any fluctuations in the market. The shorter the time frame from 5 years, the more conservative the investment should be.

Risk Tolerance

This tends to be the most difficult question an individual has to answer. The two biggest enemies to investing are fear and greed, and the both rear their ugly heads when trying to decide what will keep an investor awake at night. It is very easy to say someone is an aggressive investor when the stock market is up 30% in one year. The more important question is “how would you feel if that same investment was down 20% the next year?”

Investing Objective

Is the goal to put money in an investment and let it grow for 20 years or are income the priority? Could it be a combination of the two? Maybe capital preservation is what’s important?

Mutual Fund Research

Once you’ve answered these questions about yourself, you can begin to search for a mutual fund. Be careful where you look for information; there is so much “white noise” and advertising out there, it can be difficult to get an objective opinion.

A person also wants to make sure they are choosing a fund for the right reasons. There’s a saying in the financial industry…”Yesterday’s winners are tomorrow’s losers.” Just because a mutual fund was up 19% last year, it does not mean it is the right investment for everybody. Past performance should actually be one of the last reasons to choose a fund.

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at a resource you can use to find not just investment performance data, but a lot more mutual fund information to help you choose the best mutual funds for your money – Morningstar

Posted on June 5th, 2009 in Investing, Mutual Funds | 1 Comment

Written by Victor · Filed Under Investing, Mutual Funds 

Summer Money – Graduations, Weddings, & Investing

May was our first month as a two kid family and was a busy time. Our little baby girl isn’t sleeping through the night yet but we’re starting to get her figured out.  We’ve been through some late nights and LOTS of crying but in spite of that we’ve continued to publish articles on the site every day.

This has only been possible thanks to our amazing contributors Erik, Victor, Kristie, and Mike. I don’t have all of their profiles published on the site yet but I just wanted to say thanks to all of the great information they’ve provided over the last month!  Here are the main things we covered.

College Graduates

May is the month of college graduation, when thousands of students turned adults are released out into the world to start making their mark. Erik, Mike, and Kristie helped put together some articles to help college grads with their money:

Marriage and Money

Summer is wedding season so we decided to touch a little on money and marriage.  Kristie offered some tips for newlyweds on managaing debt and credit scores:

Money and Markets

The stock market looks a little more promising this summer than it has for a while now, Victor contributed some articles to help us understand more about the markets and our money:

Victor has more investing articles to come in the next week or so.  He’ll talk about selecting mutual funds, technical analysis, and day trading vs long term investing. Be sure to sign up for free updates to get these delivered when they’re published.

Video Case Studies

I’m going to be running a series of video case studies for newsletter subscribers on different ways you can make extra money.  The first one is 95% ready and I’ll be sending it out in the next few days. You can sign up for the newsletter for free below:

Posted on June 4th, 2009 in Personal Finance | 3 Comments

Written by Ben Edwards · Filed Under Personal Finance 

Stock Dividends 101

When doing research on an individual stock, one important thing to look at is if it pays dividends. These are payments that a company makes to its investors on its outstanding shares. These dividends are paid out on both common and preferred shares. Due to the structure of preferred stock, those shares must be paid before any dividends are paid to common shareholders.

Dividends come out of the profits of a company. When that company takes the profits and puts it back into the research and development or expansion of the organization, it is called “retained earnings.” When the profits are passed through to the shareholders, this is called a dividend. Generally, dividends are paid in cash, but a “stock dividend” is also possible.

Dividend Policy
Dividends are usually paid out on a quarterly basis. The board of directors for each company sets the “dividend policy.” They can increase, decrease or eliminate it altogether based on the health of the company. The board of directors are the only ones that can set or change the policy.

If a company sells part of a portion of the organization and receives a lump sum in cash, it may choose to issue some or all of this cash in the form of a special dividend. These are rare occurrences that involve a substantial amount of money.

Important Dividend Dates

Declaration Date – This is the date the board of directors announces it will pay out a dividend.

Ex-Dividend Date – This is the last trading day to buy shares and be considered a shareholder of record when the dividend is paid. For example, if the Ex-Dividend Date is May 15th, someone who buys shares on May 16th will not be eligible to receive that dividend payment.

Record Date – Shareholders must properly register their shares by this date in order to receive the dividend (this is all automated now, and is handled by the brokerage firm you use).

Payment Date – The date the dividend payment is made.

Taxation of Dividends

For the 2009 tax year, the maximum tax rate on “qualified dividends” is 15%. This rate is 0% for those whose taxable income falls below the 25% tax bracket. A “qualified dividend” is one in which the investor “must have held the stock for more than 60 days during the 121-day period that begins 60 days before the ex-dividend date,” as the IRS explains in Publication 550. In English, you must have owned the stock for at least 60 days before ex-dividend. If the dividend is not qualified, it is taxed as ordinary income.

Dividend Yield

The Dividend Yield is possibly the most important piece. To calculate this number, divide the total dividend payout for the year by the current share price. For example, if the annual dividend is $1 per share and the price of the stock is $50, the dividend yield would be 2%. The higher the dividend yield, the better, especially in situations where the stock price is coming down. The yield helps offset some of the loss in value.

There will be situations in which a company has an incredibly high dividend yield. This is not necessarily a good thing. The stock may be taking a serious hit due to some bad news, such as an earnings miss or the loss of a big contract. Chances are, the board will make adjustments to that dividend in the near future.

Posted on June 4th, 2009 in Investing, Stocks | 6 Comments

Written by Victor · Filed Under Investing, Stocks 

Affordable Apartments for College Graduates

Once you graduate from college, finding an affordable apartment that suits your financial needs and budget is essential to properly starting off your working life. Finding the right apartment can be a daunting task, so here are some tips to help you pick the right apartment to fit your budget.

Calculate Your Rent Budget

Generally, one-fourth of your take home pay is a safe estimate for the rent price range you should be looking for when renting an apartment or house. If you find that all of the apartments or houses you are looking at exceed 35% of your take home pay, consider living with a roommate or looking in a cheaper area. Although roommates can be annoying, one good thing about splitting the rent is that it can help you save up an emergency fund and pay off college debt faster.

Know Your Apartment Needs

Doing your research before you start looking for an apartment is vital to finding an affordable and safe apartment. Don’t compromise safety for cheaper rent if you can help it, sites like rent.com and apartments.com can give you a feel for the average rent prices in an area.

Take a close look at what features are most important to you. Is two bathrooms more important to you than amenities such as a pool and a clubhouse? Would you rather have a washer and dryer than upgraded kitchen appliances? With the power of the internet, doing your own research is much easier than ever before.

I typically don’t recommend using a rental finder agency, many of them will charge a finders fee for work you can do on your own. Of course if you are relocating to an unfamiliar city, especially an enormous one like moving to New York City, then it might be beneficial to use a rental agency.

Knowing what features you want in a particular area is essential before you start looking at places. Remember, landlords and leasing agents are sales people, so they will do what they can to make their rental seem like the perfect place for you, that’s why you need to know what you want. Then, you control the situation, not the agent.

Finding Affordable Housing

Craigslist. It is now flooded with many commercial apartment complexes, but you can still find independent landlords soliciting their rental properties for lower prices.

The outskirts of the city. If you are willing to commute a little bit to work, more family oriented areas will offer lower rent prices. The hip, young area of town will typically ask for the highest rent prices.

Mother-in-law suites. Some homeowners build these suites on their property to house family members to take care of them. These suites become vacant from time to time and many homeowners take advantage of the space by offering to rent it out. These apartments are hard to find, but they sometimes offer great deals on price.

Saving Money on Apartments

Negotiate the rent down. This can be an option if you do some research and find that the landlord is having problems renting out the apartment.

Offer services for lower rent. I know many people who get cheaper rent because they offer to mow the lawn, make maintenance repairs, or offer professional services to the landlord.

Look for new complexes. Many new complexes will offer rent promotions to fill up all of their units. Avoid amenity rich complexes since you will be paying for the developers cost to maintain the property and the common areas.

Housing costs will probably always be your biggest fixed monthly cost throughout your life, so stop focusing on how many lattes you are drinking. Saving money on your rent could result in thousands of dollars in savings per year!

 This post on finding affordable apartments for college grads is part of a series on personal finance for college graduates.  Some of the other topics covered include auto insurance for grads, budgeting, health insurance after college, buying renters insurance, and credit card tips for grads.

Posted on June 3rd, 2009 in College, Erik, Real Estate | 2 Comments

Written by Erik · Filed Under College, Erik, Real Estate 

Renters Insurance for College Graduates

Renter’s insurance may seem like an unnecessary cost when money is tight and you’re working to pay off your college bills. However, if you can get a few renters insurance quotes online you’ll see that the insurance isn’t that expensive and can provide you with some much needed protection.

Do You Need Renters Insurance?

As a recent graduate, you might think you don’t have that many things to insure.  Compared to older, more established people you probably don’t have a ton of stuff but you did have to spend money to furnish your apartment.

You likely brought a few things with you from school like your electronics, CD’s or DVD’s, MP3 players, a cell phone, maybe a computer.  You also probably built up a wardrobe of clothes and maybe various accessories over the last few years.

If you take a look around your apartment and make a list of all the things in it, you’ll probably realize you’ve accumulated enough that you couldn’t afford to replace everything if it was all lost at once.

Why Renters Insurance?

The main idea behind renter’s insurance – or any other kind of insurance – is to be able to replace losses that you would not be able to replace otherwise. In other words, if you have a fire, or a theft, the insurance company would provide you with repayment for some of those losses.  Many people assume that their landlord’s insurance is all they need but typically this insures the building but not the belongings inside of it.

An apartment fire causing smoke or water damage, theft or vandalism, or even a natural disaster such as a tornado or earthquake are all things that can unexpectedly ruin your possesions. Renter’s insurance can provide coverage for these events and help limit your losses.

Renter’s insurance can also protect you if someone gets hurt while visiting. If they are in your apartment or rented home, their medical needs may be covered under such circumstances. It can also protect you in the event of a lawsuit (liability).

What Does Renters Insurance Cover?

Basically, renter’s insurance enables your possessions to be covered on either a depreciation basis or a replacement basis. Replacement basis is the best because it will actually give you a new equivalent – even if it costs more, and the price of a replacement basis policy typically isn’t that much higher. You will have a deductible, of course, but still, your assets are protected against total loss.

In order to have the best protection of your possessions in a rented space, you will need to have an accurate record of them. This means either a photograph or a video, in which you walk through your apartment and then talk about everything you have on it. This photographic record will need to be kept somewhere safe – and updated when new items are purchased.

One nice feature about renter’s insurance is that it can be quite inexpensive – but can provide a lot of coverage. If purchased, it can also provide you with another place to live if your apartment becomes unlivable due to some catastrophe and repairs or replacement is needed.

Where to Buy Renters Insurance?

Some companies like State Farm and Allstate offer what’s known as a multi-line discount, where they offer a renters insurance discount if you already have your auto policy through them.  You can also get renters insurance quotes online through sites like:

Posted on June 2nd, 2009 in College, Insurance | 2 Comments

Written by Mike · Filed Under College, Insurance 

Penny Stocks: Cheap, But Sometimes You Get What You Pay For

In the world of investing, everybody is looking for the next Microsoft. Who wouldn’t want to find an unknown stock for next to nothing and watch it become the dominant name in its industry? The problem is that, for every Microsoft, there are thousands of other companies that go the way of the 8-track tape player.

A penny stock is a stock in which the price of a share is $5.00 or less. The low stock price may sound enticing, with shares that cheap you may feel you’re getting in on the ground floor, but there are things about many penny stocks that make them risky.

Lack of Information: If you wanted analysis and research on Xerox, you would have no problem finding that information. However, there are very few analysts or even press covering these new small stocks. These companies also have a tendency to not produce financial reports like the larger companies.

One way to combat this issue is to focus on stocks that trade on the premiere exchanges (Nasdaq Small Cap, Nasdaq National & AMEX).

Lack of Liquidity: These small stocks do not have great volume in terms of trading shares. In many cases there is little investor interest.

You want to find a stock that trades at least 20,000 shares a day, but the higher the better.

Too Good to be True: You get that phone call or receive that newsletter in the mail with a stock that “JUST CAN’T LOSE!!!” Oh yes it can and yes it will.

NEVER purchase a stock from a free newsletter or phone tip. These companies receive payments to do this and manipulate traders into a stock to move the price. Before you know it, the price is going in the wrong direction. This is precisely the reason why penny stocks have a bad name and makes it even more difficult to separate the stocks with promise from the rest.

There are good penny stocks out there. You must do your own due diligence on the stock itself and any newsletter/service that recommends it. Many of the good penny stocks are just like their larger counterparts, just smaller in scale. They have solid management, a strong business plan and a great product or service.

As with any other investment, it takes a little work and some education, but the pay off could be exponential.

Posted on June 1st, 2009 in Personal Finance | 2 Comments

Written by Victor · Filed Under Personal Finance 

Credit Card Tips for College Graduates

Applying for and using a credit card during college can help you to start building your credit history. Managing your use of the credit card and making the payments are two keys to building a good credit history that will benefit you in the future. Of course, a credit card is just the beginning when building your credit history but it is a good place to start if you can pay off your balance in full each month.

How to get approved for a card

One factor that goes into credit card approval is having a source of income. Having a job, even if it’s part-time, is one source of income. You may receive money from other sources that you can also include on the credit card application. The bottom line is that credit card companies want to extend credit to consumers who have the ability to repay what they use.

If you don’t have any income, Mom or Dad can also help you get started with you first credit card. See if they are willing to add you as a card user on one of their accounts. The benefits of getting a credit card this way is twofold. First, it provides you with a credit card to use, so it teaches you how to manage your money. Second, it helps you to build your credit so you’ll be able to qualify for other types of loans and credit in the future.

Good credit card options and things to watch out for

If you’ve even perused the credit card possibilities out there, you know that there a myriad of options available. So how do you know which are the best credit cards for a college grad?

No annual fees. The first thing you want to look for in a credit card is one that doesn’t charge an annual fee. While cards with annual fees offer additional benefits, there are plenty of credit card companies that do not require an annual fee for you to have the card. This is an added expense that a recent grad doesn’t need.

Cashback options. Cashback rewards are not as generous as they once were but they can still add up over time with cards like True Earnings American Express or American Express Blue Cash.

Travel rewards. Whether it’s airline credits, hotel rewards, or cash back on gas purchases, look to see what travel rewards the card offers.

0% intro rate. Recent grads have needs such as getting their first apartment outside of college, which may also mean a need for furniture and other housewares. You’re also taking on your first career job so this may mean some new business clothes. If you find a credit card with zero percent interest or a low interest rate at the start of the card like Discover , you can make these purchases with your credit card without paying interest. The key is to not charge more than you can afford to pay off before the intro rate adjusts to its normal (and higher) interest rate.

Annual fees, rewards, and introductory rates are three things to consider when looking for a credit card; you should thoroughly read the terms and conditions before applying for any card.  Remember, introductory rates can be beneficial but they can also be a hindrance. If you don’t pay off the balance before the intro rate runs out the interest rate adjusts to what usually equals double digits—creating payments you can’t afford to make.

Using a credit card helps you to start building your credit history. Using the card responsibly and making your payments on time are two factors in building a good credit history that can benefit you in the future.

Posted on June 1st, 2009 in College, Credit Cards | Comments Off on Credit Card Tips for College Graduates

Written by Kristie · Filed Under College, Credit Cards 


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