Accounts (ING Direct, SmartyPig, 401K, IRA)

I get paid twice a month, so as a routine I look over all of my accounts twice a month as a way to keep track of them and keep an eye out for anything unapproved going on. Below is the routine I go through.

1. Check the cash accounts i.e. those account that have cash in a brick and motor bank where we have my checking account, my savings account and our joint account. These accounts we use for the bills and budget that we need to pay every month. I really don’t use the savings account as in I don’t extract money from it. That is the account that all of the procedes from selling my books on half.com go into.

2. Check the online statments of all of my credit cards. The majority of them show a zero balance and I am just checking to verify this. I do pay for gas with my discover card as to earn cash back bonus money that we then turn into free rentals at Blockbuster. Credit cards can be like a speeding bullet train and it feels great to be out of the way of it.

3. Check my high yield/ interest savings accounts. These I use for longer term savings as these are funds that it could take up to 3 business days to get to the money. It makes it just out reach to avoid impulse/ unnecesary purchases but close enought that if I really needed the money I could use it. I also earn a higher interest rate on it rather than just keeping it in my bank’s savings account. With ING direct I earn about 3.5% and with E*Trade I earn about 3.0 %. I really like ING direct’s online interface there are multiple layers of security. I have also started to use SmartyPig which is great if you have a specific savings goal in mind. You name the account, fund it, structure monthly automatic deposits based on you total goal amount divided by how many months to reach your structure goal. For example if you want to have saved up for a 3,000.00 computer in 24 months time you will need to put away 125.00 each month. SmartyPig makes it really easy to set up this structure. It also has nice feature where you can let family and friends know about what you are saving for and they can contribute to your fund easily throught the website.

4. I then check up on my retirement accounts. I don’t take money out from these; regardless. I just sock money away there and I try not to get too down about the stocks being down. It is a long term investment. My 401k is down about 6 % and my traditional IRA is down also. Instead of looking at how much I have lost I try to see this as “hey the market is down, I need to buy more.” I stick with index funds so my risk is low.

Diversify, Diversify, Diversify its the best way to weather any storms and also take advantage of some opportunites that come with the calculated risks. No one knows the future; not even those financial account managers. There is no secret to getting rich quickly you have to get rich slowly.