Monday, 6th February 2012.

Posted on Wednesday, 19th October 2011 by Toby Duncan

While the debit fee backlash may be bad for Bank of America, other banks are having a marketing field day. There’s never been a better time for creative jabs at high checking account fees. EverBank is one such bank getting in on the action. Instead of paying an extra $60 per year to BofA, they’re saying, switch to us, and we’ll pay you $60. Just open a Yield Pledge Checking Account by November 30th to qualify.

“Bank of America grabbed the public’s attention when it imposed a monthly $5 debit usage fee,” says EverBank President Frank Trotter. “We’re providing a noticeable incentive for customers to make the effort to switch banks. Instead of losing $60 out of your pocket, you’ll receive $60 from EverBank.” If you’re planning to leave Bank of America, EverBank is definitely one of the better places to go.

$60 reward with no extra fees

Of course, $60 isn’t worth much if your new bank account charges fees. Fortunately, this one doesn’t. EverBank hopes you’ll com

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Tags: Everbank, Everbank Wants
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Posted on Tuesday, 18th October 2011 by Eden Fryett

Pre-qualification is a process you use to determine whether a lender will likely accept you if you would apply for a loan product through the company. The pre-qualification is not the full credit application, but the lender does need to pull your credit to see if any major red flags exist with your credit application. Each pre-qualification requires a credit inquiry on your credit report.

    • You use a pre-qualification when you wish to know whether a lender would seriously consider you for a loan, based on your credit report. While the actual application may later be denied based on other factors not shown on your credit report, such as your financial situation. Pre-qualification are often used for larger loans such as car loans or mortgages, so that you know whether you could go through the entire process without being held up by credit report factors.

    • A credit inquiry is added to your credit report when a company pulls the report.

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Posted on Saturday, 15th October 2011 by Toby Duncan

Questrade, based out of both Vancouver and Toronto, Canada, stands as one of the most popular stock trading agencies in the country.

Their services operate on many national markets, including the American one, which controls much of the world’s economy.  Although their services are extended to anyone, they’re predominately a way for Canadians to tap into the US stock exchange.

Questrade serves as a broker, hooking up potential investors or small investment firms with stocks, bonds, funds and so on.  Their online platform points the consumer in the right direction and helps them assemble their portfolio.

Their website provides the consumer with multiple options, but most importantly it allows easy set up of a new account.  On the front page you can quickly set up and fund an account to be up and ready as soon as possible.

Questrade includes several tutorial services that make the investing process easier and that might help a new trader figure out what to do.  It’s more geared towards those who aren’t necessarily high in the ranking as far as trades go.  But it’s also not necessarily just for newcomers, either.

Before beginning your trading you can go to a particular spot on their webpage that runs through the basic outline with you.  It tells you what you need to be looking for, when you need to be buying, when you need to be selling, and so on, featuring relevant graphs and videos to help through the process.

When you get ready to dive right in the process becomes incredibly simple.  In fact, Questrade prides itself on being not only easy to use but also cheap—in many cases you’re able to buy and sell shares for as low as one cent, which many broker sites don’t accommodate or even allow.

Furthermore, they have implemented several approaches that would minimize the amount of money that goes to the broker, specifically with regards to mutual funds.  They’re on your side when it comes to these types of funds, and they often offer services with a less than 1% commission, which you’d be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.

Because they’re a prominent business they have a high influx of customers which allows them to keep their broker fees down as well.  Because they’re larger, they take a smaller percentage from a larger number of people, allowing them to stay afloat without cutting into what’s your money.

And what’s perhaps their biggest and best feature is their “lightning fast” trades.  Their trading system, which is set up electronically, enables near-instant transactions so that you don’t lose your advantage or buy or sell a stock at the incorrect time.  On top of that you get instant trade verification marking every single transaction so you can keep an accurate log of where your portfolio is heading and where it has been.

Unlike some services you don’t need a huge chunk of change to get investing—you can start for a very small fee (which, essentially, is up to you, based on how much you feel you’re willing to spend).

Reviews of Questrade frequently outline the service’s extremely cheap commission fee, which is extremely favorable to consumers.  However some people complain about the accessibility of the web site.  Complaints range from it overall not being user-friendly to their being glitches, and many people take umbrage with the fact that you need several different passwords to protect your account.

At any rate, Questrade is generally seen as a strong trading source in the Canadian industry, but also in the US as well, since it operates heavily off of the US market.

Tags: Questrade, Questrade Review
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Posted on Thursday, 13th October 2011 by Eden Fryett


For consumers that have been working to repair credit and get finances back into a stable place will still find that applying for a new credit card will likely involve getting a high annual percentage rate despite improved credit.

Creditcards.com’s October 7th survey showed that most new credit card offers come with record high APRs, averaging around 14.97%. This is the highest APR seen since tracking began in 2007.

Credit repair efforts are more important than ever since most lenders and credit card companies are looking for excellent or better consumer scores. Those that maintain decent to good credit scores may still find it difficult to get the best interest rates on personal loans, credit cards, and mortgages. Credit repair allows consumers to up their consumer credit scores in a reasonable period of time if the work is done to correct past credit mistakes.

These credit repair efforts for consumers involves paying all creditor bills on time and not applying for new lines of credit or overextending existing lines of credit. R

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Tags: Credit, Credit Card
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Posted on Thursday, 13th October 2011 by admin

roth iraIt is very important to be thorough with information before making a financial decision. After all it is your hard earned money. This especially applies to your decision when it comes to choosing between Roth IRA and Traditional IRA. For more on how Roth IRA stands out from the traditional IRA, visiting roth-ira.org should not go down as a bad idea.
As far as income requirements are concerned, there are no income restrictions in traditional IRAs to be able to make contributions. The only requirement being that you or your spouse must have earned the income. Where as in Roth IRA, your modified AGI (Adjusted gross income) should be under the limits specified depending upon your tax filing status.

The major difference between Traditional IRA and Roth IRA is with regards the contributions. Read more…

Tags: roth ira
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