Strategies for Life: August 2006

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Online Certificates of Deposit

Did you know that you can buy CD or certificates of deposits online through your broker? I didn't realize this was available until the following happened to me. I don't know if you are as frustrated with stock market as I am. I feel like I have been treading water for at least the last 6 years. I have been saving for college for my kids for a long time only to enjoy about a 4% return on their mutual fund that I invested in. So anyway, I got tired of the performance and I moved their savings into a Schwab account. I figured I could spread the investment out among a bunch of different mutual funds in different market segments, check out my artical on investing in mutual funds.

So I got a good start on investing and I picked out 2 mutual funds and then May of 2006 came and the market started tanking. So I guess I was glad that I didn't invest all of the transfer money into the stock market. Several months went by and I didn't do anything and the cash was just sitting in the money market. So finally I got online and did some research on the CDs offered by Schwab. I was really excited to find that I could buy CD online through Schwab. This is not an article about Schwab but it was really convenient how they set this up. If you have ever bought a CD through a bank or credit union it is sort of a pain. You have to actually go to the bank and sign a small contract. Since I don't go to the bank very often this is not convenient.

Anyway, with the Schwab account you simply goto their website and select the rate and durations that are available and you buy the CD online. You can buy CD with maturity rates as short as 1 month. I bought a CD with a 2 month maturity rate of 5.3% on an annual basis. I was really impressed with the ease of this transaction and the fact that I could buy such a short duration so my investments could earn at least a decent return while I was waiting to figure out what to do with them.

Final thought do me a favor. If you enjoyed this post or any of my other posts why not subscribe to my Strategies for Life Blog? Again it is free, free is good right? Just click here.

Tags: investing, retirement, get rich

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Sunday, August 20, 2006

Making money online with affiliate programs

Maybe you don't have your own product or service to sell but you are still interested in making money online through the internet. One of the best ways to do this is through and affiliate program. I also like placing ads with Google Adsense as well.

What is an Affiliate Program? An affiliate program allows you to act a an agent for the participating companies. For example, Walmart is one of my affiates. If you click on the ads that if have placed on my sites and end up buying something from Walmart I would get paid. Dell is also one of my affiliates, the same goes for Dell.

Below are two examples of affiliate program ads that you can try.

If you would like to enroll in Linkshare's affiliate program or Chitika click on the ad below to enroll.

How do I find the right Affiliate Program? The easiest way to find an affiliate program is to go to either Commission Junction or LinkShare. I have been a member of both Linkshare and Commission Junction. I am also a member of Amazon.coms affiliate program. I prefer Amazon and Linkshare because every time I join Commission Junction they kick me out because I have not produced revenue fast enough.

Final thought do me a favor. If you enjoyed this post or any of my other posts why not subscribe to my Strategies for Life Blog? Again it is free, free is good right? Just click here.

Tags: investing, retirement, get rich

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Saturday, August 05, 2006

Websites that save you money

I am always looking for ways to save money, reduce gas cost, get cheaper loans, invest more wisely. So I decides to put together a resource page on some of the interesting websites that I have found that help you save money.

The first site is Coupons.com. It is a pretty cool site that lets you search through the available coupons ranging from $1 to $2 off some items. Some of the items even have rebates that make them free after rebate.

Another is Freebiesshack.com this site is one of the Internet's leading web sites where you can get great samples of free stuff used by Americans on a daily basis. Basically you sign up on line and you receive that samples in the mail. I have tried it yet, but I would be interested in your opionion if you have.

I also like the Sundaysaver.com. This site allows you too lookup the weekly sale ads from most major stores. It is pretty handy if you don't get the Sunday paper or if you already pitched the paper and need to look something up.

Two other sites that allow you to do comparison shopping are Bizrate.com and PriceGrabber.com. The neat part about these websites is that they do the work for you. You done have to go to a zillion different sites to do your comparison shopping.

Final thought do me a favor. If you enjoyed this post or any of my other posts why not subscribe to my Strategies for Life Blog? Again it is free, free is good right? Just click here.

Tags: investing, retirement, get rich

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