Here are some posts I found useful while reading my fellow financial bloggers and more:

SingleGuyMoney shares some of his rental property issues. Apparently even buying a home warranty from American Home Shield won’t ease all repair headaches, as it doesn’t cover pre-existing problems (even if they were unknown).

PaidTwice shares why she doesn’t care what her house is worth. I agree in that my housing payment is pretty much set for the foreseeable future. If anything, I want prices to go down. Because that means that my friends might be able to afford a house, and then I can perhaps get a good deal on a second property.

Canadian Capitalist shares his notes from the 2007 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report. It’s actually pretty fun to read, although I do admit I usually get bored after a few pages and have to read it in parts.

The Honest Dollar advises us to avoid the recency bias. Seriously. Can we finally admit that we can’t see 3 years ahead? Just a few years ago the “experts” were saying how the economy is so resilient and earnings are solid and blah blah blah. Now it’s all “recession-proof your portfolio!”. Tune out all this noise!! Nowhere in my asset allocation decision process is there a factor of “does the market look gloomy?”

Jim at Blueprint For Financial Prosperity talks about the Airborne class action lawsuit. High school teacher who “got sick a lot” doesn’t make wonder drug? Shocker!

JD of GetRichSlowly points out another reason to be wary of gift cards. If you have some Sharper Image gift cards – congratulations! They’re useless.

A co-worker sent me this Couch-to-5K Running Plan. Seems like a good guide to get off your tush and finish a 5K if you’ve never done one before. If I was clever I’d find some parallels with personal finance.

In case the last 5 free ways to get your credit score weren’t enough, there’s also the free Credit.com Report Card. It is actually a pretty comprehensive analysis, providing:

• Credit Score Range: This provides a hint of your credit score based on the standard FICO range of 300-850. (You have to pay for the specific number… see below)
• Credit Score Grades: School-style grades (A-, C+) of each of the main factors in FICO scores: Payment History, Debt Usage, Credit Age, Account Mix, and Recent Inquiries.
• Actual Credit Report Details: Your address on file, employer data, total accounts, total credit limits, number of inquiries, etc.

Here’s an example screenshot:

I’ve bought my credit report and score before, and this is the kind of information I would find useful anyhow. I don’t care if my score is 728 vs. 732 vs. 721 since slight changes occur all the time. Note that this analysis is based on your data from the TransUnion credit bureau only. You can upgrade to reports from all three credit bureaus plus actual credit scores for $14.95 per month.

This is a bit late in the season, but if you like to ski or snowboard be sure to sign up for the e-mail newsletter by SlidingOnTheCheap.com. They send out a free weekly newsletter that summarizes all of the specials and discounts offered by each of the resorts in most of the major US ski areas: Lake Tahoe, Colorado, Pacific Northwest, New England, Utah, and Southern California. It saves a lot of time versus tracking all of the changes on each of the websites separately. They also give away several free lift tickets each week, and occasionally get their own subscriber-only deals.

It’s always good to stay subscribed year-round because often ski resorts will sell some really cheap season passes early on in the year. For the Lake Tahoe area specifically, you can also bookmark SnowBomb.

Otherwise, if you are willing to take a gamble on buying some employee freebies or lift-ticket credits, you can either keep your eye open at the resort for scalpers or try on your local Craiglist ahead of time (just search “lift tickets”). We recently saved $24 on each of 4 lift tickets this weekend this way.

Here’s a funny yet educational slide show (alternate link) explaining how the subprime mortgage mess was created through some complex financial trickery and well… simple and stupid assumptions. You know, like (1) housing prices always go up and (2) you can always refinance to another loan. There are a few expletives, but I would rate it PG-13.

Thanks to Kirsten who e-mailed it to me. I couldn’t find an author, but it seems to have been first posted online by The Big Picture.

You may have heard that Stanford University is waiving tuition for students with families making less than $100,000 annually. If your family makes less than $60,000, room and board is waived as well. This is not chump change: Annual tuition for Stanford is around $35,000 a year and housing is $11,000 a year.

What was interesting was the last line: Only about a third of students are expected to qualify. According to the 2006 census only 19% of US households made more than $100,000. For the students at Stanford, approximately 67% of families make more than $100,000. Of course, Stanford is in California where the incomes are higher overall. Still, this information makes me want to know the income breakdown of various community, state, and private schools out there. It will also be interesting to see what Stanford’s make-up becomes after this decision comes into effect.

In an ideal world, such things wouldn’t matter, but it’s quite apparent from this move that it does. Many qualified students don’t apply to certain schools due to high costs, and this will help Stanford get more of those kids. Financial aid may bridge the gap with loans, but not everyone wants to leave school with $100,000 in loans.

Reader Kristina from Arizona has a problem. Well, some might not see it as a problem, but here it is:

On December 7, 2007, I had $2,802.00 deposited into my business checking account at Wamu. A chunk of change I must say. I called the bank to ask them about it and said they would put in search and see if there is a match in the system for anyone with missing funds. They told me that it was a counter, CASH deposit made in Georgia. I live in Arizona and have never been to Georgia. The bank said they would call me when they found something.

So a week goes by and I hear nothing. I call the bank again and ask them about it. Still nothing. Then another week goes by. I call the bank a 3rd time and still nothing and tell me they will do another search. I called today and asked them if they could send me a copy of the deposit slip. So they will be sending it out soon.

I really don’t know what I should do. I know the money is not mine, but what if I never caught the deposit in the first place and used that money? Would I get in trouble for using that money that is in MY account?

The bank has made an error. I think the bank should have to fork out the money back to the person who made the deposit and let me keep the money. OK OK maybe that is a little to greedy. But who wouldn’t want some extra money!

It’s been over 2 months and still waiting.

So what I did with the money for now is put it into my IngDirect Savings to earn a little money on it for the time being.

I would love everyones thoughts on this. Please help!

So a bit of ethics, and a bit of legality. My non-lawyer, non-ethicist opinion is this: It was correct to contact them about it, both in terms of ethics and to avoid any future legal hassles. But I would also document that contact somehow, either through a letter, saved e-mail, or signed acknowledgment by a bank employee. Otherwise, I’d probably do what you did. If someone claims it correctly, they can have it, but in the meantime there is nobody to actually give it back to, so I’d keep it.

Any other viewpoints or suggestions for Kristina? Has a similar bank error happened you to you, or perhaps one not in your favor?

A few weeks ago I was reading an article in Money magazine about a couple who retired at 40. While they do live frugally in relatively low-cost St. Louis, the primary reason they were able to retire is that they each served for 20 years in the military and now receive a pension of $58,500 per year. They will receive this amount, adjusted for inflation, for the rest of their lives! On top of that, they get health coverage forever as well.

Obviously there are some important issues involved in working in the military. A sense of national duty, risk of injury and even death, possibly lower pay, and constant relocation, just to name a few. But let’s just focus on the financial aspects here. I knew military pensions were good, but I didn’t know they started as soon as you retired. I figured they’d kick in at 60 or 65, not right away. How much is that pension really worth? How much would a civilian job-jumper have to put away to replicate it?

Converting A Pension To A Lump Sum
A pension income is essentially what is provided by an immediate annuity. You pay a lump sum, and in return you get a constant stream of payments for the rest of your life. According to the quote estimates at ImmediateAnnuities.com, a policy that provides $58,500 of lifetime income per year starting at age 40 is worth a million dollars. This is without inflation adjustments, as I couldn’t find an instant quote for that. There are a ton of different options to these annuities, and there are tax implications to boot, so I’m just giving a ballpark number here. (You can estimate your own lump sum number by multiplying your desired income by 17.)

In addition, I can’t properly estimate how much the lifetime of health insurance is worth, but it has to be worth at least another $100,000-$200,000. The article lists their net worth at about $500,000, but really it is the equivalent of around $1.75 million for someone with no pension. At 40 years old, that is quite impressive.

Converting Lump Sum To Savings Rate
So let’s take an even million dollars. According to this simple savings calculator, if I assume an 5% annualized return on my investments (after-inflation), to end up with a millions dollars, that would be the same as saving $2,500 every single month for 20 years (in today’s dollars).

One way to to look at this is that their pension benefit was like receiving an additional $30,000 per year on top of their previous income. This is not to say this was any easy path and you have to have special resolve to stay for 20 years, which does not sound like an easy task at all.

I haven’t picked up any other great tips since then, so here are my 5 Romantic Yet Money-Saving Ideas For Valentine’s Day that I posted last year. My wife and I both have long days tonight with work and all, so we’re moving it to another day. Tonight it’s just ice cream and the couch. Hope things go smoothly for the rest of y’all!

Instead of simply giving us higher interest rates on savings account, it seems that the big banks are relying on gimmicks to spur account openings. Here are a few. Most involve some convoluted scheme, but they still include the potential for some profit.

Bank of America: Keep The Change

You’ll need a checking account, a savings account, and a check debit card. If you charge say $4.05 on your debit card, $5 is taken from your checking account, but $0.95 is placed in your savings account. During the first three months, they match 100%, which means another 95 cents will be thrown in by BofA at the end of the year, max $250.

Best case scenario, you get 99 cents for charging $1.01 (or even 1 cent). This has led to many people trying various techniques to max out the $250 bonus. Examples: Pumping $1.01 or $2.01 of gas at a time, buying individual stamps from an automated postal machine, paying $1.01 towards your cell phone bill, or using the self-checkout lane at the supermarket and paying for small items you’d buy anyway. You definitely need to be committed to get $250. 🙂

Wachovia Bank: Way2Save

Again, you have a checking account, a special Way2Save savings account, and a check card. For each check card purchase or electronic payment (online billpay or automatic debit), $1 of your own money is moved to the Way2Save account. In addition, you can transfer up to $100 a month from checking to Way2Save. So the amount of money that can be placed into this account is greatly limited.

The special Way2Save account pay 5% APY over the first year, plus an additional 5% bonus at the end of the year. They even have a handy Way2Save calculator to estimate your earnings. (Be sure to compare against a regular 4% savings account.) People might try gaming this by opening multiple accounts, or making lots of electronic transfers.

Washington Mutual Bank: Savings For Success

You’ll need a checking account and a special Savings for Success account. You can open with up to $500. Then set up automatic monthly transfers from your checking to savings (up to $500 per month) for the rest of the year (11 transfers). You cannot make withdrawals during the first year. Your account with earn from 5.50% to 6.50% APY for a year, depending on your state. People also might try opening multiple accounts for this one.

Biggest catch: This program is limited currently to Texas, Illinois, Georgia, and Washington. The rest of us will have to be satisfied with their online-only 4.25% APY savings + checking account combination.

Here are some more links from my weekend reading:

Nina of Queercents found out the hard way that Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOCs) can be revoked! It was done because her property value had dropped significantly, which makes sense. But not only was it through no adverse action of her own, she had to pay closing costs and various other fees upfront. A classic case of heads I win, tails you lose.

NCN of No Credit Needed has been blogging about living without credit and getting out of debt for two years now. You can read virtually all he knows about debt reduction here.

Heard of the debt snowball? Jaimie of PaidTwice explains the related concept of debt snowflakes. Via Get Rich Slowly.

Pinyo of Moolanomy shares an interview with author Larry Swedroe. I’ve actually got two of his books sitting on my desk right now – the newer Wise Investing Made Simple and the classic The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You’ll Ever Need. Too bad all this house-buying stuff is getting in the way of me reading them!

You read it correctly, a new site called NotchUp is trying to replace pricey headhunters by actually paying people hundreds of dollars to interview. The twist is that they are actually looking for people who are already happily employed! From this article at NetworkWorld:

You say you wouldn’t interview with Company X if they paid you?

A startup called NotchUp is betting that’s a bluff.

Debuting this morning at Network World’s DEMO 08 in Palm Desert, Calif., NotchUp founders Jim Ambras and Rob Ellis tell me that 15,000 people a day are signing up for their new eBay-like employment service – based solely on word of mouth. The founders are convinced employers will pay hundreds of dollars directly to people they would like to interview — especially those not actively in the job market — because it will bring them better candidates faster.

So how does it work?

To get started, simply register, create a profile (which is similar to an online resume), and set an interview price. Your interview price is the price at which you’ll talk to prospective employers. Once you’ve created your profile, companies will search it and make you paid offers to interview if you have the skills and experience they’re looking for. Accept the offers you’re interested in, go to the interviews, and we’ll collect the money and transfer it to you.

It’s free to join, and you can even estimate how much you should ask for an interview with their calculator. For the type of professionals that they are targeting, I would actually say the price is about right. You’d still have to be careful about your current employer though, don’t want to ruffle any feathers. It’d be cool if this company merged with LinkedIn or something. Thanks to Stephen for the tip.

Yes, here’s yet another new financial service vying for your attention. This time it’s RevolutionMoneyExchange, which is a person-to-person payment system similar to PayPal. It’s free to send, receive, and withdraw money, but the only funding source allowed is your bank account (no credit cards). It will be interesting to see if it gains some traction (and if eBay allows them as a payment option). Currently, they are offering a $25 bonus just for signing up. Here’s mine:

However, you’ll have to submit your Social Security Number to verify your identity, so I had to do a little digging first. According to this article in American Banker, it is backed by Citi, Morgan Stanley, and Deutsche Bank AG, which participated in a $50 million venture capital round. The parent company was formed by bajillionaire Steve Case, co-founder and former CEO of AOL, and the son of the former CEO of Mastercard. Also mentioned in USA Today.

Also, there is no hard credit check done using your SSN. It says clearly at the top “This information is not used to review your credit history or to establish new credit.”