Good has very informative article about understanding IRAs. Here’s a bit below, but I suggest you read the full article. In the traditional IRA, most taxpayers can elect to put up to $5,000 into an IRA annually ($6,000 if you’re over 50), and deduct that from their taxable income. Since this is pre-tax, it lowers [...]
Archive for the ‘personal finance’ Category
Know The Difference Between Traditional IRA And Roth IRA
January 5th, 2012 
Nichelle 
Posted in financial literacy, personal finance 
Tags: betterment, IRAs, retirement, roth, saving 
No Comments »Credit Card Apr Rates, Dubious Credit Card Offers, and Loaning Money To Family
January 4th, 2012 Nichelle From the blog Consumerist, here are three recent posts that you may want to read. It is time to pay off that credit card debt as the average credit card APR is about 15%. If you have lower credit score and are surprised that you received a credit card offer, don’t be flattered. It is [...]
Posted in advice, banks, credit cards, money, personal finance Tags: consumerist, credit cards, lending money No Comments »Manilla: The Dashboard For Bill Payments, Travel Points and More
October 28th, 2011 Nichelle A few weeks I went to a lunch event for Manilla. Manilla is a FREE lifestyle and personal finance dashboard. What I like about Manilla is that is facilitates you to be more proactive with your money and subscriptions. You can set bill reminders and do bill payments for utilities like cable, electric, phone. You [...]
Take Five: Social Media Interns, Fat Wallet, Hire Lite, Failure is Good
August 11th, 2011 Nichelle Did you get and/or looking to hire a social media intern? Read these tips on managing them. Is your wallet fat? Slim it down and spend less money. I really like this article. Nine reasons why failure is not fatal. Looking to hire a developer, programmer? Looking for a job? Check out HireLite. Site I [...]
Take Five: Finovate, Manilla, Small Business Advice, Loosecubes, Fab
August 4th, 2011 Nichelle Finovate Fall is coming soon to NYC. Early bird registration ends August 12. I will be there as press this year. Small Business Accounting Advice: The New York Times has published a great guide for entrepreneurs about basic accounting. Bookmark this! Manilla organizes your utility bills, travel reward programs, Hearst magazine subscriptions, credit cards and [...]
Posted in accounting, business advice, personal finance, small business Tags: fab, finovate, manilla 1 Comment »Don’t Quit Your Job!
July 28th, 2011 Nichelle DO NOT QUIT. I mean it. Unless you plan on being an entrepreneur or working for yourself. If you hate your job, but want another one, stay at your current job. Use the time at that job to look for another one. I say this because many employers are not hiring people who are unemployed. Did [...]
Eight Least Evil Banks
July 19th, 2011 Nichelle CNN.com has a list of the “eight least evil” banks. I doubt Capital One and PNC qualify to be on the list, but most credit unions around the US are pretty good. Will ING Direct stay on the list after the merger with Capital One goes through? I wonder…
Betterment Lowers The Hurdles Of Investing
July 12th, 2011 Nichelle Last fall I met Jon Stein, the founder of Betterment at Finovate East. A few weeks ago I met with Jon to talk about Betterment. Initially I thought it was a dashboard for all your investments similar to Mint, but Jon explained that Betterment is more than that. It is an investment portfolio that any [...]
PayDivvy: An App For People With Roommates, Friends
June 23rd, 2011 Nichelle One of my comedian friends, Jenny Rubin, has a joke about birthday dinners. “You can order a spoonful of mustard, and you end up spending fifty dollars.” Birthday dinners, splitting utilities or other expenses can be annoying. PayDivvy takes the torture out of splitting a bill fairly by letting everyone settle up online. Anyone signed [...]
Are Prepaid Cards A Terrible Product Or A Viable Alternative?
June 22nd, 2011 Nichelle From the grio: Prepaid debit cards now represent the fastest-growing segment of the payment industry, and consumers are expected to load $552 billion onto prepaid cards in 2012, according to the research firm Mercator Advisory Group. I think prepaid debit cards are better secured credit cards. There are a significant segment of consumers who are [...]
BillShrink Offers Online Bank Deals
June 14th, 2011 Nichelle I have been fan of BillShrink since I saw them demo at Finovate two years ago. BillShrink helps consumers find the best deals on mobile phone plans, credit cards and even cable service. Now, they are featured in a New York Times article about their new service, Statement Rewards. Under the program, online bank statements [...]
ING Direct Lets You Bump Payments To Friends
April 29th, 2011 Nichelle ING Direct customers can now transfer payments to friends with the bump of a cellphone — no account numbers needed. The bank released an updated version of its iPhone app on Wednesday morning that integrates an API from Bump Technologies, a startup that makes it easy to transfer information between phones by tapping them together.
File An Extension If You Have To
April 8th, 2011 Nichelle Procrastinators, you can breathe easy. April 15 is less than a week away. This year the tax deadline is the April 18, but the three extra days may not help you if you have a pile of receipts in a shopping bag. If you absolutely know you won’t be to file your taxes on time, [...]
Take Five: Betterment, Tax Credits and More
April 4th, 2011 Nichelle Betterment is one of the start-ups that presented at Finovate that I really liked. The New York Daily News talked to Betterment founder Jon Stein about how Betterment makes investing easy. Hospitality is their specialty: Accion is a nonprofit microlender that has seeded small businesses in the food, beverage and hospitality business. The New York [...]
Posted in business advice, investing, personal finance, small business Tags: accion, betterment 1 Comment »Making Dough
March 23rd, 2011 Nichelle I posted this picture of hibiscus doughnuts from Dough in BedStuy because it is really popular on my food tumblr. Today I met Steph Auteri who runs Freelancedom, a very resourceful blog for freelancers and the like. Wall Street Journal has an article on start-ups on a shoestring, only $150 investment. Start over! Clean your [...]
