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Carnival of Personal Finance #150 is posted on Lazy Man.
My article, Stock Challenge May 2008 is posted on Carnival Of Personal Finance #150.
Last month, I started the first Stock Challenge in April. We had several participants in April, and hopefully we will have more participants this month. I will post the results and the winners for the April Stock Challenge by the end of next week.
The Challenge
Pick a stock that you think will have the most percentage gains from the open price of May 1st to the close price of May 30, 2008. In the case of duplicates, the first person to post will be declared the winner, so enter early.
Requirements
Pick a stock and reply to the comments of this post for the record with a link to your blog.
The company stock must have a minimum market cap of $50MM at the start of May 1st, 2008.
The company stock must have a minimum stock price of $5.00 at the start of May1st, 2008.
The contestant can only pick one stock.
The contestant must have a blog and post the pick on his/her blog and link back to this post.
Rules
Entries must be submitted by Sunday May 11, 2008. The winners will be announced here after May 31th, 2008.
Prizes
1st Prize - $20 Cash (Payment made by PayPal)
2nd Prize - Choice of book from my collection
*Prizes will be shipped to the winners free of charged. If you are the declared winner, please provide your address to me via email (growingmoney (at) gmail.com).
My pick for this contest
I will pick NVDA.
The Happy Rock is the host of the latest Carnival of Personal Finance. Here are the articles selected for Editor’s Choice.
The Choices We Make
This American’s Dream
The Spending Smart Philosophy: Controlling Spending is the Key to Building Wealth
What If Rent Was Already in the Bank?
I Have to Have It: The Impulse Purchase
5 Ways to Survive on One Income
The Psychology of the $1,000 Emergency Fund
My article, My Goals and Project Statuses April 2008 is posted on Carnival Of Personal Finance #149.
As part of my journey to achieving financial success, I have always been juggling multiple projects and pushing myself to learn more and work harder. I have a full-time job and a stable income now, but I always want to achieve more. I know I have to work harder and smarter everyday to become better than the person I was yesterday. I am always looking for opportunities to make more money and this year has opened doors to higher potential profits.
The stock market has dropped significantly and will become a good opportunity for long term stock picks as well as short term swing trades. I spend about two hours looking at the stock market and doing my personal research every day. I have been netting a profit of around 20% annual since the year that I started investing in 2002. I hope to make a nice profit by the end of this year and bring up my annual average percentage gains.
The house market has also tanked, and that be a signal to look for cheap real estate bargains. I plan on looking at some real estate this year and try to make a purchase while the mortgage interest rates are still low.
I already own a rental property in Philadelphia. I was happy about it until this year. My tenants have called me many times and reported issues. I have spent a great deal of time coordinating repairs since I live two hours away in NYC.
I have been discussing with people about creating e-commerce businesses. One of the businesses I wanted to do is create an online store for health products, and the other one is to create an online store for electronic products.
This year has been busy so far and certainly will become busier for me. I hope all things will go well and will keep posting status here.
Summary and Status
Full Time Day Job
I am currently working on a project to build a unified time and attendance system for the government. It is a long term project that will last several years and the estimate total cost of the whole project is $500 million.
Stock Market - Short Term Trading / Portfolio Building
I love to trade in the stock market. I have a long term portfolio, but I also like to play with short term trades. I spent my late evenings doing research on individual companies and the stock market and plan what to buy before the day begins.
Rental Property
Up until this year, the rental business has been doing well for me. However, this year, I have spent a lot of time dealing with the tenants and repair workers to maintain the house.
Company website
I am self-employed and have registered a company. I created a website for my consultant business. Currently, the website does not contain any information but the title of the company. I will need to work on the contents of the website and post up more information about the company.
E-commerce store #1 - Health Products
Health products are becoming more popular as people become more health conscious. This growing health trend will allow me to start up a business and grow in the health products market.
I am in the works of creating an e-commerce business that sells health products. I am currently talking to some people that will join me in this business.
E-commerce store #2 - Electronic Products
I want to start an e-commerce business that sells electronic products. I am looking for electronic products that has the potential to do well in this competitive market. I talked to some people that will be looking for these kinds of products, but I have no solid leads on this yet.
Gather Little By Little is sharing attractive photographs of his home state of North Carolina in the 148th edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance. Here are the articles he selected for the best of the submissions:
Curb Spending by Writing Goals on Credit Cards
Spend $10, It’s Worth It
Sometimes it is the Amount of Money You Make
The Psychology of the Recession (and a Silver Lining)
Emotional Spending
Stuck
Outsource to Your Kids Already
My article, Make More Money With the Same Paycheck is posted on Carnival Of Personal Finance #148.
CreditCardAssist.com put together a resourceful compilation of links to virtually all the information you want to know about credit cards.
“How much are you getting back?” is the common question that I hear around the office and on the streets. That is the question people asked to inquire about the tax refund amounts from the IRS. I hear answers like, I am getting back $1000, $1500, or $2000, and these people are filled with excitement. But the question is, why are these people so excited? I know they are happy to receive money, but I beg to differ that receiving a tax refund is good news, especially a large one. Getting a tax refund means that these people had overpaid their taxes by $1000, $1500, or $2000. I think it is foolish to have a large tax refund and I will explain why.
Employees on W-2 have their federal tax withholdings deducted from their pay check by their employers based on the employee’s allowance filled out on the Form W-4 Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate. The federal tax withholdings are calculated based on the allowance number - the higher the total number of allowances and the lower the federal tax withholdings will be deducted from the pay check.
If you fill in a zero on your total allowance claim (line 5), then you will be subjected to the maximum federal tax withholdings. It is easy to just write zero on the allowance, alleviate your worries, and receive a huge tax return check from the government, but that is not a financially smart move.
A zero on the total allowance claim, while most likely covering total amount for taxes owed at the end of the year, may result in a huge overpayment for the taxes. This extra money paid to the government, although would be return to you, becomes a missed opportunity for you to profit from it. The government holds on to the extra money until the end of the year and pays it back it to you without interest, and thereby the government has taken your extra money for an interest-free ride.
Instead of giving the extra money to the government, you can withhold fewer taxes. The fewer taxes withheld will increase the net amount on your pay check, but the gross amount on your pay check remains the same. The extra money that comes from this increase should be deposited directly in a high-yield interest bearing account for making maximum guaranteed profit. At the end of the year, you may not receive a $1000, $1500, or $2000 tax refund check, but you will be earning interest on the extra money.
A more advanced strategy is to withhold fewer taxes than supposedly owed at the end of the year, causing an underpayment to your taxes owed. This will substantially increase the net amount on your pay check, however you will be owing taxes at the end of the year. The increase in the net amount on your pay check should be deposited directly to a high-yield interest bearing account and will allow you to earn more savings interest. It is important to note that the extra money should be reserved for paying back the taxes owed for this strategy to come to fruition.
Also, there is one catch to this advanced strategy. Too much underpayment may result in a tax penalty (see also http://www.essortment.com/all/taxespenalties_rlcx.htm). Be careful not to fall into the tax penalty zone or else this will defeat the purpose of making extra money.
One last factor to this whole tax withholdings strategy is that it involves not only the financial component, but also the emotional/mental component. Tax penalty aside, most people do not feel comfortable owing taxes at the end of the year.
The best strategy, which compromises the financial and emotional/mental components, is to calculate your withholdings so that you will receive a small refund at the end of the year. This allows you to have peace of mind while also knowing that you are reducing the amount of money lent interest-free to the government.
I remembered that when I was an employee on W-2, I would bump up my personal allowance on the Form W-4. I saw a marginal increase in the net amount on my next paycheck. I was careful not to spend that extra money and deposited it to a high-yield interest savings account.
Since I was withholding fewer federal taxes, I ended up owing federal taxes at the end of the year. When my friends asked me to tell them how much I was getting back from my tax refunds, I told them that I had to pay taxes out of pocket.
Their reaction was, “Oh, that sucks”
And I replied, “It’s okay, I did it on purpose. I’m making money.”
Then they showed me that confused and what-the-hell-am-I-talking-about face. I sat down and explained the whole tax withholdings strategy.
In short, I did not give the government an interest free loan. Moreover, I took part of the money I owed the government and earned interest on it before returning the funds I owed to the IRS. Therefore, while my gross amount on the pay check stayed the same, I increased the net amount and made more money with the same pay check.
The 147th edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance was published at MoneyNing. The host selected five excellent article’s for this week’s Editor’s Choice:10 Things to Discuss Before You Get Married
Budgeting on an Irregular Income
The Annual Cost of Pet Ownership: Can You Afford a Furry Friend?
Smart Moves to Lower Your Health Care Costs
Getting Entire Family Involved With Managing Our Finances
My article, Stock Challenge April 2008 is posted on Carnival Of Personal Finance #147.
I am starting a stock challenge for the month of April. This will be a pilot program and if the pilot goes well, there will be more contests in the future. There will be prizes for the winners. I will participate in this contest to start it off.
The Challenge
Pick a stock that you think will have the most percentage gains from the open price of April 1st to the close price of April 30, 2008. In the case of duplicates, the first person to post will be declared the winner, so it’s best not to pick a stock that was already posted.
Requirements
Pick a stock and reply to the comments of this post for the record with a link to your blog.
The company stock must have a minimum market cap of $50MM at the start of April 1st, 2008.
The company stock must have a minimum stock price of $5.00 at the start of April 1st, 2008.
The contestant can only pick one stock.
The contestant must have a blog and post the pick on his/her blog and link back to this post.
Rules
Entries must be submitted by Sunday April 13, 2008. The winners will be announced here after April 30th, 2008.
Prizes
1st Prize - $25 iTunes Gift Card
2nd Prize - Choice of book from my collection
*Prizes will be shipped to the winners free of charged. If you are the declared winner, please provide your address to me via email (growingmoney (at) gmail.com).
My pick for this contest
I will pick AMD. AMD opened at $5.93 on April 1st.