Many friends of mine are opening up Roth IRAs for the first time and have asked where the best place to put that account. My first thought was to go with a brokerage firm that has favorable fee schedules for the investments they’re looking to use. A firm that has higher stock transaction fees but lower mutual fund fees works for someone who only wants to leverage the benefits of “automatic” diversification and will never buy a single share of Microsoft. Conversely, if you’re looking to bank on the sustained growth of a handful of companies or want to jump onto ETFs, a firm with low stock transaction fees is where you’d like to go.

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I read about a ex24.com iPod promotion the other day and tried it out. Basically you must open an account, fund it with $500, execute one trade, and hold the funds in that account for 6 months and you’ll get an iPod Shuffle in 2-4 weeks (if you withdraw any of it, you pay a $125 charge). Yesterday, I decided I was going to do it since this deal expires April 8th.

The first step is to fill out the application form that took a mere ten minutes. Then, you wait for an email with a link you need to click in order to verify your email address. The email took a little while to get sent out, but I didn’t check my email until like 10pm last night. After that, I logged on and deposited $500 via ACH. What’s funny is that the $500 appears instantly but I still wasn’t authorized to trade yet until this morning. I logged on this morning before work and I was authorized to trade! I bought 1 share of AAPL (of course! I’m getting an iPod!) at the cost of 80 cents (commission). Now I’ll just wait six months and withdraw, running away with my new shiny iPod Shuffle in hand! I’m not sure how the iPod’s value will be reported and there’s no mention on the site from what I could find in my ten minute search… but whatever, it’s still “free”.

If you value the iPod at $99, it’s a 19.8% return over 6 months; good enough value for me!

If you don’t have $500 to stick here for six months, you can always try the $100 option. Through a referral (from me or any ex24 user), you can earn $24 for depositing $100. There aren’t any mentions of how long it needs to be deposited in the account in the details and disclaimers but I wouldn’t surprised if there was a 6 month requirement (that’d a 24% return over 6 months). In turn, the referrer would also get $24. Leave a comment if you’d like a referral.

The only concern I have about the whole thing is that I didn’t use the link but instead put the ipodrp promotion code into the promo code box on the application (it will be prefilled in if you use the link above), so I shot them an email to verify. I’ll post updates whenever something exciting happens (like the arrival of a free iPod) or whenever they get back to me.

In an press release today, EE/E Bonds are going to be fixed-rate bonds starting on May 1, instead of variable rate as they have been for as long as I can remember. EE/E bonds have been great for those saving for college and the earnings are exempt from State and local taxes. They’re one of the popular safe methods of investing and they’re going to lose one of their great advantages, varying rates in a period of changing interest rates…

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CNN Money reported today that the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) are protected from creditors in bankruptcy proceedings. This sets the precedent that adds IRAs into the same class of assets as Social Security benefits, pensions, 401k, and “benefits tied to age, illness or disability” that are all protected.

This is important because just as Congress gave more power to creditors, the Supreme Court has taken some of it away. The court published a 14-page opinion (courtesy of the Legal Information Institute at Cornell) which details the reasoning behind it but essentially the Supreme Court decided that IRAs are exempt from the bankruptcy estate because it fulfills the two requirements needed for an asset to be exempt: a right to receive payments based on age (yes) and are similar to plans cited in the law (yep!).

I don’t think it’s ground breaking or monumental, because I consider an IRA as in the same class of assets as 401k’s, social security, and pensions; but it’s good to have all the bases covered.

Ever hear the term “multiple streams of income”? If you haven’t, it refers to how it’s important to have multiple ways to bring home the bacon. It’s sort of like diversification in case you lose one stream of income you have others to help you out. Neville talks openly about starting up different businesses (and lists the ones he’s thought about) to bring in additional income and I think it’s something everyone should think about…

I started Bargaineering as another source of income, in addition to my full-time job as a software engineer. The amount of money it brought in (most through affiliate sales and Google Adsense revenue) wasn’t incredible but it has paid for vacations, which is always great! I added on Blueprint mostly as something fun to do but discovered through Google Adsense, blogs are capable of making serious money. So currently I have two streams of income: my primary occupation and this website.

I currently rent an apartment (with thoughts of owning a home) so another major stream of income many people capture is through real estate. You’ve probably heard about it, purchasing a home and simply renting it out as a landlord. Without a home, this is thus far closed off to me.

Another place you heard a lot of buzz about is Ebay. In college, I used to scour the deal websites (which led me to create Bargaineering) for an awesome rebate deal or clearance sale I could turn around and capitalize on for Ebay. Welcome to the wonderful world of arbitrage! I remember buying Michael Jordan Washington Wizard jerseys off the Home Shopping Network for like $10 on clearance and selling them for $20-$40 (depending on my luck) or John Deere Mesh Hats from various tractor stores and flipping them for $10-$20 profit back in the day. Now, the pickings are slimmer and I don’t have as much free time to scour.

The moral of the story is to keep an eye out, like Neville, on where you can create another source of income. Of course, for many, Ebay sales and a silly side website won’t replace a full-time job right now, but you never know what time will create for you. And if you don’t mind, I’d love to hear some creative side sources of income you all may have created. Please do share!

JLP posted an article at AllThingsFinancial after reading a SmartMoney article about how student loans rates are probably going up. The SmartMoney article details how student loan rates (Stafford) are probably going to go up by 1% – 2% when they get reset on July 1. Read on for an explanation but the bottom line is if you haven’t consolidated yet, consolidate it before July 1st or you’ll regret it.

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I started this look at Jim Cramer’s 25 Rules of Investing with the first five rules a little while back. The first five didn’t bring anything new to the table but did remind me of some good adages to remember. Let’s check out the next five rules, rules 5 – 10, and see if they will yield more enlightening investment advice.

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Last month I cranked out some of my personal financials (sorry, only percentages, I’m not as comfortable as many of my contemporaries) and in keeping with the review of my Financial Outlook, I’ve compiled some of the more interesting statistics here. March saw me spend less because I was finally clear of any additional payments as a result of the car accident at the end of last year. I also had the good fortune of earning a “Results Sharing” bonus, that I didn’t even know existed for my company. So I spent less and earned more…

1. These percentages are calculated against my post-tax income, which already has 20% contributed to my employer’s 401k plan.
2. Budget Reserve is simply my safety blanket in the budget for overruns. 13% seems like quite a bit but any excess falls into Savings!

Budget Notes:
Meals was the only category that missed estimates by a small amount and I didn’t really see it as a big deal because it was down from the month before! I do enjoy going out to eat on the weekends after a week of my own pathetic cooking (where I eat the same thing for dinner and lunch the next day).
I thought that the Transportation/Gas component this month was going to be a little higher than usual because that’s where I put all my travel costs, including airline tickets, and I purchased a flight to Boston on Southwest for around $98 this month for my sister’s graduation. But apparently it didn’t push me over my target.
The numbers above don’t reflect any of the “Results Sharing” bonus I received. 20% of that went straight into my 401k, the other 80% went into my savings account. The bonus represented a 28.8% increase on my monthly gross income so you can see I was able to put a lot away, which will probably go towards a downpayment on a house.
I would’ve been 0% on clothing again, as is the expected, except for St. Patty’s day when I bought myself an Old Navy “Kiss Me I’m Irish” shirt. No one believed me though.

Eventually though I’ll have to pay my taxes ($372) and I’m not sure where that’s going to fall under, I suppose Other. So next month I’d expect to see some very skewed numbers in some categories. Cheers and thanks for reading.