Last week I went to a talk hosted by the Cornell Young Alumni Network about budgeting.  Avi and Matt, the Co-founder and Lead Scientist (respectively) of JustThrive.com spoke about money, budgeting and the psychology of financial choices.  They also took us through their online tool at JustThrive.  I’ve mentioned Mint a number of times, but am now evaluating JustThrive as an alternative.  Next week I’ll be interviewing them at their headquarters downtown, so look for a future post on that.  For now, I wanted to pass on their list of 10 ways to improve your finances right away (along with my comments).  Why not check off a few this weekend?  These things take very little effort, so listen to your sneakers and just do it!

1. Open an online savings account.  If you don’t have one already, you are missing out on interest (aka LOST MUH-NEE, which we don’t like)  Yes, rates are falling, but they are still higher than the 0.25% you get in say, your Chase checking account.  I use ING Direct, which isn’t the highest anymore but since I have checking there as well it’s easier for me.  Here’s a review of the best online savings accounts at Consumerism Commentary.
2. Use a rewards card and get cash back. Of course this only applies if you’ve paid off your credit card debt, as rewards cards usually don’t have the best interest rates.  But if you always pay off your bill, you should at least get some perks.  If you fly a lot, concentrate purchase on a single airline’s card - we love the Amex JetBlue card - for us, the $40 annual fee is well worth it because we use JetBlue’s routes a ton.  I’ve also used the Amex BlueCash card, and also like that one.  Here’s a really useful site to help pick one.
3. Use 0% interest. If you MUST carry a balance (but are working it down, of course), pick a card that gives you 0% interest (again, see site above).  Watch the fine print - often times these deals expire.  You’ll still want to pay off your debt as fast as you can, since jumping cards too often lowers your credit score, and improves the chances you’ll mess up the balancing act and get hit with tons of fees.
4. Pay down debt with your tax refund. It might feel like you could be impulse shopping if you get a windfall refund in 6 weeks, but resist the urge if you have credit card debt.  Use your refund to pay it off as soon as possible.
5. Don’t pay ATM fees. Pick a bank that has lots of ATMs, and only use them.  In NYC, Chase is really the best, they have the most ATMs of any bank (see how my automated finances allow me to use online checking to improve interest rates, but still use Chase).  Or, choose an online checking account that credits you the ATM fees.
6. Go to the gym and get paid. Many health insurance plans will credit you cash if you go to the gym a certain number of times per year.  How’s that for motivation??  Call up your health insurance provider and see if they offer this (I heard Oxford does).
7. Order your credit report, and check for errors. Did you know 76% of Americans have an error on their credit report?  The accuracy of your credit report is important, because anything that tarnishes it can affect your ability to get loans (credit card, auto, home) and also affects the rates you are offered.  By law you are entitled to 1 free credit report each year from EACH of the 3 reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax and Transunion).  I order one from each agency every 4 months on a rolling basis, so I can see my report more often than annually.  Make sure you use annualcreditreport.com and NOT (stupid)freecreditreport .com (the commercials may be funny, but they are a for-profit company offering a service you probably don’t need).  If you find any errors, make sure you call all 3 agencies to have it fixed right away.
8. Roll over past employer 401(k)s and 403(b)s into IRAs. You can’t roll over your current account (if you still work there) but if you left a job a while ago, chances are you are paying too much in fees in that old account, and the choices might be limited.  An IRA has the same tax status and can be invested in almost anything, so you can roll over the old account and then buy low-cost index funds, your best bet for investing, says the New York Times this week (thanks Adam!).
9. Use Online Statments. This is a quick and easy way to save the environment, save time and save space.
10. Setup automatic investments. Even if the markets have you in a tizzy and you are still deciding how to invest new money, setup an automatic amount to transfer into your brokerage account each month.  Most brokerages offer this (it takes 2 seconds to setup on Fidelity), and you can just sideline the money in a money market until you decide what to do.  The point is it gets they money out of spending territory, one step closer to making you rich. (OK you got me, I added this one - their last point was a non-starter)

Do you have other tips that are dead easy and we can do this weekend?  Tell us about ‘em in the comments!

This post isn’t about promoting a brokerage house - it’s about choosing the right place to put your money, for efficiency and convenience. Picking the right place to put your money can save you lots of headaches and hours and hours of time through the course of your investing life.  Here’s my thoughts on the process.  Please submit a comment below if you really like (or don’t like) your broker, and tell us why.

Must haves:

1. Excellent customer service
2. Easy-to-use website and online trading ability
3. Ability to link accounts to your checking, to transfer money
4. Auto-investing features, with no fees

There are tons of competing places to hold your investments, the biggest include Vanguard, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, TDAmeritrade and E*Trade.  You can read reviews of these here and here.  Most large brokers out there today have all these features.  In addition, your specific situation might help you decide.  In my case, we already had two 401(k)s and an employee stock purchase plan at Fidelity, and since the companies providing those plans don’t provide a choice, Fidelity was really a no brainer for my brokerage account.

But there’s one more reason why I really like Fidelity.  They have a feature called “Full-view” - just put in your account login details of all non-Fidelity accounts (even your work 401k, your mortgage), and all of the holdings are sucked in to give you a full picture asset allocation.  This saves tons of time when re-balancing your allocation.  It’s sort of like Mint, which I’ve recommended before, but covers ALL types of accounts.

Other criteria that you might consider:

• Trading commissions - even though I don’t recommend trading individual stocks, this can matter for some people.  Compare fees, and also check if your employer has a discount commissions agreement with any brokerage firms.
• Employer requirements - some companies (mostly banks and other finance institutions) require all employees to use one of a specific set of brokers; don’t forget to check this!
• Statements - all statements are not created equal.  If you can, get a sample statement, and see if it makes sense to you.  There is nothing worse than not being able to easily understand what investments you hold.  Also check if statement-linking is available - it’s nice to get one statement from all of your accounts at a brokerage.

Do you really like your brokerage account?  Tell us about it in the comments.

[Update: One reader pointed out that Fidelity has been known in the past to invest in companies which support the Sudanese government.  Two points there:

1. This post is about picking the brokerage that is best for you - do your own research, and decide for yourself.  As I said in the first line, I'm not plugging for Fidelity here
2. That said, I support socially responsible investing in general, and therefore as a Fidelity user  researched this, since I hadn't heard about it.  Turns out that several of Fidelity's funds had holdings in PetroChina and Sinopec, which operate in the Sudan to pump oil, which in turn generates revenue for the Sudanese government.  Funds known for investing in these companies include the Contrafund and Diversified International.  According to 30-Sept-08 holdings reports, neither of these funds hold these companies.  If socially reponsible investing means something to you, do your homework on your investments.  Look for sites like this, which have screening tools to check your funds.  Since I choose the investments in my account, and can understand their holdings in detail, I'm not that worried about using Fidelity as my investing vehicle, given all it's other positives.

]

One of the biggest time-wasters for me is checking my account balances online, and shifting money back and forth between checking and higher-interest savings to maximize my interest. It’s a delicate balance, since one $30 overdraft fee can kill increased interest very quickly. Last year I solved this problem and fully automated my finances. Here’s how I did it:

• Opened an online ING Checking account with high interest (right now its 1.75% 1.0%, but that still beats Chase at 0.15%)
• Set up direct-deposit of our paychecks into this account
• Analyzed our monthly ATM withdrawals and set an auto-transfer in ING to move that much money, plus a little cushion, into Chase on the 1st of every month (we have to do this since ING does not have local ATMs in NYC, and we don’t want to pay ATM fees. Chase has more ATMs than any bank in NYC, and is available in Duane Reade as well)
• Set up auto-pay for mortgage, maintenance, cell phones, cable, electricity/gas, parking, insurance, credit cards
• Set up auto-withdrawals of a set amount each month into Fidelity brokerage account
• 401(k) and employee stock purchases contributions are automatically taken out of paycheck
• Automatic savings for vacations and emergencies goes automatically from ING Checking to ING Savings monthly (I have a future plan to set up several savings accounts one for each category, since I don’t like mixing my emergency funds with funds I plan to spend)

With all that done, all I need to do is:

• pay Amex (they still don’t have an auto-pay) [Update: Amex has direct debit!  You have to call their 800 number and ask for a form, it's not available on the website. Another update 12/14/08: you can now enroll for this online, it's called AutoPay.  Make sure you set it up to pay your full balance, not your minimum balance]
• review credit card bills 1x per month for errors, etc
• glance at ING once per week to move any excess checking money into savings or investment accounts (although this shouldn’t happen if I’ve properly budgeted)
• do everything else I want to do in my free time!

What are your tips for saving time with your finances?