Parchayi.com – Personal Finance Simplified

One very often asked question, especially by young and new investors is how to invest small amounts of money in mutual funds. Most mutual funds have an entry point that may not be easily reached of a few thousand dollars. Even if you can invest a few thousand dollars, it is diffcult to diversify because [...]

I just happened to see a Citibank ad on Bankrate.com advertising 4.75% APY and went on to check it out. So I clicked on the link and was taken here. This page states – “Introducing the e-savings account with FREE Citibank EZ Checking”. Yes the FREE is in capitals on the site. Under the 4.75% APY, the Ad states – “No minimum balance required”. [...]

Shares of The India Fund Inc. dropped 10% today after the Indian Stock market took another beating. The Indian stock market started up about 600 points, however it quickly dropped over 10% causing the markets to shutdown for an hour. The Finance Minister urged investors to stay invested in the market citing no change in Indias [...]

The Indian stock market dropped another 4% falling below 11000, after yesterdays 6% drop. What does this mean for India Fund Inc. holders? Well it probably means another drop today. Yesterday, I said it might be time to get into IFN, well today might be even better than yesterday to get in. I would also [...]

Have some spare money? Want better rates than savings accounts? Are willing to take on some more risk with it? You need to check out Prosper.com. Here is how it works:
“Borrowers create loan listings for up to $25,000 and set the maximum rate they are willing to pay a lender. Then the auction begins as [...]

Here are some stocks and Funds I follow because I own some in real life and some in my mimf contest portfolio:

IFN – The India Fund Inc.
PNRA – Panera Bread
TGT – Target
INTC – Intel
WB – Wachovia
GSK – Glaxo
GOOG – Google
AAPL – Apple
NSANY – Nissan

The other funds I own are index funds so they need no real following. If I find [...]

There are several banks, mostly online ones or online-only services from regular banks that provide consistently high APRs on Savings/Money Market Accounts. Here are some of them:

Emigrant Direct
HSBC Direct

ING Direct

Watch this space for detailed updates on each bank.

This is one of the very often asked questions on both mimf and mifp.
Based on comments on both newsgroups, here is what seems to make most sense:

Contribute to your 401 upto your employers match (employer match is free money)
Invest in IRA upto the maximum limit (because IRA gives more options than 401)
Invest in 401 upto the maximum limit

If you have no credit history, some people/sites may lead you into getting credit cards that have an annual fee or some sort of payment involved to get credit and establish a history. However you almost never need to go that way. You have several options depending on whether you are a student or not.
If [...]

If you have too many credit cards to manage, you can simplify things by merging credit cards that are offered by the same bank. All banks do that for you in a single call. The credit card merger will give you one card that has the combined credit limit of both the cards. This will [...]