AskDong

On this 2nd to last day of the year, I thought I roundup some various year end related posts. There’s still one business day to act quickly on some of this advice.

• My Money Blog discusses some end of the year tax moves
• Jim give us some dumb year end moves. I guess you should avoid these on monday.
• Plonkee explores her goals for next year. Sometimes finishing the year is mostly about looking towards next year.
• Paid twice looks back at her 2007 goals, and forward to 2008.
• Gather Little By Little offers a guide to paying year end property taxes. My property taxes on my rental are paid quarterly, and paid via an escrow account attached to the mortgage. As a result I don’t have this problem, but it’s good to know how to plan for it.

I’ve managed to check off some of the items in my own list, though I haven’t gotten around to opening a 529 account. However since I don’t have any kids, nieces and nephews, the 529 account is not a huge deal.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a “One Topic.” Today’s topic, Online Bill Pay/Auto Bill Pay.  This topic is particularly pertinent for me this past bill cycle.  I tend to screw up my bill payments when I go on vacation.  A few months ago, I decided to take preventive measures. I had an automatic payment directed at my credit card, I was able to avoid missing a payment while I was on this past vacation.  However because my automatic payment was only $50, I did as a result end up carrying a balance which has resulted in a finance charge. I’ll gladly pay that small finance charge yet avoid the late fee as a penalty for my carelessness.  Here’s what others have to say about online bill pay.

• Boston Gal talks cites some risks to automatic payments. I tend to avoid anything that has a renewal provision as an automatic payment.   In general I tend to favor “push” payments rather than pull payments.  “Push” payments are payments that you initiate rather than a “pull” payment that is initiated by the service provider.
• Young Money answers if Automatic Bill Pay will hurt the credit score. Short answer - No!.
• MakingOurWay ponders if automatic payments weakens the ability to dispute a charge.
• Ten Minute Tip: Setup Bill Pay, courtesy of Blue Print For Financial Prosperity
• Bill Surfing by Big Cajun Man Not sure why the Big Cajun is in Canada, but he offers a creative if slightly complicated method of managing payments
• Consumerist reviews Mint.com For people using online bill payment, Mint is a nice service to monitor your accounts if you’re not worried about potential security issues.
• Aundi at Queercents discusses the benefits of Online Banking and Bill Pay
• Rocket Finance lets in on a bunus for existing Chase customers to  get a $50 bonus for using online bill pay.

I just changed my mutual investing tactics going forward, switching from investing in my brokerage to opening a vanguard account and placing all my passive index fund investing with Vanguard.  With that in mind, I decided what to see what other people had to say about Vanguard.

• 2million became a Vanguard Flagship Client. Hopefully someday I’ll achieve that level and get TurboTax for Free.
• Sun asks if owning VISXV is needed when VTMSX is already owned. VTMSX is the total stock market index fund, and VISXV is the small cap index fund.
• The Dividend discusses the Vanguard Dividend based funds.
• My Money Blog, a client of Vanguard’s, tells us that Vanguard is a leader in client loyalty. Looks like I won’t be switching my money out.
• FIRE finance let’s us know what we can do to get the annual $20 account fee from Vanguard wavied
• ML from Investing the Middle Way Askks, “Which Index Fund”. This is not article on Vanguard per se, and is also bit on the technical side, but it’s fascinating read for those inclined. Most importantly the articles tells us how some index funds manage to consistently beat the index (which at first thought might seem like the the antithesis of index fund investing)

Before I get into the topic of the week. I want to plug my RSS subscription. Get AskDong in your email, or your RSS reader.

Now, we return to the regularly scheduled programming.

Given that I just brought a TV last week, I thought I’d collect other posts from others about Televisions, and watching TV in general.

• JLP is looking on Advice on TV. His budget is clearly higher than mine.  I can’t really help him out since I didn’t look at TV in that price range.
• LazyMan pondered cutting the cable. I did this a couple years ago, but now I’m addicted to the DVR that comes with the Sattelite TV service I have.
• Why stop at just watching TV?  Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity tells us how to get on the audience of different shows.
• Blogging Stocks tells us Vizio is on track to sell 3 million flat panels. Looks like the company I brought my tv from is doing pretty well for themselves.
• According to Best Buy, we don’t know what we’re doing with HD. I believe both I and the consumerist do
• No Credit Needed will be watching Dave Ramsey on TV. Say what you will about Dave Ramsey’s math, but he’s helped a lot of people, and now he’s hitting Prime time.
• Flexo Upgraded his living room with HD-DVD. I’m holding off on upgrading. I don’t even have a progressive scan DVD. Though the HD on the TV really does go to waste when the only HD signal I have is from the antennae.
• Golbguru describes his relationship with TV through the years. Looks alot like mine - maybe we dated the same TV.

I mentioned in my last post that I sold my TV on Craigslist. I thought this week I’d feature Craigslist as my “One Topic.” I’m quite fond of Craigslist. I’ve sold and given away many item via the service.

• David at MyTwoDollars Made $265 off Craigslist
• The MonkeKit’s Guide to Selling Stuff
• Not Made Of Money tells us how she redecorated on Craigslist
• Gather Little By Little Tips on CraigsList
• Using a Numbr to give out a phone number on Craigslist
• Jim tell us why we Should Love Craigslist
• JD gives 24 Craigslist tips
• Wisbread finds cool and funky things on Craigslist
• Nickel lets us in on some of the scammers on Craigslist
• Moneycrasher gives us an intro on using Craigslist to sell you home
• The Cleverdude show us that Craigslist is a good place to cannibalize parts to maintain a lawnmower

The other commentary I have on Craigslist (at least the buy/sell and free stuff) is that at least in Boston the responders are predominantly immigrants (both recent and not so recent) of all nationalities. More established Americans should strive to be like more recent Americans. Immigrants tend to be almost always a thrifty and frugal lot.