Dow DRIPs - 7 thru 9 of 12 DSPPs

The stocks to be examined on this post are McDonalds, Merck and Pfizer.

7. McDonalds (MCD) ComputerShare.com - Plan Information - Current Opinion
Very sharp setup for McDonalds …I went through the enrollment process to learn more about their DSPP and found out that not only can you join with a one time investment of $500 but you also have three options when choosing the automatic monthly investment option.
Choice 1) have the funds debited from your bank account on the 15th of each month for your recurring investment purchases.
Choice 2) have the funds debited from your bank account on the Last day of each month for your recurring investment purchases.
Choice 3) have the funds debited from your bank account on both the 15th and the Last day of each month for your recurring investment purchases.

Now, here is the good part …out of curiousity I entered an amount of $25 for my recurring investment dollar amount then picked Choice 3 figuring since the total monthly amount equalled $50 that it might be accepted …and it was!
To double check I left that $25 amount entered and picked Choice 2 but I was not allowed to progress through the enrollment and was told (in red letters) the following;

“The amount you have entered for your Recurring Automatic Investment is invalid. Please enter a whole dollar amount between $500.00 and $250,000.00.”

I’m rather excited about discovering that bi-monthly $25 investment option. I didn’t find it explicitly mentioned in the prospectus but since the total still comes out to $500 after 10 months then McDonalds seems happy and so am I!
Of course, with a single $50 investment each month the transaction fee is only $1.50 and with double investments of $25 you would incur that $1.50 fee twice but it could still be easier to manage for some people.
The initial setup fee is a very modest $5.00 and about the only thing to avoid with MCD is making any optional purchases because you’ll get hit with a $6 fee!

INITIAL SETUP
Initial Purchase $500
OR
Monthly auto investments of $50.00/month
OR
Bi-Monthly auto investments of $25.00/month
One Time Set-up Fee $5.00

PURCHASES
Min $50.00
Max $250,000 per year

TRANSACTION FEES
Vai optional Investments $6.00
Via automatic ongoing monthly investments $1.50
Via payroll decuction $0.00
Via Dividend Reinvestments $0.00

SALES
Sale of Stock $15.00 + $0.15/share


8. Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK) - Prospectus - Current Opinion
shareowneronline.com - To purchase Merck click on the shareowneronline.com link then click on Purchase Shares from a Direct Purchase Plan.


INITIAL SETUP
Initial Purchase $350
OR
monthly auto investments of $50.00/month
One Time Set-up Fee $5.00

PURCHASES
Min $50.00
Max $50,000 per year

TRANSACTION FEES
Vai optional Investments by check $5.00
Via automatic ongoing monthly investments $2.00
Dividend Reinvestments $2.00 or 4% of the dividend to be reinvested, whichever is smaller.

SALES
Sale of Stock $5.00 + $0.01/share


9. Pfizer Inc. (PFE) - Equiserve - Current Opinion - Current Price
Pfizer Inc, founded in 1849, is dedicated to better health and greater access to healthcare for people and their valued animals. Their purpose is helping people live longer, healthier, happier lives.
Pfizer is undoubtedly a giant in the Drug Manufacturing segment and not just in the US but the world market. Pfizer sales over the last 12 months are more than Merck and Eli Lily combined.
Pfizer is another one of those companies that basically pays for everything and lets you put ALL of your money into your investments. The only fee occurs when you sell the stock and even that is a reasonable $15.00 plus $0.12/share so a sale of 100 shares would cost $27 and at a rate of $50/month invested would take about 4 years and 8 months at current prices to accumulate.
The $500 initial setup fee might be a bit steep for some which reminds me that you can also get in Pfizer’s DRIP program by first owning at least a single share of stock which has to be in your name. I’ll probably explore this further for each of these stocks but, for right now, if you want to purchase one share you can go to DirectInvesting.com then, click on Add to Cart to see your total cost then, click on Continue to complete your purchase.
As of today, you’ll spend about $70.86 to secure a single share of PFE via DirectInvesting.com but, there are other means to doing the same thing which I”ll have to put off until another blog post.

INITIAL SETUP
Initial Purchase $500
One Time Set-up Fee $0.00

PURCHASE LIMITS
Min $50.00
Max $120,000 per year

TRANSACTION FEES
Vai optional Investments by check $0.00
Via automatic ongoing monthly investments $0.00
Dividend Reinvestments $0.00

SALES
Sale of Stock $15.00 + $0.12/share


Our next post will conclude the 12 stocks available from the Dow which offer Direct Purchase Plans namely, Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart and Walt Disney.

Dow DRIPs - 4 thru 6 of 12 DSPPs

4. General Electric (GE) – Bank of New York - Opinion of GE - Prospectus
Both initial and subsequent purchase can be made online at the Bank of New York which acts as GEs transfer agent. Overall, GE has a pretty good program. After the $7.50 initial setup fee you can make purchases for as little as $10.00 and the purchase fees can be as low as $1.00 per purchase with an automatic electronic funds transfer from your checking account or online at the Bank of New York..

INITIAL SETUP
Min Purchase $250.00
One Time Registration Fee $7.50

PURCHASES
Min buy/week $10.00 (you must also include the appropriate transaction fee, see below)
Max buy/week $10,000

TRANSACTION FEES
Auto purchase from checking $1.00
Online purchase $1.00 via Bank of New York (www.stockbny.com)
Purchase by check $3.50

SALES
Sale of Stock $10.00 + $0.15/share

No Fees for Dividend Reinvestments

5. Home Depot, Inc. (HD) – EquiServe - Opinion of HD - Prospectus
Home Depot list their purchase fees (whether automatic or optional cash) as 5% up to a Maximum of $2.50 but, the minimum purchase is $50.00 and 5% of $50 is $2.50 so, anyway you want to look at it, additional purchases of home depot will cost you $2.50
They have a very modest set up fee of $5.00 and the initial purchase required to open up a new account and become enrolled in their plan is $500.00 however, if you agree to make a $50.00 purchase per month for 10 months then you can also be enrolled in their plan.

INITIAL SETUP
Min Purchase $500 or $50/month for 10 months
One Time Registration Fee $5.00 + $0.05/share

PURCHASES
Min $50.00 + $0.05/share
Max $250,000

TRANSACTION FEES
Auto purchase from checking $2.50 + $0.05/share
Online purchase $2.50 + $0.05/share
Purchase by check $2.50 + $0.05/share
Dividend Reinvestments $2.50 + $0.05/share

SALES
Sale of Stock $10.00 + $0.15/share


6. International Business Machines (IBM) – EquiServe - Plan Materials - Current Opinion of IBM
IBM was incorporated in the State of New York on June 16, 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. (C-T-R), a consolidation of the Computing Scale Co. of America, The Tabulating Machine Co., and The International Time Recording Co. of New York. In 1924, C-T-R adopted the name International Business Machines Corporation.

INITIAL SETUP
Min Purchase $500 or $50/month for 10 months
One Time Registration Fee $5.00

PURCHASES
Min $50.00
Max $250,000

TRANSACTION FEES
Auto purchase from checking $1.00
Auto purchase from savings $1.00
All other purchases $5.00
Dividend Reinvestments 2% of each dividend, up to a max of $3 per dividend reinvetment

SALES
Sale of Stock $15.00 + $0.10/share

Dow DRIPs - 1 thru 3 of 12 DSPPs

Dow DRIPs; 1 – 3 of 12

The Stock Market – When you hear people talk about the stock market being ‘up’ or ‘down’ what is generally being referred to is an index (a type of average) comprised of a group of stocks and whether that index, as expressed by a numerical value, has increased or decreased from a previous time frame.

Although there are many indices, two of the most commonly referred to are the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500. The Dow Jones Industrial Average or more simply put, the Dow derives it’s numeric value from 30 stocks which represent very well established and mature companies. Such companies are commonly referred to as Blue Chip companies. As such, the Dow tends to be reflective of the economic health of the United States.
The S&P 500 provides another index which is derived from 500 of the largest companies traded in the US. While there are around 9,000 different companies available for trading, the 500 in the S&P make up in the neighborhood of around 80% of the total value of all 9,000 companies.

As a starting point for investing purposes we will focus on a subset of particular interest to investors of the 30 companies that make up the Dow.

Of those 30 companies, 27 of them offer DRIP programs however 15 of those 27 require that you already own a share of their stock before enrolling in their DRIP. The remaining 12 companies which offer DRIPs also offer DSPPs or Direct Stock Purchase Plans.

So, for my next four post concerning Dow DRIPs I will focus on those 12 companies. Due to time considerations, I will research three per companies per post in alphabetical order of company name. (should be fun – these are some GREAT companies!) The first three companies of study will be American Express (AXP), Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) and ExxonMobil (XOM).

American Express – AXP
T/A = Bank of New York - www.stockbny.com
American Express started doing business on March 28, 1850 and was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange on May 18, 1977.

Well, it looks like I’ll be editing this post as I gain new information. The Bank of New York is the transfer agent for AXP but it doesn’t appear that Direct Stock Purchase is available online via the Bank of New York. The initial purchase is not available via the Bank of New Yorks website.

As a standby I’ve gone to www.directinvesting.com where individual shares of a company may be bought for a modest fee. It seems a minimum of 10 shares are required before enrolling in the companies DRIP. However, my research indicates that AXP does have a DPP so I’ll have to get more information from the company.

I’ve called the Bank of New Yorks 800 number in hopes of ordering a prospectus but the recording I got didn’t seem to offer that option

(below is just info I need to help me follow up for additional info)
The Bank of New York
Shareholder Services Department - 12E
P.O. Box 11258
New York, New York 10286
Toll free: 1-800-463-5911
International: 1-212-815-3700
Hearing Impaired: 1-888-269-5221
www.stockbny.com
http://ir.americanexpress.com - investor relations set for AXP
I’m thinking of another subset which would consist of Dow stocks that can be wholly purchased via the companies DPP online. With that in mind I shall continue to the next company offering DSPs.

Caterpillar, Inc. (CAT)
Transfer Agent – Mellon, Mellon Investor Services
http://www.melloninvestor.com/newMISWeb/investors/index.asp
to purchase, click on the link above then click on the drop down menu and select “Find Direct Stock Purchase Plans” the next screen allows you to pick the beginning letter of the company you’re looking for so, in this case, select ‘C’ and Caterpillar will be the fifth company listed from the top of the list.
Alternatively, you can query CAT after the drop down menu selection
Minimum Initial Purchase $250
Electronic Purchase YES
Plan Type DSPP (Direct Stock Purchase Plan)

Caterpillar’s DSPP has several fees as part of their program. Sometimes, even with the fees a DSPP could be a good decision because the cost can still be quite low however, my initial impression of Caterpillars fees makes me think that the max fee charged by a broker like www.sharebuilder.com of $4 would be a better alternative. Non-the-less, here are the fees along w/ some additional information;

ENROLLMENT
Electronic purchase yes
Minimum initial purchase $250 (waived if one chooses to invest in periodic cash purchases with a min of $25/month for 10 months)
Max initial purchase no max
Discount on initial purchases 0%
Initial purchase trading fee $0.03/share
Initial electronic purchase service fee $15.00
Initial check purchase service fee $15.00
ADDITIONAL PURCHASES
Min periodic electronic purchase $25
Max periodic electronic purchase no max
Discount on periodic electronic purchase 0%
Periodic electronic purchase trading fee $0.03/share
Periodic electronic purchase service fee $1.00
Periodic check purchase service fee $2.50
DIVIDENDS
Dividend reinvestment trading fee $0.03/share
Dividend reinvestment service fee 5%, max = $3.00
Discount on dividend reinvestment 0%
Dividend reinvestment options(s) Full, Partial or None
Direct deposit of dividends Yes
SALES
Sales transaction service fee $15.00
Sales transaction trading fee $0.12/share

Additional note from the prospectus
“Shareholders owning less than 200 shares may enroll in full reinvestment at no transaction cost to the shareowner, have access to their account electronically over the Internet and will receive an annual statement.”
Also;
“While there is no cost to enroll in the Program, please refer to the Investor Services Program Fee schedule for more information on purchase, reinvestment and trading fees.”

CAT currently goes for about $66/share and pays a dividend of about 1.8% so the $0.03/share fees won’t add up to much even with purchases of several hundred dollars. The $15.00 initial service fee to get the account set up is a bit more substantial and the $1.00 or $2.50 charge for additional purchases; while not exactly ideal would be less than a $4.00 max charge on sharebuilder.com. The reinvestment fees are initially a bit annoying also but at $0.03/share and a 5% service fee, these would probably be rather minimal as well.
Since we seem to be using Sharebuilder.com as a benchmark against which to judge the value of this DSPP we should point out that if you make three securities purchases in a single month at Sharebuilder.com then you will pay a $12 total commission ($4 per transaction) However, for that same $12 you can enroll (for a single month only, if you wish) in their Standard Plan which allows six securities purchases which brings the price of Sharebuilder.com down to a mere $2 per transaction and no fees for dividend reinvestments. A standard plan w/ sharebuilder.com is probably the best way to purchase this stock for most people.

Exxon Mobil (XOM)
Transfer Agent = officially computershare.com but go to www.equiserve.com to purchase
The original transfer agent was Equiserve (www.equiserve.com) but they were bought by ComputerShare.com (www.computershare.com). However if you go to those two sites you will find two distinctly different websites with completely different stocks available. Apparently, even after the buyout of equiserve by computershare, the sites are nowhere near integrated.
Anyway, go to equiserve.com then click on Buy Stock Direct to find Exxon Mobil (which is now listed as #2 in the Top Ten Plans column, right under Wal-Mart)

Exxon Mobil has the kind of plan we like to see. They charge $15.00 plus $0.12/share for selling your Exxon stock. That’s it. No joke. To enroll in the plan, make additional purchases either by check or electronically (online via the transfer agent), to initially set up the plan and to have your dividends reinvested is all FREE (paid for by Exxon).

If you are already a shareholder you are eligible for their generous DRIP program and if you don’t have stock you can open a new account and enroll in their DRIP with either a one time purchase of $250 or make ongoing automatic investments of $50/month for 5 months.

All this can be done online by going to www.equiserve.com

To summarize; we looked at three companies which are reputed to have Direct Purchase Plans as well as Dividend Reinvestment Plans.
1. American Express AXP Bank of New York
2. Caterpillar, Inc. CAT Mellon Investor Services
3. Exxon Mobil XOM Equiserve (ComputerShare)

The jury is still out on American Express but it would appear that their DPP can not be initiated online. I was able to confirm Bank of New York as the transfer agent and you can access your AXP account via the Bank of New York website (www.stockbny.com) but I’m still looking into the details of their DPP.

Caterpillar, Inc. is easily found at their transfer agents site, www.melloninvestor.com
(home page> Investors> at drop down menu choose Find direct stock purchase plans)
Caterpillar has no shortage of fees and I had thought of dropping companies with so many different fees but, after summarizing ExxonMobil I think people will have a much better appreciation for a company like Exxon after seeing just how many fees other companies, such as CAT are capable of charging. Granted, in the big picture the fees charged by CAT are still quite modest and the $1.00 charge for additional electronic purchases is very cheap but, for the beginning investor their myriad of charges can be quite daunting.

ExxonMobil – thus far, XOM is the crown jewel for the individual investor looking for a great value when it comes to owning stock in a blue chip company. The only fee for XOM occurs when you sell your stock which means all the rest of your hard earned money goes straight into your investment! By the way, if you read through their prospectus, XOM will also charge you $25.00 if you write them a bad check. OK, so that’s ALL the fees.

For the next Dow DRIP post, 4 thru 6 of 12 DSPPs, we'll be looking at General Electric (GE), Home Depot, Inc. (HD) and International Business Machines (IBM)

It's Not Timing the Market - It's Time IN the Market

It's Not Market Timing, It's Time IN the Market

I recently attended a fantastic retirement seminar by Fidelity and wanted to share some of the highlights here. The title of this post reveals one of the great adages quipped by the Fidelity speaker namely, It’s not market timing, it’s time in the market. He showed a pie-chart graph indicating where most peoples growth in the stock market comes from and I recall only 1.8% could be attributed to market timing. A great article I read from http://www.sharebuilder.com/ gives some quantitative numbers that really drives home the concept of staying in the stock market and not jumping in and out. The article is called The Virtues of the Long-Term Outlook. Simply stated, it says that over the long haul (it cites 18 years from 1980 to 1998) if you were invested in the S&P 500 that you would have earned around 18% on your money. However if you missed out on the top 20 or 40 trading days during those 18 years the return on your investment would have dropped to around 13% from missing the top 20 trading days and it would have been less than a 10% return had you missed the top 40 trading days.

Of course, investing in “the market” or the S&P 500 probably wasn’t as easy to do back in 1980 as it is today. It wasn’t until 1993 when the pioneering big daddy of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) were introduced with the inception of the Standard & Poor’s Depositary Receipts (AMEX: SPY) also known as SPDRs, pronounced “Spiders”.

A few ETFs are listed below along w/ their inception date, common name, trading symbol and what index they represent.
1993 - Spiders - SPY - S&P 500
1995 - Mid Cap Spiders - MDY - S&P Mid-Cap 400
1998 - Diamonds - DIA - Dow Jones Industrial Average

If you are invested in a broad market based ETF then the advice about spending time in the market being more important than timing the market should probably be heeded due to the significant amount of opportunity cost, in terms of loss that can result from missing such a small number of days in the market – over the long term.

Full Disclosure - I do not currently own any of the securities mentioned in this post although I have held both SPY & DIA in my portfolio in the past.

Free Tax Filing via the IRS

Straight from the IRS website;

Whoever said there is no such thing as a free lunch may have been right. But for millions of eligible taxpayers, with an Adjusted Gross Income of $50,000 or less, there is Free File. Free File is online tax preparation and electronic filing through a partnership agreement between the IRS and the Free File Alliance, LLC. In other words, you can e-file... free.

A few points are worth noting. For instance:

• Free File is a free service offered by companies for taxpayers with an Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) of $50,000 or less.
• Carefully review the free offer descriptions before starting your return. Individual company offers may be limited to specific states and income levels. Additional fees may apply for state tax return preparation services.
• Each company has a description of their eligibility criteria for preparing and e-filing your federal tax return for free.
• When choosing a company, be sure to link to the company's web site through IRS.gov. By going directly to a company's web site, you may not get the free service.
• You are under no obligation to buy any products or services.
• Telephone filing (Telefile) is no longer available. Many taxpayers who used this telephone service in the past may qualify to use Free File.

Emergency Fund Bunk!

Who hasn't seen it? You read it everywhere; you should have 3-6 months worth of expenses put away as an Emergency Fund for unexpected financial expenses.

The problem is, that for so many people who don't yet have an emergency fund, once they determine how much money they'll need to fulfill that 3-6 month recommendation they become paralyzed from taking immediate action to start funding because they tend to think their monthly deposits would be futile and the ultimate funding goal would take literally years to reach.

For many people, fully funding their emergency fund will take years but, their monthly deposits can be thought of as far less futile if they have a progressive set of goals to reach along the way to fully funding their account.

These funding goals are dollar amounts that you can work towards when building up your Emergency Fund. Please note – most of these figures are based upon my own personal situation but every goal dollar amount can be easily converted to create your own Emergency Fund goals ladder. These goal amounts are based on paychecks, interest earned and individual expenses or bills we encounter on a monthly basis. Also, even though it’s not fully listed below, I tend to use every $100 increment as a goal and I have several savings and checking accounts primarily used as a backup to my primary checking account so, for each account I can use the $100 increment goals and that can also be done for the total of all the accounts.

$1 - first establishing an emergency fund can take as little as a single dollar. HSBC, Emigrant Direct and ING Direct all offer savings accounts which can be started for only a dollar.

$73 – amount of money needed at 5% to earn .01/day in interest.

$100 – first delving into triple digits, may not be much to write home about but it is certainly better than not having an emergency fund which means your balance is $0.00

$240 – with a 5% rate of return, this is the amount of money needed to earn (on average) $1/month from your savings account. This is a fairly easy calculation. Basically, you take the amount you want to earn per month and multiply that number by 12 to give you a yearly return and then take that yearly amount and divide it by the rate of return (APR and not the APY) on your savings account. In this case we take $12/.05 which equals $240. This is a pretty quick and fairly accurate calculation because most accounts are credited on a monthly basis so compounding isn’t really a factor.

$260 – amount needed to earn 0.25/week at a rate of 5%

$325 – equivalent to a car payment

$400 – 6 months of car insurance – don’t we generally get a break on the total we pay for our car insurance if we pay it all at once instead of in installments?

$480 – amount needed to earn $2/month at a rate of 5%

$500 – Milestone Amount! A figure to be proud of – also, relate this in your mind to know that you can now avoid using a credit card even for things like new tires for your car or most basic car repair.

$510 – amount needed to earn 0.50/week at a rate of 5%

$570 – this is the mortgage and fees on my condo – lose your job? Well, at this level at least you’ll know you have a place to live for at least another month.

$720 – amount needed to earn $3/month at a rate of 5%

$730 – amount needed to earn 0.10/day at a rate of 5%

$780 – amount needed to earn 0.75/week at a rate of 5%

$825 – amount equivalent to a paycheck! I get paid twice a month and each paycheck can be directly deposited into a maximum of three different accounts. This is the amount that is put into a checking account which I use to pay all my bills. An amount saved equal to one of your paychecks is a very good feeling!

$960 – amount needed to earn $4/month at a rate of 5%

$1,000 – Milestone Amount! Big Congratulations! 4 digits! This is a HUGE milestone, especially if you’ve never had a well defined emergency fund before. Just think of all the unexpected financial surprises that can come your way and now be dealt with without having to pull out a credit card or dip into a retirement fund! This is the dollar amount recommended by Dave Ramsey to hit first before delving full force into eliminating any debt you may have and it’s probably a reasonable amount of cash to have on hand to help stave off any further incursions of debt (particularly credit card debt) but personally, I know that my car insurance is coming due soon so I’ll want to continue to increase my savings so even after my insurance is paid I’ll still be at the $1,000 mark. Of course, Dave Ramsey recognizes this in his book and states quite clearly that things like car insurance coming due are NOT emergencies since we know well in advance how much and when those expenses come due but, if we are in the initial stages of building up an emergency fund then where else would the money be to cover infrequent expenses such as car insurance or anything else, if not here. So we continue … Incidentally, $1,000 also earns us an extra $50/year in interest!

$1,095 – amount needed to earn 0.20/day at a rate of 5%

$1,040 – amount needed to earn $1/week at a rate of 5%

$1,200 – amount needed to earn $5/month at a rate of 5%. This is a particularly attractive amount of money to earn each month because we have now moved away from earning amounts that can only be expressed by using single dollar bills to an amount that can be expressed with a single $5 bill. This amount also provides substantial justification for thinking about larger bill amounts that can be earned on a monthly basis via our savings. If $1,200 gives us $5/month then $2,400 gives us $10/month and $4,800 earns us $20/month. Who doesn’t LOVE to find an unexpected extra five, ten or twenty dollar bill in their pocket when cleaning or doing laundry? The fantastic aspect here is that we may now start to *expect* this kind of extra money each month due to our savings efforts.

$1,440 – amount needed to earn $6/month at a rate of 5%

$1,500 – Milestone Amount!

$1,650 – equivalent of two paychecks saved …an entire extra month worth of paychecks ready and available at a moments notice!

$1,680 – amount needed to earn $7/month at a rate of 5%

$1,825 – amount needed to earn 0.25/day at a rate of 5%

$1,920 – amount needed to earn $8/month at a rate of 5%

$2,000 - Milestone Amount! This is a fun situation to be in because if, for instance, $1,500 is enough to stave off incurring additional debts then we might start to consider using $500 from our Emergency fund account to open a short term Certificate of Deposit to garner some higher rates of return on our money. So, instead of our $500 earning $2.08/month at a rate of 5% we could earn possibly earn $2.21/month if our CD paid a rate of 5.3% Now, you might ask, why go to all the trouble of opening a CD for an extra 0.13/month? There are two reasons, one is more psychological and the other somewhat practical. From a psychological aspect, if we open a 3 month CD then we know that in addition to our regular monthly savings and thus, a probable higher savings total 3 months from now, we will also have a window of opportunity open up when the $500 we put into the CD becomes available to use at our discretion – basically, it’s another one of those good feeling benefits which comes from knowing that in addition to monies immediately available you will also have a decent chunk of money at your disposal at a predetermined rate in the future. Pragmatically speaking and from personal experience I’ve noticed much better unsolicited credit card offers come in the mail. Naturally these offers are tailored to the recipient and will vary but in any case there still should be an improvement in terms and conditions.

$2,080 – amount needed to earn 2/week at a rate of 5%

$2,160 – amount needed to earn $9/month at a rate of 5%

$2,400 – amount needed to earn $10/month at a rate of 5%

$2,475 – amount equal to three paychecks!

$2,500 - Milestone Amount!

$3,000 - Milestone Amount!

$3,300 – amount equal to 2 months worth of paychecks! 4 paychecks total.

$3,300 – amount equal to four paychecks!

$3,600 – amount needed to earn $15/month at a rate of 5%

$4,000 - Milestone Amount!

$4125 – equivalent of 2.5 months worth of paychecks or 5 paychecks total.

$4,500 – Milestone Amount!

$4,800 – amount needed to earn $20/month at a rate of 5%

$4950 – equivalent of 3 months worth of paychecks or 6 paychecks total.

$5,000 - Milestone Amount!

$5,200 – amount needed to earn $5/week at a rate of 5%
To be certain, this isn’t a list I compiled first and then set about achieving but it does accurately illustrate many of the different goals and benefits to be derived from attaining each goal along the way. I more closely focus on the level of savings I’m at and then tend to relate it to a specific aforementioned dollar goal. As you can see, if you consider enough aspects to what an Emergency Fund or any savings account can provide then you should be able to figure many goals well within $100 of achieving at any given time.

So, if your budget is still under construction or you don’t have an exact figure for your monthly expenses you can still get started on an Emergency fund and have discrete dollar amount objectives to be shooting for in any given month instead of a hazy dollar figure which, even if estimated is probably so large an amount as to detract from taking immediate action because it’s hard to realize the benefits.

Initial Post for Dollar Wise Decisions

This site will augment www.dollarwisedecisions.com and provide an additional format for consolodating the vast amount of material, research and data that must be put into a site of this nature to help make it as meaningful and useful the the end user.

This site aims to accomidate individuals of average financial means and resources but, not necessarily individuals average in terms of ambition and desire.


START WITH THE BELIEF!
Improving your financial situation is possible - you can do it! Put effort into any area of your life and, with time, you can improve that area. If you didn't have some belief that your financial situation could be better then you wouldn't be reading this.
So, let's get started on a financial future consisting of smoother roads and better views along the way.