I am currently working on the Cheaters Guide to all things IRA. I know you could probably google most of the information contained in the guide but my goal is to put it all in one place written clearly and concisely. This Cheaters Guide to IRAs will hopefully help you better understand what your employer may be offering you and for planning purposes how to best allocate your money now and down the road.

  In the Cheaters Guide to IRAs I will be covering the Roth IRA, Traditional IRA, 401(k), Roth  401(k) , and Non-Deductible IRAs. In a separate addition for the self-employed I will cover SEP IRAs and SEP 401(k)s . Even if you already have a good understanding, this reference should come in handy when you have a question and are not sure of the answer off the top of your head. I hope you will find it useful and will be able to download it shortly. Please leave any suggestions on this or anything else you see on the site that could be improved under the suggestions category. As always please be constructive and always do your own necessary due diligence before making any investments.

Thank you,
Matt

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   As I continue my quest to financially secure my future, I find myself searching for a safe but beneficial place for my hard earned dollars. This quest is partially sparked by my recent following of Ramit’s I will teach you to be rich blog and book. Also, it plays to my own philosophy of getting the most possible from every one of my hard earned dollars. Now granted any of these things can change as the underlying bank sees fit. But luckily that helps me as well because it means I can write additional posts updating everyone on the current rates and who has the highest.

   Currently as of June it seems that the best option is Chesapeake Bank’s Clear Sky checking and savings. This is entirely based on numbers which currently stand at 1.74 percent for Checking with a minimum balance of $1 and no monthly fees. The Clear Sky Checking account also includes waiving up to $20 of foreign bank ATM fees. Like many other online banks they offer free Bill pay as well. Ramit recommends Charles Schwab which from the demo looks very good but they only give you .75 percent interest. Granted neither of these options are even keeping up with inflation but why not get the 1.74 percent  for the same effort.

   The nice thing about Chesapeake Bank’s online offerings is they have one of the best Savings interest rates as well. With the Clear Sky Savings you get an annual percentage yield of  2.05 percent . As with their checking there is no fees and a minimum balance of a $1. Here is a post with varied comments to help you with your research, CLICKME. One of the comments includes the link to an outside party who rates banks and apparently they gave Chesapeake 4 stars. Someone mentioned that they compound monthly as being a negative but the fact is if you are comparing APY to APY , then daily versus monthly will have very little impact. Here is a great article that gives a more detailed example at MyMoneyBlog.com .

   To conclude my post, the Clear Sky savings and checking from Chesapeake Bank allows you to get a good interest rate and have your money in one place. You may want to say, “But Matt I have found better rates, what about SmartPig.” I checked it out and even though they are offering 3.05 percent it seems like they are looking to lock you in for a period of time. Because of this it does not see very useful since it appears they would discourage transferring money in and out before your savings goal has been reached. If you agree or disagree please let me know, and especially leave a comment if you know of better deals that we can utilize.

Matt

     Businessweek.com wrote a great article on 20 business ideas that someone can start on the side for extra income. It actually came out earlier this week I believe but I was reminded of it when I saw a similar story on my local TV news. The story on my local news actually spoke of stay at home moms and woman laid off from work starting businesses. These are people who took what could have been a desperate situation and turned it into a positive success. In fact one woman started her own baking company and sold 500,000 cookies in a short period of time since starting the business. This fits right into the business week article as it mentions being a baker as a part time business idea.

   You will see that I am a big fan of starting a business. One because it is a goal of mine to eventually own and run several successful companies. But also because I have seen how powerful owning your own business can be. I believe most of us have a talent or idea that we can transform into success. Click the following link to see the complete list of 20 part time business ideas.

20 Part Time Business Ideas

   On May 31, 2009 there was a special on CNBC called the “The Oprah Effect”. It was a very interesting special that highlighted several companies and the effect of having one of their products endorsed on Oprah’s Favorite Things Show. During the special they briefly stepped you through their story of getting the call from Harpo Productions ( Oprah’s media company, and yes it is Oprah spelled backwards ) and how it impacted their business.

    This was interesting for several reasons. One it talked about the vast reach of the Oprah show and the staggering size of her audience. Oprah has been in the talk show business for over 20 years. Oprah’s net worth is estimated to be over 2.7 billion dollars. The Oprah Show has over 44 billion viewers per week. With statistics like these it is no wonder that she has the ability to completely change your life or your business. Now obviously it takes a great amount of work to get an endorsement by Oprah but as you will see in the stories to follow it is possible.

    The first example of the power of Oprah is when in October of 2008 she said that “she loves” the Kindle. Amazon sold out before Christmas. Another example is a business called “We take the Cake”. The current owner baught this business because it was going bankrupt for the sum of $72,000 . Using her marketing background she was able to update the image of the business but it was not enough. Then one of Harpo’s producers received a keylime bunt cake from the “We Take the Cake” bakery and got one for Oprah because she thought it was so good. Oprah decided to select it for her Favorite Things in 2004.  The impact following that episode caused “We Take the Cake” to get so many phone orders that their voicemail would fill up every 45 seconds. It crashed their web server and helped to double their sales. But the true benefit was the residual partnerships. The bakery was soon selling their cakes through the Neiman Marcus catelog, their batter to Whole Foods and the biggest benefit which is they are now baking wedding cakes for high-end resorts for the tune of $5,000 to $20,000. We Take the Cake is now estimated to gross over one million dollars a year.

   Several other business were highlighted through the special with similiar results. There were also examples of people who have benefited from Oprah by associating themselves with her instead of by having a tangible product to be endorsed. Robyn owner of the blog livingoprah.com now gets an estimated 10,000 readers per week and has a book deal under development because she blogs about doing everything Oprah. Basically anything Oprah recommends on her show she does. Whether it is buying her favorite things or doing a certain amount of meditation, she does it. Then she blogs about the experience. There is also a woman who has a very successful coaching business structured around preparing people to be on the Oprah Winfrey show and how to handle being interviewed. Let us just say her rates are not cheap.

   You are probably wondering how this relates to the theme of my blog or why you just spent five or ten minutes reading this article. I feel that there were several important things to be learned. This special was relevant because if you read my blog you know how important I think it is to have your own hustle. I feel that this show highlighted some created people and their process.

    Things that I learned are you can have a great product, if nobody knows about it then you will find yourself slowly going bankrupt. Getting your business in front a massive audience of the wrong people is much less effective than getting it in from of one right person. If you do have a product that seems to align itself with products usually chosen by Oprah’s favorite things, having her endorse your product is guranteed to change your life. As an entrepenuer it is important to keep an open mind, develop a good quality product or service and provide excellent customer service. So even if you do not get in front of Oprah you can still suceed.

Thank you,

Matt

*For a full listing of the products highlighted please click the following link – The Oprah Effect