All the Right Financial Moves (I hope)

A little over a decade ago, I made an effort to become more financially literate, which became an off-and-on passion. I mean this in the sense that, with finances, while it’s good to stay on top of things and occasionally fine tune, your best bet is to simply set things up correctly and then leave it alone and let it grow.

Recent life changes have led me to a new flurry of financial moves that I thought I’d share, both on the personal and business fronts. (One of these included moving to a new phone carrier, Voiply, that I covered in a previous post.)

First off is the fact that my wife and I recently began managing the finances of an elderly family member. In reviewing her existing brokerage account at Fidelity, I noticed that the dividends that had been paid out of her investments sat in a cash sweep account that collected no interest, so I opened a high-yield online savings account at an online bank where we could hold that money until we needed it, moving most of her regular low-yield savings there. However, after some research, I subsequently learned that Fidelity already has a reputable Cash Management Account (CMA) that earns interest even slightly higher than the high yield online banks!! All it required was a simple flip of the switch to change the Fidelity cash sweep account into a CMA (technically changing the “core” position of the account).

In fact, it led me to open my own cash management account in my own existing Fidelity account. But I had an ulterior motive—it turns out that the account comes with a debit card that carries NO foreign transaction fees and refunds all ATM charges! Since my wife and I may be traveling overseas soon, I thought it would be prudent to open an account in anticipation of that trip.

Fidelity’s CMA is not a checking or savings account—in fact, technically, it’s a brokerage account. But it has no connection to the markets, so doesn’t rise or fall in value, and always stays at one share equaling one dollar. In practice, it acts as a sort of hybrid checking and savings account. (It’s not FDIC protected, but rather protected by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC)). But it earns interest at a high rate.

It’s a long story, but I actually have maintained two checking accounts for years—one for everyday expenses and the other mostly to pay bills, such as my mortgage, credit cards, utilities, phone and internet, streaming services, etc. The second everyday account I’ve kept mostly out of sentiment since it was a bank with a branch across the street from me that felt like a neighborhood bank because I had a safe deposit box there and the staff knew me. Over the past few years, however, the bank did away with their safe deposit boxes and then closed the branch nearest to me. With that personal connection gone, I’ve decided that if the Fidelity CMA works out, I will close that second checking account and migrate to Fidelity for everyday expenses. (The only other advantage of my current old account is that transfers from my Chase account to the bank were instantaneous, not a wait of a day or so.)

On the business front, I also opened a new business banking account at a bank called Found. I’ve had a business checking account for years at a local community credit union, but it required a linked savings account with a minimum $100 balance, so basically I’ve always had $100 sitting there that I couldn’t access. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that my Amazon seller's account wouldn't connect to it because of its nature as an online bank. This turned out to be dealbreaker, but since neither account costs money, for now I'll hold on to both accounts to see if this issue gets worked out, and as a failsafe for now as I connect the new account to my existing other vendors that pay me like Square, PayPal, etc., to ensure nothing gets lost in the tracks.

08/30/26 UPDATE: Because of the above-mentioned connectivity issue between Found and Amazon, I ended up going with another bank for my business checking, called Relay Bank, which connected with Amazon seamlessly. Though Relay also is an online bank, apparently, it is partnered with a true brick and mortar bank, which made it compatible with Amazon. I should add that Fidelity's CMA account similarly partners with other certified banking institutions in order to provide the same services, including FDIC coverage. 

Calling Voiply

I’ve maintained our home landline* though we don’t use it much, bundled with our Spectrum internet service. Aside from still being linked to old legacy accounts like our grocery store’s and Shell card rewards program, I’ve also kept it partly for sentimental reasons since I’ve had the number since the 1990s. I half joke that the only people who really still call it are my mother-in-law and spammers.

I actually did nearly drop the line a few years back. When I called Spectrum to indicate I was thinking of canceling, they offered a two-year bundled monthly deal with my Internet that brought down the overall monthly cost to below $100, so I kept it.

The bundle deal recently expired at around the same time we learned that our homeowner’s association had recently entered into a contract with a new local high speed internet provider that, by the end of the year, would provide us new residential data service at a greatly reduced rate. Given that we would be eventually canceling our Spectrum service, I thought it might be an opportunity to also completely cut the cord with Spectrum and move to another—and, more importantly, cheaper—VOIP phone provider.

Above: Voiply adaptor

After some cursory research, I considered Vonage, Ooma and Voiply. Frankly, all offered comparable prices and features. That said, I subsequently discovered that Vonage (the only one of the services I’d heard of previously) had become more focused on business customers rather than residential; and while Ooma technically offered a “free” monthly plan (except for taxes), you had to purchase the equipment (ranging anywhere from $69.99–$99.99, depending on where you purchased it), whereas Voiply provided the equipment for free. While I recognize Ooma may offer the “cheapest” plan over the long haul, I liked the idea of no upfront start up cost. Ultimately, I went with the three-month renewable Voiply plan that came to approximately $8.95 per month and, if you pay annually, as low as $7.46 (with no contracts). Given that I was currently paying $30/month for my Spectrum line (and I know someone who pays $60/month with AT&T!), that was more than an acceptable savings!

And, of course, part of the onboarding process with Voiply was the option of porting my current home phone number. (It’s important not to cancel your service before the number is ported or you will lose it). A happy surprise was that I didn’t have to call Spectrum afterwards as I anticipated to separately cancel the service—when my number became active on Voiply, I received an email notice from Spectrum that my service agreement had been updated and the phone service removed!!

For the record, I placed my order and created my Voiply account on July 1—which included the order to port my number—and received the equipment on July 6. The number was ported and became active on Voiply on July 8.

Though I was aware of the features, one that surprised me was that the number automatically forwards to my mobile phone via the Voiply app!! I learned this in a very critical manner on the very day the line became active—I was out at a family event and someone called our home number to reach us, and I picked it up on my cell phone. Had the line not been activated and had I not installed the app, I would not have received what turned out to be an important phone call!

By the way, the service works very simply: there is a small separate “black box” that serves as a conduit between the router and the phone, connected to the router via a provided Internet cable and the phone via the regular phone line. Both the app and the online account allows you to manage many of the features (which also includes call forwarding, calling out from the number from your mobile device, and even being able to use text to a degree!)

Anyway, I’ve only just got it, but I’m already sold—if for no other reason than due to the great savings in price for the service.

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* "Landlines" are no longer truly the analog landlines of old—most are now digital-based or, more accurately, VOIP lines, or (Voice over Internet Protocol)   

More Favorite Apps

I’ve written in the past about some of favorite apps and websites, including Clearcheckbook, Mint, Xmarks, DropBox, and GoogleDocs. Here are a few more that I’ve found indispensable:

SplashID Save

SplashID Safe is a secure password storage/manager app and desktop program that keeps all my website log in and password information close at hand via a password-protected app on my iPhone (it’s also of course available on other devices). Just as importantly, it syncs with a desktop version of the program, making it available on my desktop and safely backed up should anything every happen to my device. (The desktop program can also act as a stand-alone product.)

While SplashID stores my various usernames and passwords for my online email, banking, and social media accounts, it’s also designed to store other sensitive information and is easily customized. As a result, it’s a great convenience to store information like social security numbers and other private information of family members, credit card numbers, combinations, insurance numbers, vehicle information, etc., that I often have to access when doing things like filling out forms while out and about at places like the doctor’s office or traveling.

I’ve used SplashID for many years, dating back to my PalmPilot days. While there are several popular rivals to SplashID—most notably 1Password and LastPass—I’ve stuck with SplashID since it was easy to transition the data from the PalmPilot to my iPhone. There was a brief period when I considered other options, primarily because SplashID for a time was acting a bit buggy which caused me to worry about its dependability, but upgrades since then have restored stability and my confidence in the app.

SplashID and most other similar apps offer other features that I don’t use, such as the ability to generate strong passwords, securely save passwords in the cloud (a leap I haven’t made yet), and to auto-fill blank lines online. I’ve never used these additional bells and whistles, but as it stands, SplashID is definitely one of my most used and functional apps.

ToDoist

There are tons of “To Do” apps out there, so it’s rather surprising that it’s taken me so long to find one that works just right for me. Of course, the plethora of options makes it difficult to test all of them and each one has its own strengths and weaknesses.

Anyway, I recently discovered and starting using ToDoist and it seems to fit the bill. It is a mobile device app that syncs with the cloud and links to a dedicated desktop app that is also linked to the cloud. So I can add tasks and reminders (with or without deadlines) and check them on both my mobile device or desktop computer, and strike items as I do them. You can view tasks on the fly either for the day or the next 7 days. And, of course, you can organize the tasks and reminders into different categories. It has quickly become a useful app I use every day.

TaxAct

Back in the early aughts, I received a free CD copy of the tax preparation software TaxCut (apparently now renamed H&R Block Tax Software)—they were very smart because I found it very useful and used the software for several years due to familiarity and the ease of transferring data from one year to the next.

As tax preparation and filing moved more to the Web, based on a recommendation, I went to TaxAct, which I have been now using since 2007.

It’s the only web-based tax preparation software I have ever used, so I don’t have a point of comparison, but it’s a product I certainly recommend. It carries over a lot of personal information for me from year to year so that I don’t have to re-enter the data every year (another incentive to stay with the same program). It’s step-by-step entry program is fairly straightforward and intuitive, though sometimes going back to earlier entry screens can be tricky and a bit confusing because they are often nested within sections. Other than that, it’s fairly straightforward and allows the user to submit their federal and state tax forms for one price under $20 (additional state forms cost extra).

Plus, when you file online, users usually receive tax reimbursements much quickly -- usually in about a week or so, versus the several weeks if you are waiting for a check!

Review: Kindle Fire HD

Between owning an iPhone and a laptop (as well as a desktop iMac), I have felt little need for a tablet. In recent months, however, my interest in having an ebook reader that would also allow me to read digital comics piqued my interest. Since I purchased a Kindle for my wife last Christmas, who was very happy with it, I thought I’d get a color Kindle Fire HD. As I was just about to make my purchase, however, news about the iPad Mini broke, which put my plans for the Kindle Fire on pause -- I decided to wait to see what Apple would have to offer....

Like most other people, however, the Mini turned out to have too high a price point at $325, compared to the Kindle Fire HD’s $199. I also realized that since I already own an iPhone, a traditional tablet like the iPad Mini was redundant. I felt it preferable to get something that complemented my iPhone rather than essentially duplicated it by getting a more dedicated e-reader. At the last minute, I also did comparisons with the Nook and the Google Nexus since they were priced the same. I ruled out the Nook since Barnes & Noble’s future seems uncertain and the Nexus because it was primarily a tablet and, secondarily, an e-book reader. So, in the end, I settled on the Kindle Fire HD.

Having had the Kindle a couple of weeks now, I must say I’m happy and impressed. With its built-in wifi, it turns out the device is robust and has more of the features and capabilities of a traditional tablet than I anticipated: I connected to my email, calendar and contact list accounts with no problems; it has a web browser; I downloaded many of my existing personal finance apps on it like Mint and ClearCheckBook; it can stream Netflix, YouTube and other videos—I can even stream them to my TV using a mini-HDMI connector; and, apparently, it can even run Skype for videoconference calls!

I've already downloaded several books and magazines, as well as several digital comics, which look great on the high-def color screen. With its 7-inch screen size, the Kindle is light, portable and easy to carry around.

Having said that, it’s important to note that the while the iPad Mini and the Kindle Fire HD certainly overlap and compete in many areas, they also fill very distinct niches. As I said earlier, I primarily wanted an e-book reader, with apps (and especially gaming, which is where other traditional tablets excel) a low priority. The reviews are right on: you really need to make a decision based on your needs. As I said, since I already have an iPhone, an iPad would have been a bit superfluous, so I'm glad I got what is primarily a dedicated e-reader that also performs nicely as a traditional tablet on the fly. The Kindle, of course, is also closely tied to Amazon's content and the user’s Amazon account, but that wasn't an issue for me since I already purchase regularly on Amazon.

While it may not fit everyone’s needs, the Kindle Fire HD is a great product.

Favorite Apps

Like a lot of people, I’m always on the lookout for useful apps and websites—preferably free—that make life easier. I thought I’d mention a few that I've found indispensible.

Clearcheckbook

Clearcheckbook is a free website and smartphone app that freed me from the tyranny of both Quicken and my handwritten checkbook register.

Clearcheckbook is a cloud-based checkbook register that allows you to manage and track multiple checking accounts. It includes basic but essential checking account features like reconciliation (called “jiving” here), balances, recurring transactions, split transactions, reminders, budgeting, customizable spending and income categories, reports, etc. You can also import and export in a variety of file formats, including CSV and Quicken’s QDF.

Better yet, the data is stored in the cloud in a free online user account, which can also be accessed via a ClearCheckBook smartphone app, so you can add purchases and check your balances remotely and on the go, which of course automatically syncs with the master account.

This app does NOT connect to your actual bank, so there is no danger of compromising your checking account. It's simply an electronic checkbook register.

To gain access to some additional features, users can upgrade to a paid premium account for $4 a month—for the most part, however, the free version meets all my needs. For me, the only drawback of the free version is that the income and expense totals for periods prior to the current calendar year is only available to premium users. As a workaround, though, I created a GoogleDocs spreadsheet into which I download my monthly checking account activity with a second sheet that automatically tallies income and expenses in total and by category for whatever date range I specify!

Mint.com

Mint.com allows you to see a snapshot and track practically all your finances—checking and savings accounts, credit cards, investments, investment and retirement accounts, mortgage and car loans, etc.—in one convenient place. Though you do need to input your log-in information for each account to make the initial connection between Mint and the individual accounts, there otherwise is no compromising information within Mint that places any of your personal or account information at risk—account numbers are not used and accounts are not linked or connected in any way. In other words, you cannot move or transfer money between accounts within Mint. Users may understandably still feel squeamish about all this, but to date, there have been no reports of breach violations as a result of Mint.

As this suggests, Mint is a one-stop website for users to check and monitor account balances and activities—individual transactions within the accounts are all viewable and update every time you log in or request it. And because it can connect to nearly any financial institution, the website calculates your net worth by adding your banking, savings and investments together, and subtracting debts such as mortgage, credit cards, and other loans. Since signing up for Mint, they've added a feature that provides an estimate of your home value as well. Other features at the site allow you to create and track a budget, receive reminders about upcoming payments, and advice on how to maximize investments and money management.

I can even access my financial data on the go thanks to Mint's free app for the iPhone! It’s so much more convenient than logging into different accounts.

Interestingly, Mint was recently purchased by Quicken after trying to launch a rival product. They clearly decided they couldn’t match Mint's innovation or subscriber reach and, fortunately, have not made any noticeable changes to the application.

XMarks (Bookmark organizer)

Like many people today, I have several computers at home and at work, with different browsers and platforms. Until XMarks, maintaining a consistency of bookmarks on multiple platforms and devices used to be a nightmare.

Xmarks is a browser add-on that allows users to synchronize and manage bookmarks across multiple browsers and devices. Users simply create a free registered account at Xmarks.com, to which they can upload and sync their bookmarks and then sync with as many browsers and computers as they wish! The bookmarks can be edited both within the browser and the online user account. You can even create different profiles to specify which bookmarks sync with each device.

The app can even store and sync your website passwords! (I did draw the line here—after syncing my passwords once, I deleted the data from my Xmarks account deciding I didn't want to keep this information online, even though it is a secure account. Syncing passwords is a separate option within Xmarks that you can turn on or off.)

If you sign up for the service, as a word of advice, take a little time to organize and consolidate your bookmarks first; as an example, I maintain separate folders for personal, work and comics-related bookmarks.

DropBox
As most people know by now, Dropbox is a “cloud” service that allows users to store files and sync with multiple computers.

By now, Dropbox is well known and remains the gold standard, having cashed in early on the Cloud service trend. Dropbox exists as its own folder on your desktop,which syncs to a master account, which in turn syncs to an identical Dropbox folder on whatever other computers you’ve connected to the account. It’s, of course, an efficient way to access and manage the same files on multiple computers without having to worry about having different versions.

As this suggests, Dropbox is completely transparent to the user and acts like any normal folder on your desktop. Though I haven’t explored them much, Dropbox has other features that users may find helpful. As an example, the trash saved in the online account that saves earlier versions of deleted files turned out to be a lifesaver for me once!

GoogleDocs/Google Drive
Though I mention Google Docs in passing above, my extensive use of this app has made GoogleDocs one of my most used apps. Initially created as a suite of web-based applications for word-processing, spreadsheets and presentation software, it’s morphed into a service that combines Microsoft Office features with Dropbox—it not only stores users’ GoogleDocs documents, but all kinds of other documents and files as well. Both Dropbox and GoogleDocs also provide specialized folders for publicly sharing files.

Like Dropbox, GoogleDocs has helped hasten the move to cloud-based file storage. In fact, recognizing the increasing importance of the cloud feature, GoogleDocs has been re-branded as Google Drive with subtle changes to the app.

Geeks come in all stripes...

About a month ago, I finally began paying attention to my finances. Now that I have a family with children and assets (my wife and I became homeowners back in 2002, fortunately a few years before the housing market went bust), I realized we needed to think about our financial security.

This always was on my radar. Years ago I purchased a Personal Finance for Dummies book to help me understand what I needed to do to procure a mortgage. And I actually read the business sections of magazines and newspapers regularly, a habit I picked up in grad school. Nevertheless, the world of high finance, investments, stocks, mutual funds, etc., always remained a bit of a shrouded mystery to me. However, driven initially by self interest, I embarked on a crash course in educating myself on the subject online (thank goodness for the websites like the Motley Fool), and began looking at my own financial picture.

The first thing I realized was that the money sitting in my neighborhood brick-and-mortar bank—as well as a retirement IRA account I had allowed to turn over year after year in a CD account—were generating criminally low, virtually non-existent returns in interest. (Though I'm sure the banks were making good money from them.)

The result? In the span of about a week, I dumped most of my savings into higher-yielding online savings accounts (a small balance I knew I wouldn’t touch over the next year went into an online CD account with even higher interest); transferred my IRA funds into a brokerage investment account; met with a financial consultant who helped affirm that my new-found financial knowledge and sense was actually sound; opened a 401k and created an investment portfolio for it, and created an automatic savings plan to make sure I invest money into it each month; and did the same for my wife who coincidentally had just been promoted into a new position that allowed her to open a 401k plan with matching funds from her employer. And, of course—no doubt to the annoyance of my family and friends—I’ve begun dispensing financial advice to anyone who’ll listen.

Many artists read this blog and there’s the old adage that artists have terrible financial sense. I don’t think that’s necessarily true, but I thought I’d mention this here as a reminder of how important it is to prepare for one’s future, especially since no one else will do it for you! Numerous reports have appeared recently that indicate that most people, particularly baby boomers, are at risk in their old age since they have not adequately prepared for their retirement. I attribute this partly to the surprisingly little formal financial education people receive in their youth. I’m kicking myself that I had not started this at least 10 years ago (even at that time I would have been starting late), but better late than never! I’ll just need to play catch up. Hopefully, this is something I’ll be able to impart to my children when they enter adulthood themselves.

Surprisingly, after demystifying for myself to some degree the world of finance, I have found it to be quite exciting and fascinating. As a result, I’ve become quite the financial geek. I read the business section with new understanding—though one has to be careful because as any financial expert will tell you, tracking the stock market on a daily basis and following its up and downs is a fool’s game since you are supposed to be in it for the long haul and keep your eye on the big picture. It’s also important not to get too caught up in chasing money for the money’s sake. What’s important is the peace and happiness that financial security will hopefully provide you in the future. If anyone wants some advice on starting out, feel free to contact me!

Tax Time!

I admit it, I enjoy doing my taxes.

Of course it helps that I usually get a healthy refund due to itemized deductions. In addition, in my view, paying taxes is a basic civic duty. I must admit that in an era when people expect to have good schools, paved roads, and the resources to wage multi-theater wars—all while also demanding to pay no or less taxes—I figure that paying my rightful share of taxes is the least I can do for my country.

In any case, as a comic-book publisher, cartoonist and small business, I do derive a sense of accomplishment from organizing my financial records, calculating inventory, computing my income and expenses for the year, cross-checking my figures, and having it all balance out. If nothing else, tax time forces me to take stock of how I did the previous year (which I reported about for 2007 here).

Part of the fun is the software, which makes completing the forms and performing calculations easier and less labor-and-time intensive. In addition to using Quickbooks to track my business expenses (and Quicken for my business checking account), I rely greatly on tax preparation software.

For many years, I used TaxCut to prepare my taxes—I received a sample CD of the software in the mail years ago and, as the company no doubt intended, I kept using it in subsequent years. Not just due to familiarity but because it carried over my personal information from year to year. This year, however, I migrated to a Web-based preparation service called TaxACT. While it's a bit easier to navigate to a precise taxline item in TaxCut, I like the fact that TaxACT is an online application, meaning you can access it from any computer with Web access (there also is an installable desktop version that you can download or order on CD). All the information and data you input is saved online, and the completed tax forms can be downloaded as a PDF onto your desktop for mailing in, or simply e-filed online. (For some reason, I am resistant to e-filing my taxes and still mail in my tax forms. I have found that I still get my tax refund fairly quickly, in just a few weeks.) I plan to fully migrate to TaxACT next year.

After many years as a publisher/business owner, I now keep detailed notes and templates so that I don't have to reinvent the wheel each year, which has significantly reduced the time I need to spend preparing my taxes. This includes a spreadsheet I created that essentially mimics the Schedule C form for reporting business activity, which does all the math for me, including calculate my inventory. I also have created customized reports within QuickBooks that provide me with the correct figures I need that can be simply plugged into the required tax forms.

Anyone needing assistance in preparing their taxes as a comic-book publisher would do well to pick up any tax guide like J.K. Lasser's Your Income Tax 2008. Before I began using the software, I used to purchase one of these tax guides about every other year—having such a book at the start gave me a good basic foundation in preparing my taxes, and continued to serve as a useful reference in subsequent years. These books early on gave me a solid, basic foundation in personal and small business tax law, but changes in tax law can now be easily found online or are usually conveniently written into tax preparation programs!

Believe it or not, the IRS website also is considered a very well-designed site, where you can download all its forms (many are fillable), instructions, tax guides and also conduct searches. (By the way, I've heard others commend the IRS website, so that's not just personal opinion!)

Anyway, happy tax time to all!