Their ruthless tactics are starting to pay off for savings-minded customers. Capital One is the type of company that offers credit cards to people with poor credit history. People who are happy to qualify for a credit card are willing to pay high interest rates (upwards of 20% APY) and yearly fees (upwards of $50) for the priviledge.
Now people who are interested in saving money can benefit from this. Capital One is offering a savings account with an annual percentage yield of 2.25%. That’s the highest I’ve noticed lately. They don’t seem to be offering any special promotions or bonuses, but I signed up for an account and transferred some money over.
It looks like ING Direct is getting some tough competition. They’re currently offering only a 1.8% APY on their savings account.
Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip Dilbert and holder of an MBA from Berkeley, wrote a “book” on personal finance, and is summarized today on The Motley Fool. Adams boils personal finance down to nine points, which you will see if you read the article.
CNN/Money asks, Is your job making you fat? This article stresses the importance of proper eating and exercise specifically for sedentary worker bees. Today for the first time in a long time, I had breakfast (bagel with cream cheese and orange juice) before heading to the office.
Not only that, but being overweight takes a toll on your wallet, both in terms of medical bills and career advancement opportunities which tend to favor non-overweight individuals.
Over the last couple of days, Microsoft has released their new version of their personal finance software, Microsoft Money 2004. PC Magazine has already reviewed this updated version. They seemed to be quite happy.
I’ve used both Intuit’s Quicken 2003 and Money 2003 (concurrently) to compare the two pieces of software, and unlike many people I do like Microsoft’s product better. However, I installed Money 2004’s Free Trial and was not impressed. There seems to be very few improvements and bug fixes over the 2003 version which I have been using for almost a year. My advice is that if you have Money 2003 and are happy with it, there is no need to buy the upgrade.
I can think of one feature in Quicken I would like to see in Money; namely, on every screen in Quicken no matter where you navigate, you can always see your net worth and its breakdown. I would like to see this information added to the sidebar in Money. There is room available so I cannot think of a good reason for its absence.
CNet does not yet have a review of the software online, although they do have a release announcement claiming, “Money hasn’t posed a significant threat to Quicken, which accounts for more than 85 percent of the market.”
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