Money Blue Book

Well, it looks like January 2010 has finally arrived. Goodbye 2009, and hello 2010!

According to most public sentiment surveys I’ve seen thus far, the overwhelming consensus is that 2009 was a particularly terrible year. The economy tanked, retirement savings were largely wiped out, and home equity values were pretty much eviscerated. However, where there’s misery, there always seems to be a smidgen lining of hope. Despite most people’s vastly negative opinion of 2009, the great majority of surveys indicate a very optimistic outlook for 2010. Maybe it’s because this time around, we are no longer staring at the barrel of an imminent financial sector meltdown and hearing the ghastly doomsday warnings of a possible decade-long economic depression, but things certainly feel less dire than the same time 12 months ago.

Most certainly, while we are still languishing under the worst economic recession in decades with depressive unemployment rates continuing to climb, the pace at which the economy continues to worsen has drastically decreased. In other words, while the economy is still deteriorating, it’s worsening at a significantly slower pace than before. This is very good news for the aspiring optimists and opportunists in all of us. Most significantly, there also does appear to be tangible economic metrics emerging to back up the growing optimistic fervor for 2010. While I personally think we are still many months away from a real and sustainable recovery, I think we are decidedly heading in the right direction as punctuated by the fact that I’ve been jumping back into the stock market of late and starting to invest strongly and aggressively in long term positions again – positions that I think will pay off handsomely in the future. Previously during the very early part of spring 2009, I exited and stayed away from the market to protect myself from the effects of the irrational fear and panic that was crippling the American psyche. But with the way things are now, I am pretty confident that the worst case scenario has been averted and all that remains now is for the economy to begin its long and steady natural progression towards recovery. While home prices will almost undoubtedly not return to pre-recession levels anytime soon, home prices will most likely stabilize during 2010, leading to a positive and steady ripple effect across other sectors.

In terms of my New Year’s resolutions for myself in the financial planning and income growth department, I plan to make 2010 a banner year for my bank savings account balances and investment holdings. Now is the most opportunist time to start placing one’s bets for the distant future. Despite the mild market run up since spring 2009, stock market prices on the whole are still lagging and have not returned to pre-recessionary panic levels. If you have cash on the sidelines and have been waiting for the so-called “best time to start investing”, now is the time to start opening up a discount broker account and start investing those excess savings into long term mutual funds, or better yet – into the exchange traded funds (ETF’s) of your choice. I’ve personally chosen to invest heavily into riskier financial and emerging market funds (such as the XLF and EEM funds) to fully maximize the potential of my future gains. However, your personal investment strategy is up to you and dependent on your willingness to assume risk today for a greater payday in the not too distance future.

My Current Net Worth and Financial Status Update Compared To Last Month

Allocating Cash Savings For The Closing Of My New Home Purchase

Back in August 2009, I signed a contract for the purchase of a brand new construction 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom cottage style single family colonial home. For several months now, I’ve been patiently monitoring the construction progress of my first home purchase ever – swinging by the home lot to take photos of the inside and outside at least once every week. Most recently, the transformation from a pile of dirt to a free standing wood and concrete structure has been nothing been dramatic. With the roof tiles now in place and the windows having been installed, the home is starting to really take shape. While the housing construction is proceeding rapidly and steadily, there have been a few slow downs due in large part to the recent snow storm activity that we’ve been experiencing in the D.C. Baltimore area the last few weeks. Coupled with the time off effects of Christmas and New Year’s, construction work has occasionally stalled – but I expect things to start picking up again briskly when construction starts rolling into January.

Currently, the new home is tentatively scheduled to be completed and delivered sometime early March 2010. As such, I’ve prepared and saved up a sizable cash balance to pay towards my new home mortgage 20% down payment. With the home priced at around $622,000 (this is pretty much average for the D.C. area), I presently have set aside and reserved more than the necessary $125,000 down payment I will need for home mortgage purposes. While there have been several times that I’ve been tempted to allocate this special purpose money into various lucrative stock market investments, I managed to do the right thing and keep the funds safely segregated in their own separate bank accounts.

Funding My IRA and Opening Up A New SEP-IRA Account For Stock Investing

Most people rely on their employer’s 401(k)’s with matching contribution packages for most of their retirement planning needs. But because I am currently fully self employed with my network of online businesses and run my own legal practice from my home office, I have to depend on myself. Fortunately for solo practitioners and self employed folks like myself, the IRS provides a useful mechanism for us to still take full advantage of the tax deferred benefits of individual retirement savings accounts – namely the SEP-IRA. Because I’ve already maxed out my limited Roth IRA and Individual IRA contribution limits and desire to contribute more, I recently, I opened up a SEP IRA account with Fidelity Investments. The greatest benefit of a SEP-IRA account apart from the obvious tax deferred benefits, is that the maximum contribution limit is pretty generous – at 25% of an individual’s compensation, capped at a maximum of $49,000 for both individual tax years 2009 and 2010. Eventually, I may very well open up a few more other SEP-IRA investment accounts with other reputable online discount brokerage firms to test them all out – but for now, I’m going with Fidelity.

Relying On My Passive Online Income Streams For A Living

Unfortunately, due to several notable and rather complicated personal situations during the last few months, I’ve neglected to post on my personal finance blog and other online blogs as frequently as I would have liked to. While I’ve continued to maintain and tend to my online businesses and network of profitable websites on a regular basis, I have not really posted new articles with much regularity. But despite my lack of effort and lack of any substantial headway in the way of content creation, my online income streams continue to remain very stable (with even signs of growth). This brings me to the most powerful and compelling aspect of why I truly believe any person who is strongly self motivated ought to start blogging to make money online and not delay in tapping into the powers and limitless potential of the Internet. Because of all of the effort I had previously put into my online craft for the last 2 and a half years, I’ve built up a very substantial network of online traffic streams that remain solidly consistent despite my lack of present effort. Contrary to what most layman and blogging beginners believe, once you have built up solid search engine traffic and have earned reputational authority in the eyes of major search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo – your keyword rankings pretty much stay consistent indefinitely (and dare I say it, permanently). Once you have this search engine authority built up, it’s very difficult for new blogging and website entrants into the field to supplement your existing position. This probably explains why numerous major media companies have been trying to contact me recently to inquire about potential buyout opportunities or website acquisitions. Frankly, I have very little incentive to entertain such offers as I truly enjoy the significant incomes I generate from the sites that I own, as they require very little effort on my part – but of course, with the right offers, anything is possible I suppose.

For those of you who have always thought about wanting to start blogging online to either share your  interests with the rest of the world or just to make some money on the side or even provide your family an alternative income source during these difficult and unpredictable times – now is the time to start blogging and pursuing your web business aspirations. The more you delay, the more such opportunities will gradually slip away. Carpe diem!

Selling used books online is one of the easiest ways to significantly declutter your home and earn some extra money in the process. Although it might seem like the intellectual thing to do – to have volumes of books and textbooks lining your book shelves to offer up that desirable professional-looking scholarly facade, but chances are, after you’ve read those books once you’re very unlikely to ever read the vast majority of them ever again. Thus in the name of decluttering and staying organized, why not try to downsize your personal library periodically, and make some extra money while you’re at it by selling off some of your used books and textbooks?

As a part time personal finance blogger, book publishers and book authors frequently send me free personal finance books to read and review. After blogging about making money and a whole slew of financial topics for several years now, in this span of time I’ve probably received well over 30-50 books about money (the vast majority of them parroting and repeating the same material frankly). If I did not periodically sell them online or donate them away to friends and readers of this blog, the incredibly large pile of books would probably have winded up clogging a large corner of my house, gathering dust and taking up space.

College and graduate students in particular have the greatest to gain from not delaying in their efforts to sell off their old and used textbooks online. School textbooks are by their very nature profitable exchanges for the book authors and publishers who issue new editions every few years and force all current book owners to buy the new versions to stay current. Thus, limited in terms of value by short multi year lifespans, school text books are only as current and up to date as the next year’s release date. That is why I always strongly recommend that students sell their books quickly and convert them back to cash form as soon as the school semester or school year is over, lest they delay and wind up in ultimate possession of yesterday’s edition.

Where To Sell Your Used Books To Get the Best Price and Most Money Back

I started selling new and used books online back in 2000 when websites like eBay.com, Amazon.com, and Half.com were just gaining prominence. While I sold my fair share of unwanted books to local used bookstores, thrift stores, and even pawn shops for cash, I focused primarily on online selling due to the higher prices I could fetch over the Internet. Selling back used textbooks has always been a great way to recoup some of the expensive costs of expensive textbooks, but unfortunately, college and university bookstores these days continue to pay students the worst prices for book buybacks. In most cases, college bookstores usually only offer half or less of the original purchase price for buybacks so that they can in turn sell the used titles back to other students for huge markup profits. Today, there are many places over the Internet where you can sell your used books for much better returns – each with its own host of pros and cons.

1) eBay (Auctions) – If you’re a regular consumer looking to buy a new or used book for cheap, eBay will probably be your best bet as auction deals abound there and final sale prices are incredibly low. However, if you’re a seller of used books or textbooks, the general public perception that eBay offers super low prices definitely works against your favor. But due to eBay’s incredibly large customer base and superb ease of use, it’s an online book selling resource you simply can’t ignore. eBay is one of the very quickest, easiest, and simplest ways to sell used books online. Oftentimes if you’re listing an auction for a used book, you can simply utilize eBay’s book template setup feature, punch in the book’s ISBN number, and have an effectively designed eBay auction ready to go in just a moment’s time.

Even if you don’t always get the best prices for your books with eBay, it’s almost a solid guarantee that they will sell (albeit at eBay market determined prices). If you’re looking to sell an obscure, rare, or valuable book, or perhaps you’re looking to capture high traffic volume for an auction involving a collection of books at the same time – eBay might be your best bet due to its ability to offer up maximum public exposure. But because eBay auction consumers have been conditioned and accustomed to seek out and demand almost unreasonably low prices for their bids for some time now, you’re unlikely to make a tremendous amount of money with eBay book auctions if you’re a seller. Ebay’s continuously increasing listing fees and rising commission charges have definitely taken a serious toll on seller profit potential in recent years.

2) Craiglist.org (Classified Ads) - Craigslist is a very popular online classified ad listing website and is also truly the wild, wild west of market place transactions. The greatest appeal of Craigslist for online book sellers and buyers is that there are no commissions, advertisement listing fees, or special mandatory shipping charges required. Pretty much anything goes on Craigslist – with all transactional terms and conditions negotiated and worked out between sellers and buyers themselves. If you have used books for sale and do not wish to be constrained by the auction rules or regulated limitations of policed sites like eBay or Amazon, you might want to try out Craigslist. Prices vary wildly however – sometimes they offer prices higher than eBay listings while other times they’re lower. But in terms of saving time and effort, if you’re looking to get rid of your used textbooks or old book collections all at once in large parcels, Craigslist is ideal.

Here’s a suggestion for Craigslist sellers – if you’re looking to sell a large bundle of books at once, try putting multiple books together into a single collection and posting the listing for sale on Craigslist. If potential buyers express interest, try throwing in additional books to spicen up the pot in their favor if you’re willing to do so. This type of book selling strategy works incredibly well for smaller and lower priced books that don’t sell as well individually.

3) Book Buyback and Textbook Rental Websites - The biggest problem with utilizing do-it-yourself (DIY) type sites like eBay, Amazon, or Craigslist to personally list and sell your used books is the time and effort involved to list and market every one of the books for sale. Trying to keep shipping costs down and save money on the cost of packaging envelopes isn’t easy to do if you’re not an adept micro-tasker. One viable alternative to the do it yourself approach is to solicit the services of an online book buying website that will pay you a one time bounty for all of your available and aggregate used books in one fell swoop. Usually after you’ve provided the book buyback website the names and ISBN numbers of all of the books you have for sale, the site provides you pre-paid postage labels for you to ship the books to them via the postal service. With book buyback services, there is no need for you to manage auctions, handle customer service inquiries, or follow up regarding timely payment. Once the folks at the book buying firm have received your books and reviewed their condition, they usually issue payment directly to you in the way of a check, PayPal payment, or even a direct deposit into your checking account in some cases.

The biggest downside with these online book buyback websites is the incredibly low price they generally pay for used books and textbooks. Because they pretty much do all of the work for you, these companies generally pay only small fractions of the original retail price for these books. Rarely do their offers ever match or exceed the prices that used book sellers can fetch on their own via eBay, Amazon, or even Craigslist. While I don’t necessarily vouch or recommend any one particular site for its quality or reliability – here are a few book buyback and book rental websites I’ve come across that you might want to follow up on – Chegg.com, eCampus.com,  BookByte.com, Cash4Books.net, Barnes & Noble, TextbooksNow.com, Textbooks.com, BooksValue.com, WeBuyTextbooks.com, BooksValue, TextbooksRUs, and CollegeBooksDirect. Let me know if there are any other sites worth mentioning, worth reviewing in detail, or even worth criticizing.

4) Amazon.com Used Books and Textbooks (Recommended For Most Sellers)

Compared to all of the other online ways of selling used textbooks and old books, I prefer listing books for sale on Amazon.com because it is much more intuitive to use than other alternatives. Signing up for an Amazon seller’s account is straightforward and listing your used books for sale is easy. You will be asked to describe the condition of your book, set your desired fixed price, and denote your available shipping options. Amazon.com ultimately reimburses sellers for their shipping costs but charges a $0.99 fee plus an additional fee based on a certain percentage of the final list price. Here are a few Amazon quick links for sellers that want to get started:

• Amazon’s textbook store - Click here if you’re looking to sell a used college or graduate school textbook.
• Amazon’s used book store – If you’re selling any other used book, try this link to get started.

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed a lot more regular success and have earned more profit with Amazon than say, eBay or Craigslist. Quite possibly because Amazon.com started out as a book store and many people still see and trust Amazon primarily as an authoritative source for buying books at a reasonable price, it seems visitors to the site are more willing to pay a slightly higher price premium than at other websites. But perhaps the greatest benefit of using Amazon to sell books is the ability to take advantage of the natural flow of visitors coming to the site and looking to buy a brand new book. Because used book listings are displayed alongside the prices for new book titles, you may be able to siphon off new book seekers and convert them into buyers of used, lower priced versions. Rather than go to Amazon.com and shell out $25 for a new book, you may be able to successfully lure prospective buyers into going for your cheaper $15 used version instead.

Obscure, rare, and collectible books tend to fetch higher prices via an auction or free-for-all classified ad listing than you may be able to get by selling the title via a fixed price listing on Amazon. If you prefer to sell a whole selection of titles simultaneously as a pallet or collection, you might be better off using eBay or Craigslist. Non textbooks or expired textbook editions tend to sell much faster on eBay and Craigslist where aggressive deal seekers and bargain hunters abound. But if you’re selling either a popularly used and update-to-date school textbook, or trying to sell an otherwise recognizable bestselling title, Amazon will probably be your best bet. So long as your textbook has not been discontinued due to the release of a newer edition, you should not have any trouble selling your new condition book on Amazon somewhat close to what you paid for it. Standardized books such as school textbooks and popular bestsellers almost always perform better on Amazon.com listings than on other alternative sites.

If you’re thinking about selling used books on Amazon, here are a few important tips and pointers I’ve learned and picked up in recent years:

1. Always list your used books for sale at prices lower than your closest competitor.
2. Always track your used book listing periodically to ensure that it’s being priced at the lowest it can be.
3. If your competitors attempt to low ball their prices and undercut your title listing, instead of getting into a pointless price war, try matching prices tit for tat rather than beating them instead.
4. List your used book’s condition accurately. Even if your used textbook is really in “like new” condition, you might want to list it as “very good” instead. You don’t want future potential buyer complaints to cause your Amazon seller rating to suffer.
5. Keep your shipping prices low by utilizing free shipping boxes that you naturally come across, or buy them from deep discounters like Walmart, Target, or even your local supermarket. One great way to save a lot of money on packaging and shipping supplies is to buy them through eBay. For example, check out the following prices for eBay bubble wrap mailers, and eBay bubble envelopes.
6. Always ship utilizing the cheapest method possible – For used books and textbooks, the cheapest way to ship is usually through the postal service’s media mail option. However, with certain smaller books, it might very well be cheaper to go with First Class Mail – just ask the post office to ship using the cheapest way possible.

Regardless of which method you use to sell your used textbooks and unwanted books, selling back books (textbooks in particular) is simply a great way to recoup original purchase costs. But bear in mind, unless you are somehow a very large power seller with access to special shipping discounts and access to very cheap shipping supplies, you are unlikely to get rich or make a lot of money online through selling used books alone as a business form. Like those money making paid online surveys you always see, they may be otherwise legitimate ways of earning some extra cash back, but it’s doubtful you’ll ever become a millionaire in the process. It’s theoretically possible, but highly unlikely.

Reviews Of The Top Online Banking Options For High Interest Rates

If you’re searching for a list of the best online banks to deposit your savings in, then you’ve arrived at the right place. One of the most common, if not the most often asked question I get as a personal finance blogger, is which bank I would recommend to those looking to get the best interest rate of return for their money.

While some of us plow our personal savings into home mortgage payments or invest them into stocks, most of us invariably keep a certain stash into more accessible bank accounts for emergency fund purposes. Others like myself use high interest savings accounts to save up money for specific targeted purposes – in my case, I’m saving up for my future down payment for a house. So, if you’re keeping money in a bank account anyway, why not try to get the highest interest rate possible? To address this need – below, I’ve compiled a list of what I believe to be the best online banks available today – banks that offer the best deals for high interest savings and high yield savings accounts. Many of the recommended firms are also very competitive in the area of certificate of deposits (CD’s) and checking account rates as well.

Unfortunately, with interest rates at historical lows across the board given the current ongoing economic climate, the term “high yield savings account” is more of a comparative delineation than a descriptively absolute one. Just a few years ago during the glory days, one could easily rake in a hefty 5% to 6% APY rate with popular online savings accounts and high yield CD rates. But those days are long gone and today, the top online banks only offer anywhere from 2% to 3% tops. But despite the overall lower rates at the present time, the yields found at these Internet based banks still greatly exceed the nearly zero percent interest rates found at most local brick and mortar banking institutions. Think the best bank accounts are found at places like Citibank, Bank of America, Chase Bank, or  Wells Fargo? Think again. The APY rates offered by Internet based online banks almost always greatly exceed the paltry interest rate offerings of the brand name banks, while offering the same FDIC insurance limit guarantees and transactional security protections that are equal to, if not better than that offered by the big boys.

Benefits Of Online Savings Accounts: Impressive Rates With FDIC Insurance

Because of much lower overhead costs, online banks generally pay much better rates on savings accounts, checking accounts, and CD’s. Online bank accounts are also much less likely to have minimum balance requirements than ordinary retail banks. They also offer many conveniences and advantages over accounts at traditional neighborhood banks and credit unions. So long as the customer has access to an Internet connection, online bank account transactions can be performed, balances can be checked, and funds can be transferred in and out anywhere and anytime. The ability to keep 24 hour tabs on your account funds, pull up account history data on demand, and eliminate the need to conduct transactions in cumbersome paper form are some of the clear advantages of web based banking. To compete with the traditional big name banks, a large majority of online banks have eliminated their monthly fees and account minimums, and now offer a wealth of free financial services that include free bill pay, free budgeting tools, free fund transfers, and free out of network ATM usage.

Below is comprehensive review of what I’ve found to be the top online banks for high interest checking and high yield savings accounts. Each offer, except for the first one – provides for full FDIC insurance limit protection for account holders – guaranteeing the safety and security of account funds from unexpected loss.

List Of The Best Online Bank Accounts For Savings, Checking, and CD Rates

1) Lending Club - While not an online bank in the traditional sense, Lending Club offers a comparable peer to peer lending (P2P) program that matches prospective consumer lenders with prospective borrowers, all with a variety of disclosure safeguards to ensure a generally low default rate. While the program has gone mainstream and garnered quite a bit of positive feedback from the press and new members, it’s been able to stick to the fundamental basics and continue to offer its lending account holders the ability to reap a consistent 9.60% average interest rate of return. For those seeking an impressive high yield savings account alternative to online banks, Lending Club is worth a look. If you wish to know more, please take a look at my review of Lending Club where I explore in depth how the online program works and evaluate it to see if it truly is a legitimate non-scam way to earn a higher APY rate on your savings.

2) Everbank – I highly recommend Everbank if you’re looking for a top tier online bank that offers great rates for savings accounts and checking. EverBank’s product offerings are diverse and includes features like money market accounts, CD’s, credit cards, and even currency investments options. You may not be as familiar with Ever Bank as you might be with a few of the other banking names on this short list, but they’ve been around for some time. Since the beginning, EverBank has always earned awards and praise for its banking features and online services. Money Magazine rates EverBank as one of its “Best Of Breed Online Banks”, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance ranks the firm’s Everbank FreeNet checking account very highly, and even Forbes Magazine has ranked the bank among the “Best of the Web” for numerous years.

Everbank’s most popular account feature – the highly regarded Yield Pledge Money Market Account – requires a minimum initial deposit of $1,500 and starts out at an extremely high introductory rate that overwhelming tops most high yield savings rates in the market. After a 3 month introductory period, the rate automatically adjusts to a slightly lower rate, but one that is still competitively higher than that offered by other online banks. Thereafter, there is no monthly fee so long as a balance of $5,000 is maintained. For more details and commentary, see my Everbank review.

3) Ally Bank – Formerly known as GMAC Bank, the new Ally Bank markets itself as a new age approach to online banking – one that offers transparency and a reformed way of doing business with its flexible array of unlimited sub accounts, daily interest compounding, no minimum deposits, no monthly fees, no minimum balances, and no sneaky disclaimers. I personally have deposited quite a bit of cash with Ally Bank and have found their online banking services to be very straight forward and reliably clean cut. Ally’s banking rates are very high and there are no confusing tiered interest rates to contend with. What you see is basically what you get – with the usual assortment of high yield savings accounts, money markets, and high yield CD’s. However, what’s uniquely appealing about Ally Bank is its offering of no-penalty CD deposits that allow account holders to avoid paying any fees to transfer money out prior to the CD maturity date. For more info about Ally’s banking features, please read my Ally Bank review.

4) E-trade Bank – Known more for its online brokerage arm, ETrade is what I call a one stop shopping all-in-one banking/discount brokerage firm. They offer pretty much the full package in the way of banking and brokerage services – including high interest savings accounts, checking, credit cards, mortgage services, CD’s, Roth IRAs, and investment gudiance. Best of all, Etrade does not impose any minimum balance requirements to open a new account. While E trade’s Complete Savings Account is not currently the best online bank in terms of offering the highest interest rate for deposits, it makes up for this mild shortfall by offering an extremely broad array of services from one source. Those that want the ability to instantly transfer money back and forth freely between their banking and broker accounts will find Etrade to be extremely appealing as the company seamlessly integrates the two services into one. If you want to know more, see my Etrade bank review and my Etrade broker review for my opinionated take.

5) FNBO Direct Bank – FNBO Direct is the online banking division of the First National Bank of Omaha – a bank with a great reputation that has largely escaped the credit crisis that has plagued most of the other banks in some shape or another. FNBO Direct offers competitive rates for its account holders and imposes no fees or minimum balance requirements. Fund transfers are quick and links to other bank accounts are easy to set up via a series of test trial deposits. ATM card options are available for those that wish to access their account funds from traditional live automated tellers. The bank’s high yield savings account was one the first to start offering super high rates during the heyday of Internet based banks, and continues to be one of the most popular choices for its consistently high interest rate offerings. As with all of the recommended banks on this list, FNBO offers full FDIC insurance limit coverage for account deposits. Please check out my FNBO Direct review if you wish to learn more about the online bank.

6) HSBC Advance – Named as the best cyber bank and having the best online savings account by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance in years past, HSBC Advance is a top tier bank in terms of reliability and name recognition. While its interest rate yields for its no-minimum-balance high interest savings accounts have fluctuated along with all of the other online banking names out there, HSBC’s rates remain very competitive. Along with its bank account offerings, the firm also offers a convenient array of banking features such as ATM debit cards and free online bill payments. Highly regarded for its commendable customer service reputation, HSBC also provides its banking customers amazing access to its growing network of convenient bank branches and ATM’s located all over the world (with new locations being constantly added).

7) Capital One Direct Bank – While probably much more famous for its lineup of “What’s In Your Wallet” Capital One credit cards and its popular build-your-own credit card Card Lab feature, Capital One provides its savings account customers with pretty competitive rates through its online direct banking program. With Capital One Direct Banking, members get access to InterestPlus Savings, high yield money markets, certificate of deposits, and even business money market accounts. While there are no mandatory account minimum requirements and no sneaky service fees, a balance of $10,000 or more is required to get the highest APY rate that Capital One has to offer. Online bank transfers are always free, and linking your Capital One savings account to existing external bank accounts for quick and easy transfers is very easy to do.

8) ING Direct Bank – As the grand daddy of them all, ING Direct has been around the longest since its emergence during the early dot com era of 2000. Since then, ING Direct has solidified itself as one of the best online banks with some measure of streamlined improvements to its online interface over the years. While the firm’s bank rates have fluttered around of late, its yields are still competitive and exceed the rates offered by most neighborhood banks. Overall, ING Direct banking products are easy to open, easy to use, and ideally suited for those new to online banking. One thing that most reviewers of financial products generally agree on – is how simple and straight forward ING products are to manage. ING offers a wide array of banking and investment products with its seamless union of ING Direct savings, checking, and investing features via ING ShareBuilder. The firm’s very popular Orange Savings Account offers a competitive interest rate with no monthly fees and no account balance minimums. Its Electric Orange Checking account also enjoys similar praise and positive reviews from the online critics. Another greatly appreciated feature of the bank is also the ability to utilize ING Direct referrals to refer friends and family members, allowing them to enjoy special first time member bonuses as new account sign ups.

9) Dollar Savings Direct – As a newly acquired online bank by much larger parent Emigrant Bank, Dollar Savings Direct continues the tradition of offering great high yield savings rates for its flagship product. New savings accounts are easy to open hassle free with no account maintenance requirements, no maintenance fees, and no hidden charges. New accounts do require an initial minimum deposit of $1,000, however thereafter, there is no stated obligation that account holders must actually maintain that balance. If you are an aggressive bank rate chaser like myself and desire the safety and security of full FDIC insurance coverage for your liquid cash assets with the added benefit of high rates, you should definitely click through and check out what Dollar Savings Direct Bank has to offer. For more details, take a look at my Dollar Savings Direct review.

10) WT Direct Bank – Chances are, you’ve probably never heard of WTDirect bank before as they are a relative unknown compared to some of the bigger names above. However, as the online arm of Wilmington Trust FSB, the parent bank has been around for quite some time since the early 1990’s.  Currently, WT Direct offers a pretty attractive high yield online savings account that features a pretty top tier interest rate. Best of all, there are no minimum deposit requirements, no account maintenance fees, no limits on the number of linkages to external accounts, and all deposits earn interest regardless of balance amounts. One caveat however, is that the highest tiered interest rate for the savings accounts require balances of at least $10,000. If all other savings account alternatives above don’t suit your fancy, savings account holders with at least $10,000 to store away will find WT Direct to be a solid high yield savings option.

Searching For Other Alternative Sources Of High Interest Rates

Generally if you want the perfect mix of cash liquidity, account accessibility, and competitively high interest rate yields for your bank account funds – you ought to stock with high yield savings accounts. But if you’re willing to exchange a little bit of liquidity and lock up your monetary funds for anywhere between periods as short as a month to periods of 5 years or longer, you might be able to get a better interest rate yield via certificates of deposit. Check out my list of the best CD rates for what some of the top online banks are offering in that department.

Speaking of rates, those of you who are disappointed with the pitifully low interest rates on checking account funds might be surprised to know that there are high yield reward checking accounts out there that offer extremely high interest rates on checking balances. The rates offered are frequently the same or even better than the best online savings accounts and top level CD rates. The catch with these high interest reward checking accounts is that they often have stringent maximum balance limits and frequently require account holders to execute a certain number of debit card transactions a month to qualify. But if you’re up to the task, they may be able to provide you an impressively excellent rate of return for your money.

Reviews of the Best Paid Online Surveys: Avoid Internet Survey Scams

If you are searching for a genuinely legitimate paid online survey, you’re at the right place. The following is a recommended list of popular online marketing firms that are offering free paid surveys and is a nice resource for people looking to make some money online from home or earn a little bit of extra cash on the side by filling out short survey questionnaires. After much research with a lot of trial and error, I’ve compiled a list of what I’ve found to be the top paid online survey programs that compensate participants with either cash or gift card rewards for completed surveys.

If you’ve already conducted an online search via Google.com or Bing.com for the best paid surveys, then you’ve probably already noticed that the vast majority (95%) of those search results invariably lead to some rather scammy looking links or to websites that try to convince you to fork over a membership fee for exclusive access to some secret list of paid surveys. It’s a sad and rather sobering sight to see, but the Internet is littered to the brim with such misleading resources and self interested clutter. Don’t buy the marketing hype or misleading online promotions that suggest that you must actually pay money to gain access to some super secret list. If a survey company starts asking you to pay an upfront charge, run away as fast as you can – lest you unwittingly succumb to the online scam. There is absolutely no reason that you ought to ever pay for such services as they can be legitimately and freely obtained online without cost.

Is It Really Possible To Make Money Online By Taking Paid Internet Surveys?

For starters and particularly for those of you easily misled or swayed by delusions of dancing dollar signs in your head, let me be very clear – the paid online survey websites listed below are not scams, gimmicks, or get rich quick schemes. No one is going to become a millionaire or earn enough money with these surveys to retire. Paid surveys can help you supplement your full time day job with some extra spending cash to pay the bills (up to anywhere from as little as $25 to as much as $200 or more per month), but that’s the extent of their financial usefulness. If you’re a stay at home mom, a full time student, a retiree, or even a working professional who wants to kill some time on a regular basis by knocking out a few quick surveys for some free money, these compensated surveys will definitely appeal to you. But those of you looking to turn online survey taking into some type of part time job are much better off working as a blogger and directing your efforts towards blogging to make money. At the very least, part time blogging has a greater potential to turn a simple hobby into a full time and sustainable online job than survey taking ever could.

However, in terms of earning a little bit of honest cash on the side, free paid survey offers are verifiably legitimate sources of income. Paid survey websites work by referring to their members survey inquiries provided by real companies. Most of the referring retailers are owners of consumer brands that you and I are probably already familiar with – brands that range from popular grocery food products and recognizable household goods, to manufacturers of popular electronic devices and automobiles. The retail companies rely on these regular survey samples to design and market their products, and are very willing to pay a small amount of money to compensate individuals for their survey taking time. Along with the usual assortment of survey inquiries based on your previous history of consumer usage and experiences, occasionally you also get lucky with a specific request to try out new and untested products. I enjoy it immensely when survey companies send out actual consumer products for me to review in person – items that include everything from experimental trial shampoos to shaving razors, to snack crackers and ear phones. After examining and trying out the products, you are expected to rate your experience on a sliding scale based on a variety of determinative factors.

The pay out rate for each online survey varies depending on the subject matter and the length of time that each is expected to take. The easy $1.00 surveys can take as little as 1-10 minutes to complete, while the more difficult but more lucrative $20 – $25 health care and fitness related paid surveys may take as long as an hour or longer. Depending on your personal demographics, you may or may not qualify for a large number of the potential paid online surveys out there – as it all depends on what the marketing companies are looking for at any given time. But if you want to fully maximize your online survey income potential, I highly recommend that you sign up and register for as many legitimate survey sites as you can. The more survey programs you have a relationship with, the more likely you will be able to maintain a steady flow of survey taking opportunities to make money from. As always, be sure to use a spare email account, lest you get overrun by survey emails (although you can always shut the survey messages down at any time by request).

Reviews Of Recommended Paid Online Survey Sites (All Are Free To Join):

1) NFO My Survey – The MySurvey Consumer Panel website is one of the very best free online survey providers out there and one that I highly recommend for aspiring paid online survey takers. Not only is their website very accessible and easy to navigate, their online surveys pay quite well. Since I joined as a panel survey taker years ago, they’ve provided me a consistent stream of paid survey opportunities on a wide array of interesting topics, including numerous fun product review solicitations that were mailed to my home for me to try out and opine on. Though the company utilizes a point system for dishing out reward incentives, the points are fully redeemable for cash checks and gift cards. The company also allows participants to earn additional money through referrals of their own.

2) Synovate – The Synovate Global Opinion Panel pays cash for completed online surveys and offers actively engaged participants the opportunity to receive a fairly steady burst of paid online survey chances on a regular basis. The Synovate survey company’s payout rate is quite competitive but dependent on the survey’s subject matter. Keep an eye out for those lucrative health care related surveys as they pay $10 and up. Synovate does provide product review opportunities as well and I’ve received my fair share of fun experimental bathroom products to review.

3) Ipsos I Say – Ipsos is a pretty big name in the marketing research world. While they focus primarily on in home product reviews and consumer product surveys, they still generally provide a reasonably balanced mix of of survey opportunities for their participating members. If you are interested in receiving freebies and getting free survey test products in the mail to review, you might want to give Ipsos a try. In regards to these in-home freebie products, you are generally free to keep the products regardless of whether you actually fill out the accompanied survey or not.

4) Survey Savvy – I really like Survey Savvy as the company is one of the best paid Internet survey sites in the market today and offers its participants a pretty lucrative referral program for their friends and family members. The company pays its members money for both personally completed surveys as well as completed surveys made by referrals. Payouts are dependent on the length of time and subject matter involved, but for friend and family referrals, you can earn $2.00 for every survey your direct referral takes and yet another $1.00 for every survey taken by their referrals. Based on the way Survey Savvy has things set up, online participants have multiple tiered opportunities to rack up income pretty quickly.

5) Global Test Market – I’ve been using Global Test Market to supplement my part time survey income for some time now. The company offers a fairly consistent number of survey taking opportunities for both American and international survey registrants looking to maintain a consistent stream of paid survey jobs. Even if you don’t qualify for a survey offer that is sent to you, you still get to accrue reward points simply by looking over it. Participants earn Global Test Market Points for completing surveys, redeemable for a variety of reward incentives. Like all of the survey companies reviewed on this list, Global Test Market is completely free and not contractually compulsory (you’re not forced to answer all surveys if you don’t want to).

6) Greenfield Online – If you are trying to find a legitimate paid online survey company that will provide you a significant number of survey gigs at a consistent pace, Greenfield Online is definitely for you. Greenfield has access to a lot of offers and provides payment in a variety of forms, including cash checks and free entries into their regularly renewed prize drawing. Here’s my little advice for registrants of Greenfield Online – stick to the cash payment only surveys and consider skipping the ones that only offer prize drawing entries. Cold hard cash beats raffle drawings any day. Sure you, might get lucky, beat the odds, and win the lottery, but your chances are slim to none that you will.

7) My Points – Want to get paid for reading spam emails? Then give MyPoints a try. The company is legitimate and at any time you want the emails to permanently stop, simply unsubscribe. MyPoints is not really a paid online survey provider per se, but they do offer survey opportunities as part of their reward earning system. The company offers a very large variety of ways to earn bonus points for future prize and merchandise redemption. If you are determined to make money online, I recommend trying out MyPoints as a resource. You can earn points by completing surveys (SurveyMail), reading e-mail advertisements (BonusMail), or even by signing up for online trial offers. If you don’t want to sign up for any unnecessary services, I recommend that you simply stick with the Survey Mail and Bonus Mail opportunities to earn reward points.

8) American Consumer Opinion Panel – The American Consumer Opinion Panel, or ACOP as it’s commonly called, is a personal favorite of mine due to the speed at which the company issues out compensation checks for completed paid surveys. Depending on the type of survey completed, ACOP participants can expect to be paid anywhere from $4 to $20 depending on the length, qualification requirements, and subject matter of the survey. If you desire to be paid more and reap anywhere between $25-$50 for each opportunity, you might want to consider signing up for ACOP sponsored online focus group reviews whenever those rare offers present themselves.

9) Lightspeed Consumer Panel – If volume of surveys is the most important factor to you, then definitely consider signing up with Lightspeed. The consumer survey company offers a tremendous number of paid online survey opportunities, paying out reward points for each completed survey. Reward points are fully redeemable for cash payments, gift cards, and other merchandise based prizes. For the professional survey takers out there who can speed read and crank through a large number of surveys in one sitting, Lightspeed has the potential to be quite a lucrative part time income cash cow for super active participants.