Investment Options When Saving For a Home

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<p>justMarried08,</p>

<p>If you are in the same tax bracket as POITG (40%), then you probably make too much money to contribute to a Roth IRA and too much money to get any tax benefit when contributing to a Traditional IRA. And I see no benefit in contributing to a Traditional IRA unless you get the tax benefit -- might as well just open an investment account. But I'm no financial whiz, so I will defer to the more knowledgable members of the thread.</p>

<p>POITG,</p>

<p>I am in the same situation. Fortunately, I sniffed out the Fed's direction (cutting rates, etc.) a little while back and pulled most of my money out of ING Direct and dropped it into a short-term CD. But I'll be right back where I started when that CD matures.</p>

<p>Irvine Renter,</p>

<p>I think the US tax system more generally, as well as the FED's rate cutting, is designed to dissuade people like me, POITG, and justMarried08 from saving. They want us to go buy flat screen TVs and lease SUVs. They want us to CONSUME and prop up the economy. For example, I would like to save more money for retirement, but my wife and I are already maxing out our employee-sponsored plans and we make too much to get tax benenfits from IRAs. I know nobody will be shedding tears for us, but the financial gravy train we currently enjoy is about to go off the tracks -- and we'd like to save as much as possible now. No, I don't work in real estate. I work a job that demands insane hours/sacrifices, and I'm about to jump ship (sorry for the mixed metaphor) to a more sustainable career.</p>
 
E-mail from HSBC today:





<em> We are writing to inform you that based on the recent drop by the Federal Reserve, HSBC Direct has adjusted your Online Savings Account rate to <strong>3.80%</strong> APY*. At 8x the national savings average**, you are still earning one of America’s highest savings rates.





HSBC Direct will continue to evaluate and respond to market changes so we can provide you with competitive rates. And if your rate changes, whether up or down, we are committed to always letting you know.





You can feel confident knowing your savings are with HSBC Direct. We’re part of HSBC Group, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, and have over 140 years of experience helping customers manage their savings.





We sincerely appreciate you saving with HSBC Direct. </em>
 
buy some stock that deals with sex or porn business. sex always sell. you can back a porn and make pretty good money. or you can just back stock of companys that makes porn. or strip bars. check out RICK..... good times or bad times the sex business always does well.
 
Ask your financial advisor, bank etc, about auction rate municipal bonds. Currently, many are paying surprisingly high rates for tax exempt investments. More than you would expect from treasury yields, CDs, or the indexes of muni yields.
 
<p>I have the same ING annoyance... that 5% was supposed to help with the downpayment over the next 2-3 years. I'm leaving it in ING though... I won't risk anything else, even though I'm losing to inflation. There is a cost to holding on to your money in chaotic times... I don't trust anybody at the moment, and certainly wouldn't mess with Countrywide on the verge of BK (is that worth a few dollars extra?) </p>

<p>I'm actually kind of worried about ING also... I may need to split up the money to make sure FDIC covers it. I'm not sure if 2 separate accounts in ING will work.</p>
 
YLG,



For an individual, 2 separate ING accounts won't protect your amount over $100k if something were to happen to ING Direct. You will need to invest the rest into another bank.
 
thanks, I was afraid of that. I don't know how ING will fare in the coming meltdown, but I know their stock took a big hit recently.
 
If you do check out RICK, check it out closely. Don't just look at the chart since November. With planned dilution of shares and lack of organic growth, I'd rather short RICK than go long.
 
You guys ever think about balance transfer from a credit card? transfer the balance to a high yield CD with a 0% interest rate for 12 months. you can make money using the bank's money. just make sure that you read the fine print and that they don't charge you the 3% balance transfer charge. Use their money to make money and pay them back on the 11th month. upside also is that they force you to make monthly payments so when you pay back the money you have a nice little savings to boot. Force savings account sort of.
 
Winex- RICK has truly gone up since i check. i bought my share about a year ago for like 6 bucks. i am truly shocked that it jumped to 24bucks. thanks for the heads up. i think i will sell now.....
 
Does anybody know of anything about natural language search companies? In general I'm afraid to buy technology now but I'm intrigued by companies like AskMeNow (AKMN), Inquira (private I think) and similar especially given the press given to semi-competitor Powerset. I also like defensives like drug stores companies, alcohol, big oil.
 
awgee: In general, if USD goes down, GLD is up. So, given that USD WILL be weaker, GLD sounds like a good place to put money to, but is the ETF GLD price already too high ? How to evaluate it ? What are the risks involving purchasing "GLD" ? Thanks
 
2click - IMO physical gold is the best hedge. Physical gold is no one else's liability. What I mean by that is anything else you invest in which is not an actual physical commodity is just a piece of paper until the counterparty pays you. When you own physical gold, you own ounces, and the quantity or quality does not vary.<p>


So far, GLD, seems to be a fairly good substitute for physical gold, especially for small amount trading. Very little cost to store, deliver, secure, etc. The down side is that the owner of GLD will never be sure that the gold will be there when he wants to sell. If you read the prospectus, you will see that the management of GLD is not liable or responsible for the existence of the gold in it's contracted depositories. And the same can be said for any other unallocated gold shares in other funds, mints, banks, etc.<p>


I could go on forever, but I think I answered your question.
 
Awgee you remind me of "Money as Debt" with your comment!





As long as we're on the subject of Gold or "GLD;" with the gov't devaluing the currency and everything else (RE, stocks, Britney) seeming like it's one a quickly accelerating track to hell, can anyone give me a good reason why I shouldn't take my birthday money and buy a Kilo of the metal right now?
 
<p>Where are you going to keep it? A kilo is a LOT of gold. If it's in a safety deposit box, will the bank let you in, if there's a run? But that's where we have our miserably small amount of gold & silver.</p>

<p>would make the mattress lumpy!!!</p>
 
<i>"can anyone give me a good reason why I shouldn't take my birthday money and buy a Kilo of the metal right now?"</i><p>


Yea, I can give you a good reason to wait a few days and then maybe even a month or more. The IMF announced that it is going to sell $92 bil worth of gold.<p>


I doubt if the IMF will really sell that much, and I doubt it will even sell 10% of that much, but the announcement could possibly, and quite probably, IMO, have a profound effect on the price of gold for as long as folks believe that they really intend to sell that much gold.<p>


The IMF's gold will probably not be sold on the open market and only sold to Central Banks, if it is even really sold at all.
 
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