Re-Diversifying My Investments

 I haven't talked much about my investments recently. Over the years, my 401k, Roth IRA and other investments have grown nicely. My strategy has been to pick a variety of mutual funds, mostly, and leave them alone. But I do keep an eye on them and in the last few years I've started to be more conscious of rebalancing my portfolio as I get closer to the age when I'll fully retire and start having to use that money. 

I've been more heavily weighted to stocks than what is traditionally recommended for someone my age, so I've been nudging things towards more conservative investments a bit, but it's been hard to do that in the last few years, when bond funds haven't been doing very well. Meanwhile, stocks have continued to hit new heights, despite some bumps in the road-- that makes them hard to give up. But today I read a very interesting article that made me decide it was time to take more action:

Your "Safe" Stock Funds May Be Riskier Than You Think

The gist of it is that even if you think holding mutual funds means your investments are diversified, you actually probably have a lot of eggs in just a few baskets because of the gains in tech stocks due to AI. I'd been aware that several big tech stocks were becoming a bigger and bigger share of the overall market, but reading this article was the impetus for me to dig deeper into my own portfolio to see how much of it was based on Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet/Google, Microsoft and Meta. I dug into every fund I hold and looked at what their top holdings are, totaled up the percentages held in these companies, and then applied that percentage to my total dollar value in each fund. I totaled that up and calculated what percentage it was of my total investments, and found the result a bit scary:

Over half a million dollars, or about 19% of my investments!

To me, at my age (late 50s), it's too much to have riding on these 6 companies, even if they've been doing really well. (I probably should also have added Tesla into my calculations, as it appeared in many of those top holdings lists, as did Broadcomm.) I was also concerned when I read some recent analysis about circular investments among these companies. Bloomberg had an article about it, which seems to be paywalled, but you can see a graphic from the article here, and there's another interesting visualization of the situation here. Some people think there's enough fundamental promise in AI that this will all be fine, or that if things go south, it will hurt smaller startups the most, but it feels a bit too Ponzi-scheme-ish to me. If I was younger, I'd be more inclined to ride it out, but I'd rather play it a little safer.

Most of my exposure is in one big Fidelity fund where I have almost $600k invested. So I decided to just lop some of that off, and move $200k of that into 5 other funds I already hold in smaller amounts, a mix of international stock funds, mid-cap stock funds and bond or blended funds. Even this probably doesn't  rebalance me as much as I need, but it's a start. I'm harvesting some gains now, and maybe I'll miss out on even bigger gains to come, but my gut tells me we could be heading for a time when some of this bubble may burst.

I also can't help thinking of the classic advice to invest in what you know and like. I know Amazon and while they seem pretty world-conquering, I don't like them and don't want to support them any more than I have to. I use Apple products and love them, but I'm worried they are losing their way a bit. I HATE the "liquid glass" redesign. I'm getting really sick of Facebook and Instagram, and more and more of my friends seem to be leaving these platforms-- or else I can never find their posts because they are buried under so many ads. And I have yet to find any instance of AI that I can really embrace-- mostly it seems like an inaccurate annoyance, and where it actually has powerful applications, it will just kill jobs. I've seen AI summaries of meetings I was in, and was impressed at how well it captured most things, but it wasn't good enough for me to not take my own notes, so what's the point? Though I will admit it could have been handy to be able to speak to my computer and say "exchange $200k of my Fidelity Growth fund and reinvest it in $40k of fund X and $40k of fund Y..." etc.

Anyway, that's where my head's at today on a very chilly Sunday! We'll see how it goes.

And as usual, all caveats apply that this is not financial or investment advice, I'm not a finance or investment professional, etc. Just sharing my personal thought process.

Tech Check

Back in my Palm Pilot days, I was such a junkie for the newest and latest device, it became a pretty significant part of my spending, even if I did lessen the blow by selling unwanted devices on eBay before they lost too much value. But nowadays, my relationship to tech toys is quite different-- I always seem to be holding on to whatever I have, and buying a new one only when it is absolutely necessary. Not just because I want to save money, but because the new things somehow don't seem as nice as the old ones. For instance:

In 2015, I posted about my decision-making process for buying a new iPhone. Seeing that post made me realize that I've now been using my phone for over 3 years, so the value I've gotten out of paying the full price up front for it is even better. It still works fine and I'm planning to hold on to it as long as I can. I don't like the even larger size of the iPhone X and newer models, so I might have to keep an eye on whether any future models will be produced in the size of the 6/7/8, and at least upgrade to an 8 before that size goes away.

My other electronic tool is a MacBook Air. I bought it in 2012. It pretty much works fine, at least when it's plugged in, but the battery tends to conk out on me when I least expect it, going from 35% or 40% to 0% without warning. They've just announced a new MacBook Air, so that's starting to make me think about an upgrade. But maybe I could just replace the battery on my current laptop? Would that be a good investment at this point? One other factor I have to consider is that I have the prospect of some work in the coming year. If I'm using my computer for work, it would make sense to get a new one, to have something more reliable. And I'd be able to deduct that expense when I do my taxes. I'm not totally sure if this job will pan out, so I will hold off on any purchase for now and see how things go.

One other technology-related purchase: I finally upgraded my Quicken software. I've ranted many times on this blog about how Quicken for Mac upgrades have SUCKED for years! I was still using Quicken for Mac 2007 because none of the upgrades seemed like an improvement. But a few weeks ago, it finally started acting up and my file got corrupted. I was able to salvage enough from backups to import most of my data into the new Quicken for Mac 2018, though I lost a few months worth of net worth data. I was able to export some snapshots into Excel so I have the last few years of income/expenses by category, and net worth as of year end. And eventually I will have enough data in the new Quicken for year on year comparisons to be valid again. The new software actually seems to do most of what I want, but I'm still pissed off at Quicken. They've gone to a subscription model, so I'll have to pay for it again on a regular basis instead of being able to stay with the same version for years. Oh well-- I guess I had a good run there with the 2007 version!

I just don't find myself tempted by any other tech toys right now. The Alexa and other such devices hold zero interest for me. I might get Sweetie an Apple TV for Christmas. Someday I'd enjoy having a really nice stereo system, now that we live in a house where loud music won't bother any neighbors. But otherwise the kind of tech that's on my mind these days is a lighter snow shovel or battery-warmed mittens!

Smartphone Plans and Paying Full Price for an Unlocked iPhone 6S

For a long time, my cell phone bill hasn't been a major part of my personal finance decision making. I've had an iPhone 4S for almost 4 years, on the minimum AT&T phone/data plan, with my contract long over. I was paying something like $0.10 per text message, because I texted so rarely that it seemed like a better deal than the $4.99 a month it would have cost me for unlimited messages. So I thought I was doing the right thing, financially speaking. 

The problem is that the world of smartphone billing plans has totally changed in the last year or two. Suddenly everyone is acknowledging the true costs behind those contract plans, and there are new options that un-hide the hidden costs that were formerly buried. Because my 2-year contract was long over but I was still paying the same price, I was actually over-paying for my phone. 

Several months ago, I dug into the AT&T website and discovered that I was able to easily switch my plan to one where I got more data, and unlimited text messages, and my monthly bill decreased by about $30! I felt very foolish for not having discovered this sooner, but I then continued on my merry way with my little iPhone 4S.

As you might have heard some whispered rumors about, if you talk to an exclusive set of people who are super-in-the-know, Apple just released the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. (I know, you are totally shocked because you hadn't heard this news ANYWHERE!) I was disappointed when the iPhone 5 and 5S came out, and even more disappointed when the iPhone 6 came out because I don't like their more elongated/larger shapes. I've always liked small phones. But I am finding that small screens are a little harder on my eyes, and my iPhone 4S is starting to feel quite sluggish and losing its battery life, so I decided that the release of the 6S was my time to buy a new phone.

At first, I still had financial virtue as my main goal, and I figured I would just buy an iPhone 6 after its price dropped. But the more I thought about the 6S, the more I leaned towards getting the most current model, for some of its new features. But I'm really not sure how I'll cope with that larger size. There have been some rumors saying that the iPhone 7 release in 2016 might go back to offering a smaller size, so I decided to look at ways of buying a new phone that would allow me to upgrade a year from now. It's not a smart financial choice to buy a new expensive phone every year, but I use my phone a lot, so there is value in having one I enjoy using.

I'm happy with AT&T, so I looked at their plans first. The AT&T Next plans allow you to spread the cost of the phone over different time periods, with trade-in and upgrade allowed partway through. If I wanted a new phone in a year, I'd choose the AT&T Next 20 plan. What surprised me is that all of AT&T's Next plans work out to be cheaper than signing up for a 2 year contract-- not because of the phone pricing itself, but because they give you a "discount" on your phone service if you're on the Next plan-- aka they charge you more for phone service if you are on a contract. It's weird-- I would think they would want to lock people in and get that $300 upfront payment for the device instead of spreading it all out. 

Then I looked at Apple's newly announced Upgrade Program-- it's actually a hair cheaper than AT&T's comparable plan, you get to trade in for a new phone after a year, and they throw in Apple Care so you have some extra coverage if you damage your phone. I take good care of my phone and have never had a cracked or broken screen, but I did worry a bit that I might be fumbling with the larger 6S size, so perhaps there would be more value than usual to an insurance plan. BUT... it actually doesn't save you that much money on a cracked screen. You still have to pay $99-- without Apple Care it's $149.

I also started thinking about how all these new variations of phone purchase plans serve another psychological purpose-- they just want you to get used to the idea that paying $750 for an iPhone is normal and necessary, and that you WILL pay that much, one way or another. That is almost as much as Apple's entry-level laptop computers cost! Back when I bought my first cellphone around 1999-2000, I would never have dreamed of paying the full $600 or $700 my (admittedly high-end) phone would have cost. When that phone was stolen, I bought another unlocked used one on eBay rather than cough up for a new one while I was still under contract. Back then, there was no option to pay less in service charges of course... and the idea of an additional data plan was nowhere on my radar either. It's just a different world now, and we are all so used to doing so much with our phones, it's become a whole different calculation of cost vs. value.

So I looked into paying full price for an unlocked iPhone, and sure enough, it works out to be the cheapest option. Obviously, I am very lucky to be in the position to be able to afford to pay the full cost up front without having to spread it out or pay interest on a credit card balance-- that's not an option for everyone. Here's why it works-- all the other upgrade plans are based on you trading in your old phone, which has value. If you get to keep your old phone, and can pass it on to another family member or friend, or sell it, it significantly changes the net cost of ownership. The remaining cost of the phone that AT&T absorbs after you trade it in is most likely a lot less than you'd get if you sold it, and far less that your friend or family member would pay for a new phone.

I made a spreadsheet for myself to figure all this out:

And after seeing the numbers on my spreadsheet, I ran down to the Apple store! I am now the mostly happy owner of a shiny new iPhone 6S, paid for in full. It's a pleasure to use and I do like the larger screen, but it still feels awkwardly large and slippery and one-handed use is nowhere near as easy as with a smaller phone. We'll see if I want to keep it or move on to whatever the next thing is a year from now!

Quicken for Mac 2015

Finally, Quicken has released an update for Mac users! This is meant to be a full version to replace Quicken for Mac 2007, with more functionality than Quicken Essentials for Mac. Unfortunately, it sounds like Intuit has failed once again to keep Mac users happy. The new software is getting pretty terrible reviews on Amazon. And it's not cheap! $74.95! Even against my better judgment, I was curious to try it because it will sync with a new Quicken iphone app, but I'd be resigning myself to more manual data entry because the Quicken for Mac 2015 doesn't allow import of QIF files, which is all that some of my accounts offer for downloading transactions.

As long-time readers of this site may remember, being able to enter transactions in a PDA or smartphone and sync with a desktop app has always been a big priority for me. It's a big part of how I track my finances, and I think tracking my finances down to the last penny is a big part of how I stay on track with my savings goals. I used to use a few different Palm apps, including Pocket Quicken. When I moved to the iPhone, I started using PocketMoney, which was the only app I could find that would "sync" with Quicken. I say that in quotation marks because the process is not a one-click sync, it's a rather complicated back and forth process, where you transfer a QIF file of recent transactions from iPhone to desktop, and then transfer a full restore of your updated accounts, transactions and balances back to the iPhone via another QIF file. But even if a bit time-consuming, it worked quite well... until now.

I finally upgraded my iPhone OS to iOS7. I had to be dragged kicking and screaming, because I preferred the look of iOS6 and was afraid a new OS would slow down my phone, but eventually, so many of my apps started to be incompatible that I figured I might as well do it. Fortunately my phone is working fine, but PocketMoney is now much more prone to crashing and has some weird issues, such as the keyboard covering fields where you'd want to read what you're typing. It still functions, though it's somewhat annoying to have to scroll to where you can see what you're entering. And the crashes make me worry that I'll lose data. Unfortunately the original developer of PocketMoney died a while ago, and his successors at the company don't seem to be keeping the software up to date. It's a shame, as there still doesn't seem to be any real alternative for my situation!

It's a shame-- I was all excited about a new version of Quicken, and then so disappointed when I saw the scathing reviews. Check it out on Amazon.

Quicken For Mac

Here we are in 2012 and it's nice to know that some things never change: Quicken's support for Mac users SUCKS!!

I am still using Quicken for Mac 2006. I forget exactly why I didn't switch to Quicken for Mac 2007 when it came out, but who could have imagined that it would be the last real update of the software for 5 years! I also forget exactly when Quicken Essentials for Mac was introduced-- it made me so angry, I guess I was doing my best to block it out! Intuit actually sent me a free copy to review, which I never did because it would have been such a slam. They basically took a decent financial program with a full set of features and said "oh gee, you Mac users just like things that look pretty and you aren't really numbers people anyway, so here's a financial program that only shows you the big picture and doesn't actually let you DO anything!" If you have any interest in really analyzing and tracking your finances and investments, it's useless. Let me just say it again: it SUCKS!!

At this point, it's almost impossible to buy Quicken for Mac 2007-- you can find it for sale on a couple of websites, including Amazon, but it's $150!! And it doesn't work on the most recent Lion Mac OS. Intuit claims they will be releasing a Lion-compatible update, but I'm not holding my breath. They seem to be more focused on developing iPad and iPhone apps. And while I do use Mint a little bit on my phone just to check balances, I don't consider it a real solution. I need to be able to save all my cash and bank account and investment transactions, categorize them in detail, run reports, export data to Excel for further analysis, etc. My current set-up involves using Pocket Money on my iPhone to enter daily transactions, which I then export to Quicken via a QIF file. I download investment and credit card transactions and enter repeating bills in the Quicken program on my laptop and then export an updated file back to my phone so I can see the most up to date balances.

At some point in the next few years, I'd like to upgrade to a newer Mac-- my current one actually works just fine, so I suppose I should thank the people at Intuit for preventing me from incurring an unnecessary expense. But if they don't release a new version, my options will all involve switching to a new program and losing at least some data. I'm not sure which would be least painful-- switching to Quicken for Windows would probably be the least complicated on one level, but that would involve paying $70 for the Quicken software itself (I think I'd need the Premier version to do the investment tracking I want to do), plus $80 for Parallels software to run Windows on the Mac, plus a copy of Windows 7 for $120. A total of $270 to keep using Quicken on a new computer!?! That SUCKS!! SUCKS, SUCKS, SUCKS!!

Saying that makes me feel a little bit better! :)

What are your favorite financial tracking programs?

Researching Decisions

I have always been a pretty careful shopper for most kinds of purchases. I'm as guilty as the next person when it comes to the occasional impulse buy of clothing or a book or music, but when it comes to major purchases, I usually slow way down and do a lot of research before I commit myself to anything. I look at Consumer Reports, I check web forums, I ask friends, I delay gratification while deciding whether I really want what I think I want. At least I try to!

So when Sweetie's DVD player broke, I was the one who said "whoa, let's check things out here and not be hasty." First I went to Consumer Reports. I saw that Blu-Ray DVD players now seem to be pretty much the norm, and I was attracted by the fact that they all seem to allow streaming video from Netflix. I'm not a big movie or TV watcher, so I'd been on the 2-DVD-a-month plan from Netflix and was perfectly happy with that, but being able to stream an occasional movie or old TV show appealed to me. So I found a Blu-ray player that had the features I wanted and good ratings and found it at an online retailer for a good price.
A few days later, it arrived, we set it up, and everything was good. We had a little trouble getting the streaming to work at first, but it turned out that all I needed to do was switch my Netflix plan to one that allowed unlimited streaming (duh). We watched a few episodes of Downton Abbey and were happy as clams.

We were so happy, in fact, that we almost immediately decided to get another player for the bedroom when we came across almost the same model for a really good price at Costco. We didn't think too much about it-- after all, we'd already done all that research. But in retrospect, I wish I'd thought things through a bit more! After finishing season 1 of Downton Abbey, I wanted to start watching season 2, but it's not available on Netflix yet, or any of the other services we can access on the Blu-Ray player. But I could buy access to watch the whole season 2, both the episodes already available and the new ones as they come out, via iTunes for $19.99. If I had bought an Apple TV instead of a second Blu-Ray player, we could watch them on the TV. The other cheaper option would be to buy a composite AV or HDMI cable adapter so I could plug my phone or laptop into the TV. Of course, the show is still airing on PBS so we could just try to watch the new episodes the good old-fashioned way, but we've already missed a bunch, and we don't have any way to record future ones if we're not home.

In the scope of life's worries, having to wait a few months to watch more episodes of a guilty pleasure soap opera disguised as high-brow drama is really not a big deal. Speaking as someone who has lived without a TV for most of my life and would usually rather read a book, I can't believe I'm even posting about this issue! But it does go to show that you should explore all options before acting too fast on any purchase. And please let me know if there are any other options I should be exploring to watch this show!!

New Productivity Features in iPhone OS5: Email Flags and Reminders

In the almost 15 years since I've started using electronic devices to manage my life, there's one thing I've wished for: the ability to read and FLAG emails and synchronize that with Outlook.
Flagging emails, and sorting my inbox so they remain at the top, is my number one tip for staying organized at work and making sure things I have to do don't slip through the cracks. But when I first had Palm Pilots, I either couldn't sync my email, or they didn't have a flagging option. I have had Blackberries issued by my employer, but until the most recent one, flags weren't supported-- and I really hate the Blackberry screen, so I've avoided using it since I got an iPhone. But the iPhone email app isn't that great, and didn't show flags at all... until now!
I just upgraded to iOS5 on my iPhone 3GS, and now the flags synchronize perfectly with Outlook! I can read my email on the go and not have to mark it as "unread" if I want to remind myself to follow up when I am back at my desk. Unfortunately, the iPhone email app still lacks a lot of features I'd love, like being able to filter the view to only unread messages, or sort the inbox so flags are at the top.

The other feature I'd been looking forward to in iOS5 was the "Reminders" app. I've used other 3rd party To-Do list apps-- Toodledo is pretty good, but the problem with that was that syncing to Outlook was always a bit dodgy (and the app I used is no longer even supported)-- and that was when I was able to actually install the needed desktop program on my work computer. When I was upgraded to a new computer, the IT department totally locked down our ability to install any non-approved programs, so I completely lost my Outlook syncing.

But now that I've got iOS5 and Reminders, the problem is solved! After upgrading, Reminders was automatically added to the apps syncing with my Exchange account, and the first time I opened the app, my tasks were there and syncing worked perfectly in both directions. Unfortunately, there are a couple of major features missing again! First of all, my tasks are not sorted in any order I can figure out in the iPhone app list view-- they aren't by date created, they aren't alphabetical, they're just totally random. There are no options to determine your preferred sorting method. You can sue the date view to see tasks due on a particular date, but you can't see more than one day at a time, so that seems pretty useless.

The other issue is that I can create multiple task lists on the iPhone, and all the tasks in those lists will sync with Outlook-- but on Outlook all the lists are merged. There is no way to map your Outlook task categories to your Reminders lists. So much for my idea of going back to having multiple task lists on Outlook for Business, Personal, Grocery List, etc. Yes, I can have these lists on my phone, and I can recategorize tasks on the desktop, but it will be annoying to have to maintain this somewhat manually instead of having it automatically sync.
I have yet to come across any other reviews that address these issues, but I can't believe I'd be the only one to want these features, so here's hoping they add them later! I won't hold my breath, though. But I can at least loop this back to the topic of money by pointing out that these kinds of productivity aids help me manage my job and hopefully get ahead in my career and make more money... and the iOS5 upgrade was FREE!

Does anyone else have any good iPhone productivity tips?

Deposit a Check With Your iPhone

I saw this article today and my inner tech geek went "WOW! I have to try that!"
I just happened to have a check in my wallet that I needed to deposit (for a miserable $141 reimbursement of a $2,000 root canal, but that's another story), so I went right to it!

First of all, not all banks offer this, as the Consumerism Commentary article notes. I do my local banking with Chase, and had already downloaded the iPhone app, but I'd never noticed that at the bottom of the screen, there's an icon for "Deposit." The first time you click it, you'll be asked to sign up for online depositing, which is free. The sign up took no time at all, just a few clicks.
When you're ready to actually deposit a check, you have to select which account (i.e. savings or checking) you want the deposit to go to, and enter the amount. Then you have to photograph the front and back of the check. They say it's best to do it in good light, against a dark background. I had had the check folded in my wallet, so I had to flatten it out. The camera frames the check and reminds you to hold still. You take a photo of the front and then the back-- you can zoom in to make sure your photo isn't blurry before you finalize the deposit. Some kind of processing then takes place, and you get a confirmation back, which includes the routing and account numbers from the check-- I assume that if the camera hasn't read the info properly, you'd get some kind of rejection at this point, but they do caution you to hang onto the check until the deposit has cleared, just in case.
I just did this 5 minutes ago, and immediately got an email from Chase confirming the deposit (though it still notes that it's "pending" and not "cleared.") We'll see if it all goes through properly in a day or two, I guess, but it looks like it will save me a trip to the bank. I have to say, I'm kind of amazed that this is possible!

Ads in Free iPhone Apps

I'm still loving my iPhone, despite the extra expense each month. Of course, as I'd expected, they've introduced the iPhone 4 and dropped the price of the model I bought by $200, but the iPhone has been such a life-saver over the last 3 months, some of that money has probably been made up by not having to buy extra gas because of getting lost on road trips. I had no idea I'd end up using the Google Maps feature so much!

I've also been having fun playing a free Scrabble-like game with a friend of mine who lives across the country. I've always enjoyed word games, and it's a great way to stay connected. Especially since I'm pretty consistently slaughtering her. Anyway, the one downside to the game is how intrusive the ads are-- after every turn, they pop up and take over the whole screen for a second or two until I can manage to dismiss them, and there's always a bar across the bottom of the home screen with an ad. A couple of times, I've been very tempted to just click on the button that takes you to purchasing the ad-free version for $2.99. But then I keep holding back, telling myself to just suck it up and save the 3 bucks.

This is always my dilemma-- I know $3 is not a lot of money. But I guess I think it's good practice to say no to spending on any occasion where it's possible. So an ad flashes in front of my and wastes a second or two of my time, so what? As a general value and guideline for life, I want to be the kind of person who is willing to put up with a little inconvenience, who isn't a prima donna. This may be only a very small and insignificant way of asserting that value, but heck, why not just do it? It's not that I live a 100% spartan lifestyle where I always take the cheaper, more difficult option, but that's the point: every time you say no to spending, it allows you to say yes to something else in the future.

How do you feel about ad-supported apps? Are you willing to pay a few more dollars not to see ads?

Mint Adds Manual Transactions

Mint.com has added a feature many people wanted: the ability to enter cash transactions and manually enter future transactions in other accounts. But the way it works is a little weird.

Let's look first at adding manual transactions, for instance to a checking account. This makes a lot of sense, as you really need to know what pending transactions could affect your account balance. You can enter a future check with a check number and later, when that check has actually cleared against your bank account, it will be automatically reconciled so you don't have a duplicate entry. I'm not sure how this would work with a savings account where there's no check number to help with matching the transactions.

As for cash transactions, I don't like the way they've implemented this. You can add a random transaction that isn't counted against any account if you just want to track cash expenses against a budget, but there's no way to maintain a cash account and enter expenses against it. Instead, they want you to assign your cash transactions to your recent ATM transactions, which some people were using as a workaround already. I guess they've made it a little easier to do that, but they've missed half the point of bothering to track cash in the first place. Cash is cash, and what matters is the total you have and the total you spend-- why would you need to assign it to a particular ATM transaction? And what if you receive payment in cash and then spend that money?

Another thing worth noting is that you can't yet enter new transactions from the iPhone app, which is really a necessity. Mint says they're working on adding that soon, though.

You can read more about this all works at the Mint Blog. Some of the comments bring up these exact issues so perhaps they'll listen to their users and make some changes.

But on the positive side, after using Mint for a couple of months now, I have to say that there is a lot to like about it. It's very easy to set up and I love being able to check my balances and see transactions on my iPhone. That makes it all the more frustrating that they have left a lot of good features out-- I wish I could see how the individual stocks and mutual funds in my portfolios were doing on my iPhone (showing how much they were up or down, not just the current price), rather than just a total balance. I wish the budgeting categories were a little more flexible. And the cash transaction thing is just bizarre. Let's hope they keep refining this without heading off in the wrong direction...

The iPhone Decision: How to Sync With Outlook and Quicken

How time flies when you suddenly get a bee in your bonnet about something! When I wrote the last post about 3 weeks ago, I was stuck in the position of tracking my finances with a Treo and Pocket Quicken and Quicken 2006 for Mac on my desktop. I was somewhat attracted to the iPhone but was daunted by the fact that there was no comparable program available to sync with Quicken, and I didn't want to pay the higher monthly charges for the required data plan. But I decided to start digging a little deeper into the possibilities of changing my set-up.

As I started my research, I read a comment somewhere in which someone mentioned using a program called Pocket Money on the iPhone, which he sync'ed with Quicken via importing and exporting QIF files. A little bell went DING DING DING in my head, and I was off and running! I suddenly lusted after the iPhone!

I know this sort of "thing lust" feeling is dangerous, and fortunately I don't have it too often. I anguish over spending more money on certain things but sometimes I realize that I can allow myself a little leeway and it won't be the end of the world. Sweetie, who is also quite frugal, was the one who pointed out that I've always been into technology and I really make use of the functions of a handheld device rather than it just being a toy, and I have a very online-intensive life that I have to manage, so why on earth wouldn't I want to upgrade to an iPhone? Of course there are lots of equally valid arguments against doing so, but the bottom line was that I decided I just wanted one! But first, I had to make sure it was really going to work for me.

The financial apps weren't the only issue-- when I started researching the iPhone I realized that a lot of things weren't going to be quite as simple as they were with the many Palm OS devices I've had over the years. I'm pretty locked in to Outlook at work for my calendar, contacts, tasks and notes, business and personal stuff combined, all of which sync'ed to my Treo at the click of a button. But iPhones and iTunes aren't supported at work, and the iPhone doesn't even have a built-in Task app, so I'd have to find a work-around that still allowed me to manage everything from within Outlook. Here's what I came up with:

• Outlook Calendar syncs with Google Calendar (via Google Calendar Sync, free), which syncs with iPhone
  
• Outlook Contacts sync with GMail contacts (via gSyncIt, $14.99), which sync to iPhone
• Outlook Tasks sync to Toodledo website (free) (via Toodledo Sync, free but donation appreciated), which syncs to iPhone Toodledo app ($1.99)
  
• Outlook Notes sync to Toodledo website (via Toodledo Sync), which syncs to iPhone Appigo Notebook app ($4.99). I'm also sync'ing the Outlook Notes to Google Docs via gSyncIt, and Google Docs can be viewed (but not edited) via the Safari browser in iPhone.

For email, I realized I needed to streamline a bunch of accounts I've been using-- an AOL address I've had forever, a GMail address, a Yahoo address, a custom domain address-- The iPhone can easily get mail from all these services, but I funneled everything into GMail, where I can answer them from the original address if I want to. By having my calendar and notes on Google too, I've managed to centralize and cloud-ize a lot of stuff, which is so much more efficient. I do have some worries about giving Google so much of my info, but I'm not sure it's any worse than having so much personal stuff residing on my work computer! (And it's worth noting that I don't store any sensitive info such as passwords in these places.)

Back to financial apps: I set myself up on Mint.com, which has an iPhone app (both are free). Mint makes it very easy to add all your accounts and see your net worth. You can't track cash or add transactions manually, and you can't see pending transactions, but you can categorize transactions on the website. It will be a nuisance to recategorize transactions on Mint, but once I do, it will do an okay job of giving me a snapshot of my finances.

I also tried to set up an account with Wesabe (free), which I'd heard allows you to track cash spending and also offers an iPhone app, but Wesabe's way of pulling in your bank account data is a drag-- it made me download a Firefox extension with which I'd then have to record a macro for downloading a statement from each of my accounts, i.e. once for E*Trade Savings, then again for E*Trade Money Market, then again for E*Trade Checking, etc.. This was so cumbersome right off the bat that I just gave up. Other sites have managed to make this process so much easier for years now, I don't see why Wesabe can't get to that standard.

As for the Pocket Money app mentioned above, it's an iPhone standalone that costs $9.99. It does pretty much everything Pocket Quicken does, and more, including some cool animated pie charts. The only thing that doesn't work as well is the syncing: instead of an automatic 2-way sync built into Palm's Hotsync feature, here's how it works: from Quicken, you export all your data as a QIF file. Then using a program called SyncDocs (free), you import that into Pocket Money via WiFi. It will bring in all your accounts, categories, transactions and budgets, but investment accounts seem to show up with zero balance and no transactions. You can then add new transactions in Pocket Money, and export them as a QIF, filtering for recent changes. You then use SyncDocs again to get that to your desktop, and import that QIF from within Quicken. Some account types don't support QIF imports, but for me, I mainly want to import cash and savings/checking transactions, so it works. After the desktop version is updated, you export from the desktop again and import it back to the iPhone, telling it to "restore from desktop" so everything is overwritten. It's not the most streamlined solution compared to Pocket Quicken, but for now it seems to be the best option for my needs.

The only other thing I really had to have was a French dictionary, and there were a few iPhone apps to choose from, so that was painless.

With all of that resolved, I bought the iPhone and said goodbye to PalmOS after about 12 happy years (and $5,000+ spent!) (As an aside here, I have to say it's amazing to me how much Palm as a company has totally BOOTED IT-- they had a really great product that still does a lot of things better than anyone else does, but they just let Blackberry and Apple kill them when it came to the email and phone and multimedia functions that users really wanted. It's a really sad case study in corporate failure.)

I went with the 32GB iPhone 3Gs for $299, plus a case for about $30. I got the cheapest AT&T plan, which will cost me about $70 a month before taxes. I'm on a 2-year contract, after not having been on any cellphone contract since 2001. This was definitely not my most frugal moment, and I suppose in a few months the price will drop when they come out with a new, fabulous iPhone 4 and I'll be really annoyed.

But I LOVE my iPhone. It's fun and it makes a lot of things so easy, and I haven't had any of the problems with AT&T that some people complain about. I love it that there are so many apps available, and many of them are free or very inexpensive. The only one I've spent real money on was the $24.99 Collins French dictionary, which is totally worth it. The second most expensive app I bought was Pocket Money. My main issue with the iPhone is that I had a much better calendar on my Treo using DateBk6, and in general the iPhone OS requires more tapping around than PalmOS did. But despite a few minor gripes, I think it's a great product and I've already had many "WOW!" moments where it helped me easily answer a question or communicate more efficiently. In terms of value, it's a win.

I'll continue to look into financial apps for the iPhone and report back on them here, but would love to hear suggestions from others on how the iPhone can help you reach your financial goals.

Quicken, You Really Frustrate Me.

You know how people sometimes joke about new products and say "Now with Less!" Well, it's no joke, apparently, if you're talking about Quicken for Mac.

As I've mentioned in many posts, I track my expenses religiously, using a combination of Quicken on my Mac, and Pocket Quicken on a series of Palm OS devices, currently a Treo. I got an email from Intuit recently touting their latest version of Quicken for Mac, and hoped it might offer some improvements, but when I looked into the details, I found it completely bizarre.

They're introducing an "all-new Quicken Essentials for Mac" sometime this month. They say it's improved and redesigned, but on the "using a prior version of Quicken Mac?" tab, they give these caveats:

We're very excited about the all-new Quicken Essentials for Mac. Not only does it solve the core Quicken jobs better, it also provides the ease of use and elegant user interface Mac customers have come to expect from their applications.

Our Quicken Mac 2007 and earlier users should note that this is a brand new product, so some of the features you've grown used to may not be included.

Gee, what might those not-included features be?

1. Can I track my investments?

Yes, Quicken Essentials for Mac allows you to track the overall value of your investment accounts and the value of your specific holdings. It will not, however, track investment buys and sells, nor will it provide some advanced investment performance reports. If you need more more advanced investment features, try Quicken Mac 2007.

2. Can I export my data to TurboTax?

Quicken Essentials for Mac does not support that capability. If you'd like that functionality, we recommend trying Quicken Mac 2007.

3. Can I pay my bills within Quicken?

While you cannot pay bills within the product itself ("direct bill pay"), you can track your bills and make sure you have enough cash to pay them when they're due. A few alternatives available include using Quicken Mac 2007 or using the bill pay functionality on Quicken Bill Pay.

I happen to like tracking my buy and sell transactions and performance in investments accounts, though I don't use the TurboTax import or direct bill-pay. Maybe not everyone needs these features, but it seems very lame to introduce a new product-- for $60-- that takes so many steps backward. And I continue to be frustrated by their approach to mobile devices.
Palm OS seems to be fading away (though apparently you can run old Palm apps on the new Pre smartphone with a software add-on). My Treo is a few years old now and I'm worried it's going to die one of these days. I keep thinking it would be nice to have an iPhone, but one of the main things holding me back is that the Quicken iPhone app does not synchronize with any desktop versions of Quicken, only the stripped-down online version (which is now merged with Mint.com). Aren't paid-for, premium versions of software supposed to give you MORE features than free online versions?

I'm not sure what my financial record-keeping future will be. I have so much history in Quicken, I'd really like to stick with them, and I would happily pay for new versions of the software as they update it. But not being able to enter new transactions on the fly is a major deal-breaker for me. I'll be continuing to research new options for expense tracking-- for instance, Wesabe seems to offer the ability to enter cash transactions on the iPhone, but I haven't played around with it to see if it will meet my other needs. I'm sure I'll write more about it in a future post, but would welcome suggestions from readers in the meantime!

Great Way to Save on International Calls

From the Frugal Traveler column in the NY Times, a great explanation of how you can make and receive calls cheaply while overseas:

Staying in Touch Internationally, on the Cheap

When I used to travel a lot to Europe, I had an unlocked quad-band phone and bought a SIM card with a UK number. It was very handy for making local calls, but it was a nuisance to have to tell people back home that I had a different cell phone number.
But back then I didn't have the option of forwarding calls using Skype! And I didn't yet have Google Voice, whose rates for international calling are about half of the lowest rates I'd ever gotten with calling cards! (It's not available to the public yet but since I already used Grand Central I was able to upgrade my account.)

I don't know what I'm more excited by, the "neat-o" technology factor, or the potential for saving money! Unfortunately I don't travel as much these days, or make as many international calls... but hopefully some of you do! Enjoy.

What Does Your iPhone Say About Your Wealth?

From today's New York Times:

Many Fail to See the Humor in ‘I Am Rich’ for the iPhone

Last week, an application turned the iPhone into a megaphone to proclaim: “I Am Rich.” That is the name of a downloadable program that promised to do nothing except signal to the world that its buyer was wealthy enough to have spent $1,000 to download an image of a multifaceted ruby.

Created by a German software developer, Armin Heinrich, it was written pretty much as a joke. “I found that some users complain about prices for iPhone applications above 99 cents,” Mr. Heinrich said. “I regard it as art. I did not expect many people to buy it and did not expect all the fuss about it.”

I thought this was quite amusing. Plenty of people spend lots more than $1,000 for things that have no real purpose other than to signify wealth-- this guy just boiled that down to its essence!

Saving on Software

Since buying my new Mac, I'd been wondering what to do about my lack of Word and Excel programs on it. I could use the basic TextEdit program for minor bits of writing, but I don't need to do that very often. What I really wanted was to be able to play with complicated financial spreadsheets at home! It's been such a long time since I've been able to easily do that. On my old Mac, I had to run the OS9/Classic operating system to use Excel, which was a nuisance so I never did it. I ended up doing all my spreadsheets at work. Which I really didn't have time for unless I stayed late and blew off the gym-- not good.

So with the new Mac, I wondered what to do. First thing was to call my friend Mortimer, who I thought might have an extra copy of Microsoft Office. I am not advocating software piracy here, but it sometimes comes with multiple user licenses and I liked the idea of "free!" But Mortimer wasn't able to help me.
Next I considered buying Microsoft Office. It's about $150 for the Home/Student edition, which should do more than enough for someone like me. But the customer comments on Amazon made it sound kind of buggy, so I stopped just short of hitting the "buy now" button.
Then I wondered about Apple's iWork-- that was only $79, but it sounded like I could potentially run into some compatibility problems if I was emailing files to PC users.
Some of these "problems" might have been the misguided rants of crazy Amazon customers, but it was enough to make me hesitate about spending so much money. I tried looking on some Mac forum elsewhere, I don't even remember which one, and noticed a mention of a program called NeoOffice. It's an open source, volunteer-developed Office-type program. They ask that you make a donation before downloading it, but it can be as little as $5. I decided to give it a shot.
After playing around with it a little, I am totally impressed and can't believe it's basically free. If you're used to Word and Excel and Powerpoint, you might find a few things slightly different, but it's 90% identical, and seems to work really well. Here's a highly sophisticated chart I was working on to illustrate the price differential:

I'm looking forward to posting a lot more financial charts and spreadsheets now! Thank you NeoOffice!

Big Money Weekend

I am writing my first blog post on my new computer! Yes, I went for it, and I'm thrilled. I decided to get a MacBook-- the 2.4ghz, 250GB hard drive model, upgraded to 4GB of RAM. I was tempted by the pretty MacBookPro, but since I don't really need a 15" screen or super duper video graphics capabilities, I thought the regular MacBook would do the job, for a lot less money. Upgrading the RAM seemed like a good investment, since I plan to use this computer for as many years as I possibly can, and who knows how much memory future operating systems and programs might need.
While writing this post, I discovered one complication with my new set-up-- in addition to my new laptop, I got an AirPort base station so I could go wireless. (The $99 AirPort is now connected to my stereo so I can play music from my computer through the speakers, so it's already paid for itself by making a new CD player totally unnecessary. My old CD player broke during my move.) But the problem is that I have one of those power strips where the main outlet controls several other outlets-- I can save a few bucks by making sure my modem doesn't draw power while my computer is turned off. But that means that if I unplug my laptop to take it into the other room, as I just did, the main outlet powers off and so do the modem and the AirPort, since I can't fit them both into the outlets that are independent of the main outlet-- so suddenly, no more internet! Guess I'll have to rejigger that setup and figure out some other way to conserve electricity while still having wireless internet when I want it! (The answer turned out to be some little extender cables I'd bought at Radio Shack ages ago and never actually used-- they're about 6 inches long and are perfect for when you need to plug bulky AC adapters in right next to each other. I'll just move them into the non-switched outlets whenever I want to be online while not sitting at my desk.)

More details on my computer shopping experience: I planned my purchase around a weekend visit to a friend in Connecticut-- their sales tax is only 6% compared to NY's 8.25%. I also got a lucky break on the cost of the extra RAM-- normally Apple charges $400 for this upgrade, but for some reason, the Apple store I went to did it for only $300! All in, my new computer set-up cost me just over $2,000. When I think that I paid about that much for my first computer, a Macintosh PowerBook 165c with 4MB of RAM (yes MB not GB), it's just mind boggling. I also have to say that I was absolutely amazed at how easy it was to switch from my old iBook to this computer: I connected them with a Firewire cable, clicked "OK" a couple times, and several minutes later, all my documents and programs were on the new computer, all set up exactly as they were on the old one. Everything just instantly worked! I'm sorry if I'm sounding like a Mac commercial, but they really do know how to make things fabulously easy.

Of course, the trip to the Apple store involved a trip to a mall. And we all know that malls are dangerous, don't we! It took an hour and a half for them to install the RAM on my computer, and during that time, I managed to buy two t-shirts, a short-sleeved blouse, and a pair of hiking shoes, as well as some cute outfits for my niece and nephew. (Macy's, Ann Taylor, The Walking Company, and H&M!) Total additional spending for the day: $187. Oh well-- I can now feel like I've given myself enough of a treat with my bonus, and the rest is staying in the bank where it belongs!

BBC Shortwave Discontinued Due to Price of Diesel Fuel?

BBC Ends English Shortwave Service in Europe

This story interested me for a couple of reasons. First of all, I remember my father listening to the BBC on a boxy old shortwave radio when I was a kid, and somewhat more recently, I was seeing someone who asked for a portable shortwave radio for Christmas, in order to listen to the BBC, among other things (fortunately it was a couple of years before the BBC ended shortwave service to North America, which happened in 2001). Oh, and guess what: good shortwave radios can get very expensive!
Of course the BBC isn't the only good thing about shortwave: you can get all kinds of stations from all around the world. There is also some way you can use a shortwave radio to count meteors during a meteor shower, if I remember correctly-- if you tune it a certain way, there will be a spike in the volume level of static whenever there is a meteor, or something like that. (Go ahead and be impressed that someone like me knows this!) Shortwave radio seems like one of those odd little geeky hobbyist things that is actually kind of neat.

But of course everything that was neat about shortwave radio is also what is neat about internet radio, so the shortwave medium has been on its way out for a while, at least in the developed world. But the reason I'm writing about it is the strange financial cause-and-effect relationship noted in the article linked above:

“What [die-hard shortwave listeners] don’t understand is the huge cost of powering transmitters. The cost of diesel fuel has doubled.”

Obviously I don't have all that technical a mind, but I never would have thought to link the cost of diesel fuel to the viability of broadcasting shortwave radio. You learn something new every day.

The Gift That Keeps on Taking

Have you ever been given a gift that cost you money? My favorite example of this is an iPod.
I was given my first iPod several years ago. It was just at the point where I'd started to think having one might be sort of cool, but I wasn't planning to spend money on one. This sort of surprised some people, given that I could be quite obsessed with gadgets like Palm Pilots & things, but I guess I just hadn't caught the digital music bug badly enough yet to want to spend a few hundred dollars.
Anyway, when I received the iPod, I was excited. Sometimes my favorite kind of gift is something that I really need and want and have asked for so I don't have to spend my own money on it. But sometimes, an even better gift is the thing that you kind of admire but have written off as being too expensive or there is some other reason you are never going to buy it for yourself, so it's a delightful surprise when someone makes that decision for you!
However, with my first iPod, I soon discovered that the gift came with strings attached. First of all, I had to buy a separate connector cable that would work with my work computer. Then, once I'd connected the iPod at home, it turned out that the operating system on my Mac was too early a version and I'd have to upgrade. Once I finally got everything to work, I started downloading lots of songs from iTunes. Then I decided I would need a protective case for the iPod. Then I wanted a cable to connect it to my stereo. Then I bought a radio transmitter thing so I could listen to it in a car. Then I realized that the hard drive on my iBook was full due to all the music I'd loaded up, and that I'd need a new computer if I ever wanted to fully take advantage of the iPod's capacity.
All that probably happened in the first couple of months I owned the iPod. I enjoyed using it, but I don't tend to listen to music on the subway everyday or at the gym, so I used my iPod mainly on long plane or car trips and plugged in to the speakers at home. As all the new iPods came out, I'd sometimes covet one, but never enough to trade up, even though the old iPod's battery life got worse and worse. For the way I used the iPod, I just didn't care about spending any more money on one.
But lo and behold, I was given a new one this year. The minute I opened it, my first thought was, that's nice but there are lots of other things I could have used more, but by thought number two, I'd transitioned into full-blown "ooh, isn't the color screen pretty" techno-lust, and immediately thought about whether I'd want to spend money downloading movies and TV shows. So far, I have not spent a penny on this new iPod. I did download some more songs from iTunes, but that was with a gift card someone else gave me. I do need a new case, but for now, I can sort of use it in the case that I bought for my old iPod. But unfortunately, what I really do need even more now is a new computer, since my old Mac is now totally incompatible and I don't know if it can even handle being upgraded to the latest OS.
So my first free iPod cost me a couple hundred dollars, and my second free iPod may cost me well over $1,000! Not that I'm really going to complain if people keep wanting to give me iPods...

A Pricing Analysis of Amazon's Kindle E-Book Reader

The latest publishing buzz is Amazon's introduction of the Kindle, a new e-book reader. At $399, it's a bit pricey: Sony's e-book reader is $100 less. And there are many e-books that can be read on PDAs-- even if you're dealing with text-only on a much smaller screen, you don't necessarily need a separate device. But the Kindle offers some pretty cool features, and the books and newspapers that are available to be read on it are discounted quite a bit compared to their print versions. Can the Kindle end up paying for itself?

I actually had a chance to play with one of these a few months ago. I thought the size and weight were ok, and the experience of using it was pretty impressive-- not perfect, but better than any other portable electronic reading device. I liked the fact that it was a stand-alone wireless product: if you're traveling or at the beach and you decide you want to read something, you can go online and download it without having to go back to your computer, and without having to subscribe to any sort of wireless plan or be at a hotspot since it's on a cell phone network. All in all, I was intrigued by what the device could do, but as a dedicated PDA user, I didn't see myself buying another electronic device to tote around. (Also, a large percentage of my reading is done in manuscript form before the book is actually published, and though I could probably do some of that electronically, I'm not necessarily the ideal user for this product.)

But when I tried the Kindle, I didn't even think about the costs that might be involved. A lot of early comments have focused on the fairly high price of the device-- is it worth the money?

Books: NY Times Bestsellers and New Releases are $9.99 on the Kindle. For hardcovers that are $25 and up (the new Ken Follett hardcover is actually $35, which seems like a shocking price for fiction, even if it is over 1000 pages!), you're saving at least $15 per book. If you buy 26 hardcover books, the savings offset the price of the Kindle.

Newspapers: the NY Times is $13.99 a month. I pay $40.80 a month for delivery of the print edition. 15 months of subscribing saves you enough to pay for the Kindle.

Magazines: The Atlantic is $1.99 a month on the Kindle. Amazon offers subscriptions to the print edition at $24.95 a year, or $2.08 a month. The cover price on a newsstand is $4.95. No big savings for subscribers, but if you'd been buying individual copies, your savings would pay for your Kindle in, oh, about 11 years.

Blogs: $0.99-$1.99 a month each. Well that's not much of a deal, is it? Blogs are usually free, so here's one area where the Kindle doesn't exactly win. But compared to the cost of having a wireless Internet plan that allows you to go online and read blogs anywhere on a laptop or handheld, it might be a good deal, at least if you only read a few blogs. Their current selection is not all that great. None of the personal finance blogs that I read are included. From a quick search, the only blog I read that's on there is Apartment Therapy, which is one of the $1.99 ones. Until My Open Wallet is available in Kindle format, obviously this feature of the device is useless.

Bottom line: if you are someone who reads a lot and likes to read current bestselling hardcovers when they first come out, the Kindle could save you quite a bit of money. It's also probably lighter and smaller than that doorstop by Ken Follett, so you might avoid some chiropractor bills too. And aside from anything else, it's a nifty new electronic toy that I'm sure will end up under the Christmas trees of many people whose loved ones wonder what you get for the person that has everything... What do you think? Would you buy one?

Is it a Sure-fire Money Loser?

Back to my interest in gadgets for a moment, I've been interested in the reactions to Palm's announcement of a new mobile device called the Foleo. It's basically a keyboard and screen that you use with your smartphone. It's a little smaller than a laptop, and a little cheaper than a laptop, but otherwise, it's basically just like a laptop, except with its brains taken out and residing in a nearby cellphone.
I can understand the need for a keyboard that goes with a PDA or phone, and I have one that I sometimes use with my Treo, if I want to write blog posts while traveling, perhaps. My keyboard cost $99, and it folds so it's not that much bigger than the Treo itself, and the whole point of having it is to avoid having to carry a laptop. The whole point of PDAs and smartphones, in fact, seems to be to avoid having to carry a laptop. So it was no surprise to me that when Palm announced the Foleo, the response on all the gadget websites seemed to be "HUH?" and it was quickly dubbed the "Fooleo."
So my question is, if you're the CEO of Palm and you've just announced a product that seems to be universally perceived as a dud, what do you do? Forge ahead hoping that enough people will still spend $500 on this device to make it profitable? Cut your losses while you can and cancel the product? Try to market the heck out of the thing to make potential users believe there is actually a need for it? I suppose the American economy has been driven by many inventions that were initially thought to be stupid and useless... but what would you do if you were trying to sell a product that your target customers seemed to just hate? Give up? Keep trying?