Manilla Shutting Down. Online Bill Management Alternatives?

Posted on May 12, 2014 // 36 Comments

checkappA few readers e-mailed me to let me know that bill management website Manilla.com announced that they will be shutting down. Surprising, as they were just mentioned in Money magazine last month!

Manilla will be closing on July 1, 2014. This was a hard decision given that, over the past three years, Manilla has won many awards […] but was unable to achieve the scale necessary to make the economics of the business viable.

As noted in my now-useless Manilla review, many people enjoyed having all of their bills located in a central place. It was also nice that they offered to store all your old bills forever… or in this case September 30, 2014 after which they will be destroyed.

What are good Manilla alternatives? Here are several services that offer similar features in no particular order, please feel free to add more in the comments. I haven’t gotten to try them all out yet, so share your experiences as well.

  • Finovera – “Our mission is to make the process of receiving, managing, paying and organizing household bills and documents simple, automatic and effortless.”
  • Enfold – “Enfold is a free-for-life virtual filing cabinet where you can safely store and organize all your important documents and account information.”
  • MoneyStream – “Not just an organizer or bill-payer, MoneyStream brings everything together in one secure place—and then shows you a future view of your money so you can see at a glance where you stand and where you’re going.”
  • Check (formerly PageOnce) – A free smartphone app that both organizes and tracks balances, with the added feature of letting you pay your bills through the app. I don’t think it stores past statements past a certain time period.
  • Mint – Owned by Intuit, Mint is more budget-centric and tracks all of your transactions. You can’t pay bills through the software (although it will send you bill reminders) and it doesn’t store actual monthly statements.
  • Mobilligy – “Mobilligy puts all of your bills in one app that lets you review, manage and pay your bills for free – anytime, anywhere.”
  • FileThis – “FileThis is like a personal assistant for your paperwork. It automatically collects, files, tags, and organizes your online documents in a digital filing cabinet. Never lose another bank statement, legal paper, tax form, insurance document, or other important piece of paperwork.”
  • Doxo – “All your provider accounts and information together at last. Back up all your critical documents automatically to your personal cloud storage. Receive and pay bills from connected providers with doxoPAY.”
  • Personal Capital – similar account aggregation focus as Mint, plus some investment portfolio analysis features.
  • Zumbox – “Your postal mail delivered online. Your documents stored securely, forever.”
  • Intuit Paytrust = “PayTrust’s all-in-one online bill pay allows you to easily receive, track, and pay all your bills online.”
  • MyCheckFree – “Receive and pay your e-bills at one easy, secure location.”
  • Yodlee Labs – “This is a site where Yodlee will launch (and test) all of its latest (account aggregation) products before they are launched anywhere else in market.” If you just want most recent, most-refined version, sign up at Yodlee Moneycenter.

With Manilla and Everpix, I am reminded that any offer to store your stuff “forever” really means “as long as we keep making enough money”. Personally, I’m still using my bank’s Online Billpay service along with AutoPay with credit card where possible. For archival purposes, I download any paperless bills in PDF format to a folder on my computer, which is automatically backed up daily to my external hard drive and also instantly synchronized with my free Dropbox.com cloud account. However, if I can truly view and pay all my bills in one simple mobile app and a few taps, I’d be up for that.

Filed Under: Banking, Budgeting //

Pentagon Federal Offering 3-Year CDs at 2.02% APY

Posted on November 4, 2013 // 3 Comments

Pentagon Federal Credit Union is now offering 2.02% APY rate on it’s 3, 4, 5, and 7-year CDs (they call it a Money Market Certificate). The minimum opening deposit is $1,000. Early withdrawal penalties are as follows:

  • For terms from 6 months to 4 years, you will lose the last 180 days of interest. If you haven’t earned 180 days of interest yet, you lose all the interest and get back only your opening amount.
  • For terms of 5 years or longer, you will lose the last 365 days of interest. If you haven’t earned 365 days of interest yet, you lose all the interest and get back only your opening amount.

As a credit union, you must meet their eligibility requirements to join. Basically all members of the military and their immediate families are welcome, as well as many other military-related groups. Otherwise, simply become a member of the organization Voices for America’s Troops. Membership costs $15/yr, and you don’t need to renew to remain a PenFed member. “Voices for America’s Troops advocates for a strong national defense, including sustaining and improving quality of life programs for America’s troops, their families and survivors.”

(I ran a search through the blog archives and found a post about PenFed offering 6.25% APY 3-year CDs back in late 2006. I wonder how long until we see rates like that again?)

Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers //

Ally Bank CD Early Withdrawal Penalty Change: Details & Analysis

Posted on October 27, 2013 // 7 Comments

Ally Bank LogoAlly Bank just announced that they will be changing the early withdrawal policy on their CDs starting on December 7, 2013. Found via Ken Tumin’s DepositAccounts post, the details are now officially outlined in the fees tab of their certificates of deposit page. A screenshot:

I have several 5-year Ally CDs earning between 1.8% APY and 3.1% APY, bought largely due to their uniquely short 60-day interest penalty as it meant that I could effectively have access to my funds if required and still earn an interest rate that was higher than anything any other bank CD.

For example, let’s look at their 5-year CD currently paying a 1.60% APY (as of 10/27/13) with no penalty, a penalty of the last 60 days of interest, and a penalty of the last 150 days of interest. Here’s how your actual annualized interest rates would look like based on time of withdrawal:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Banking //

Citibank Checking Account Promotion: 20,000 ThankYou Points

Posted on September 12, 2013 // 17 Comments

Update: Citibank has a new checking account promotion for new customers. You can get up 40,000 ThankYou points if you can maintain a $50,000 balance, but the more accessible option can still get you a nice 20,000 ThankYou points. I’ll only focus on how to get the 20k offer below. This would combine well with the 30,000 ThankYou point bonus from the Citi ThankYou Preferred card. Don’t forget to maximize the value of your Thank You points.

First, you must open a Basic Banking package either through the link above or by calling 1-866-583-6706 and using promo code CZC2. As long as you make 1 direct deposit and 1 bill payment each monthly statement period, you’ll pay no monthly service fee. Alternatively, keeping $1,500 in the account by itself will waive the $10 monthly service fee.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers //

Capital One 360 Financial Independence Day Promo 2013

Posted on July 2, 2013 // 5 Comments

Update – This promotion is now EXPIRED

Capital One Consumer Bank has their annual Financial Independence Day promotion which boosts the usual bonus for their Consumer Bank Savings and 360 Checking accounts. (Artist formerly known as ING Direct.) Offers good until Wednesday, July 3rd 11:59PM ET.

Consumer Bank Savings $76 Bonus

  • Open a no-fee 360 Savings account between July 1st and 3rd ($500 minimum deposit) and snag $76.
  • This has to be your first Consumer Bank Savings account (includes Orange Savings Account).
  • The bonus starts earning interest on day 1, but you can’t take it out for at least 30 days.
  • 0.75% variable Annual Percentage Yield (APY) effective 6/30/2013.
  • For more, check out my Capital One 360 Savings Account Review.

Consumer Bank Checking $100 Bonus

  • Open a fee-free 360 Checking account between July 1st and 3rd (with a deposit of $500 or more) and grab $100.
  • This has to be your first Consumer Bank Checking account.
  • Make a total of 5 purchases (either signature of PIN-based) using your 360 Checking Debit Card, make 5 CheckMate deposits or any combination of the two within 45 days. Your $100 bonus will be automatically deposited into your account on day 50.
  • Variable APYs effective 6/30/2013: 0.20% Balances under $50,000 / 0.80% Balances between $50,000 and $99,999 / 0.85% $100,000+.
Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers //

MYGA Deferred Fixed Annuities: Maximize State Guaranty Coverage Limits

Posted on June 18, 2013 // 6 Comments

A recent article by Scott Burns talked about investing in deferred fixed annuities with CD-like qualities, an example offered a 3% yield guaranteed for 5 years plus no surrender charges (similar to early withdrawal penalty) after 5 years. This is a better rate than current bank CDs offer, and annuities can grow tax-deferred for those saving for retirement (withdraw as early as age 59.5)*. After the 5 years, you roll the annuity over to another company if the new rate is no longer good enough. These are also referred to as MYGAs (multi-year guarantee annuities). The catch? The annuities that have the best rates often don’t have the highest credit ratings.

A possible solution? Make sure you stay under the coverage limits of your state’s Life & Health Guaranty Association. From NOHLGA.com:

State life and health insurance guaranty associations are state entities (in all 50 states as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia) created to protect policyholders of an insolvent insurance company. All insurance companies (with limited exceptions) licensed to sell life or health insurance in a state must be members of that state’s guaranty association.

These are not federally-backed like FDIC insurance. Instead, all the member insurance companies agree to cover each other in cases of insolvency up to the policy limits. In order to be a licensed insurer, you need to maintain a certain level of financial stability. But just like banks, some insurers are stronger than others. So if you’re going to go over the limits, the standard advice is to go with a top credit rating from AM Best, Moody’s, or S&P. However, credit ratings can go down over time, and you may be holding these annuities for many years. Therefore, it’s still safest to stay under the limits.

(You may not hear much about these guaranty associations because it is illegal for insurance brokers to use them in advertisements as a reason to buy annuities. I find this somewhat ironic, considering all the misleading statements they are allowed to make about equity-linked or equity-indexed annuity products.)

While they vary from state to state, virtually all states offer at least $100,000 in coverage for withdrawal and cash values for annuities. (Connecticut and Washington offer $500,000 in coverage. In California, the limit is 80% not to exceed $250,000.) Look up your specific state’s limits here or here.

In order to maximize your coverage, the process is similar to that for FDIC insurance – spread your money across different institutions and use different ownership titles. Let’s say you have $100,000 in state annuity coverage. The details may vary by state, but for many states that number is per owner designation, per company. The Mr. Annuity website has a helpful article [pdf] about how to structure your annuities to maximize your coverage.

If a client has $300,000 and wants to make certain all the money is protected, including future interest earnings, while taking advantage of the highest rate possible, we set up 3 contracts in Company A for $80,000 each. In annuity 1, the husband is the Owner and Annuitant. In annuity 2, the wife is the Owner and Annuitant. In annuity 3, the husband and wife are Joint Owners with the husband as the Annuitant. Then, we’ll put $60,000 in the next highest rate we can find in Company B, normally with the husband as Owner and Annuitant. That way, as the money grows, it will be protected under the guaranty laws because they are covered up to $100,000 per owner designation, per company.

I made a quick illustration of this theoretical example:

annuitysafe

Notice that you need to leave some room for growth, that way your future earnings are covered as well.

* I’m not saying these annuities are a great deal for everyone. If you are in a situation with a high-income and are already maxing all your other tax-deferred accounts like IRAs, 401ks, and are still looking for safer retirement investments with steady growth then this might be an option to consider due to the ability to get tax-deferred growth with rates competitive with current bond yields. I’m still in research mode.

Filed Under: Annuities, Banking, Investing //

Savings I-Bonds May 2013 Upcoming Rate: 1.18%

Posted on April 16, 2013 // 8 Comments

New inflation numbers for March 2013 were just announced, so it’s time for the usual semi-annual update and rate predictions.

New Inflation Rate
September 2012 CPI-U was 231.407. March 2013 CPI-U was 232.773, for a semi-annual increase of 0.590%. Using the official formula, the variable component of interest rate for the next 6 month cycle will be approximately 1.18%. The new fixed rate is nearly guaranteed to be zero, so the total rate will be 1.18% as well. If you have an older savings bond, your fixed rate may be different.

Purchase and Redemption Timing Reminder
You can’t redeem until 12 months have gone by, and any redemptions within 5 years incur an interest penalty of the last 3 months of interest. A known “trick” with I-Bonds is that if you buy at the end of the month, you’ll still get all the interest for the entire month as if you bought it in the beginning of the month. It’s best to give yourself a few business days of buffer time though, since if you wait too long your effective purchase date may be bumped into the next month.

Buying in April

If you buy before the end of April, the fixed rate portion of I-Bonds will be 0.0%. You will be guaranteed the current variable interest rate of 1.76% for the next 6 months, for a total rate of 0 + 1.76 = 1.76%. For the 6 months after that, the total rate will be 0.0 + 1.18 = 1.18%. Let’s say we hold for the minimum of one year and pay the 3-month interest penalty. If you buy on April 30th and sell on April 1, 2013, you’ll earn a 1.28% annualized return for an 11-month holding period, for which the interest is also exempt from state income taxes. This is better than any 1-year bank CD that I can find right now, keeping in mind the liquidity concerns and the purchase limits. If you hold for longer, you’ll be getting the full 1.47% over the first year.

Given the combination of current low rates and the fact that you lose the last 3 months of interest (again, for holding less than 5 years), it might be better to wait long enough to grab 12 full months of interest by holding for 15 months (14 buying late). If you buy on April 30th and hold until July 1st, 2014, you’d achieve a annualized return of ~1.26% over 14 months. After that, you can see what the new rates are and decide whether to keep holding them.

Buying in May

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Banking, Savings Bonds //

Cash Reserves Update: Best Available Interest Rates – March 2013

Posted on March 27, 2013 // 25 Comments

Our family keeps a full year of expenses put aside in cash reserves; it provides us with financial stability with the additional side benefits of lower stress and less concern about stock market gyrations. Emergency funds can actually have a better return on investment than what you see on your bank statement.

I’ve been slacking in terms of updates on this topic. While I still like to maximize my interest, there just hasn’t been many new developments that make me want to jump from one bank from another. However, if you haven’t optimized your cash recently, you may be stuck in a money market fund or megabank saving account paying 0.05% or less. You can definitely still do better than that! Here are what I consider the highlights of the best currently available interest rates.

Certificates of Deposit

If you have a large cushion, it’s quite likely to just sit there for years or more. Therefore, you may wish to put some of it in longer-term investments where you can take the money out in a true emergency and paid an early withdrawal penalty.

  • Everbank’s Yield Pledge Money Market and Interest Checking account both offer 1.10% APY guaranteed for the first 6 months for new accounts. Since it is fixed, this is essentially a 6-month CD with a higher rate than any other 6-month CD rate out there and with no early withdrawal penalty to worry about.
  • Ally Bank Raise Your Rate CDs have a rate bump feature; the 2-year term pays 1.05% APY and the 4-year term pays 1.30% APY (as of 11/1/13). You can change your rate after your account is opened — if their rate on this CD goes up, yours can bump up to match it (one interest rate increase with the 2 year term, two interest rate increases with the 4 year term).They also offer traditional Ally Bank High-Yield CDs with 3-year CDs at 1.20% APY and 5-year CDs at 1.60% APY (as of 11/1/13) currently. Early withdrawal penalty is only 60 days.
  • Discover Bank CDs are currently offering 3-year CDs at 1.25% APY, 5-year CDs at 1.65% APY, 7-year CDs at 1.80% APY, and a 10-year CD at 1.90% APY. Early withdrawal penalty varies from 6 months for the 3-year to 15 months on the 7 and 10-year CD.
  • PenFed Credit Union CDs are currently offering 3-year CDs at 1.60% APY, 5-Year CDs at 1.65% APY, and a 7-Year CD at 1.75% APY. Early withdrawal penalty varies from 6 months for the 3-year CD to 12 months on the 5 and 7-year CD.

Ally Bank’s Flexible Certificates of Deposit

Ally Bank LogoLet’s focus on the Ally Bank certificates of deposit, where you can still access your money as long as you pay a early withdrawal penalty of 60 days interest – significantly less than at other banks. Why is this good?

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Banking, Monthly Updates //

Best Value for Citi ThankYou Points Redemptions

Posted on March 21, 2013 // 21 Comments

If you have a Citi credit card or a Citibank account from our partner Citi, with the ThankYou points rewards system, you have a wide array of options to redeem your points at ThankYou.com. But while that fancy coffeemaker may look nice, chances are the cash equivalent value for your points is quite poor. I’ve covered this in bits and pieces before, but here’s a complete guide to getting the most value out of your points.

Eligible ThankYou accounts (* are the ones I have linked to my account):

Option #1: Limited Time Offers

If you have either patience or luck, Citi does offer “sales” on gift card redemptions which can reduce the cost of a reward by up to 25%. For example, last month you could have gotten a $50 Home Depot gift card for 4,500 points. Normally, you’d need 5,000-6,000 points. That equates 1.11 cents in gift card value per point. Previous ThankYou point sales have involved gift card to other popular retailers like Wal-mart, Lowe’s, Kohl’s, Best Buy, Gap, and Macy’s. The regular price is usually 1 cent in gift card value per point.

Option #2: Student Loan & Mortgage Rebate Checks

You can redeem your points towards a “rebate” check towards either a student loan or mortgage. You can redeem in increments of $25 for 2,500 points, which equates to a full 1 cent cash per point. You must call them and provide them the name of your lending institution, and they will mail you a physical check written out directly to that lending institution (i.e. Chase Student Loans). You are then supposed to add in your account number or whatever else is necessary, and then send it on to your lender. Reader Chris shared that he has a workaround if your lender doesn’t take third-party checks:

I just have the check written out to my bank, Chase, and then write my checking account number in the memo space. I drop it in an ATM and they have always deposited it into my checking account just fine. I’ve been doing this for years with no problem. I would just apply the money myself to my auto-payments and keep my 0.25% rate reduction.

I didn’t want to send in a $100 check towards my mortgage, so I tried this method with my local bank as well and the ATM deposit worked for me without any issues. I did indeed use the money from that check to pay extra towards my mortgage. (Note: You can also make a donation to the Red Cross at the same ratio.)

Option #3: Book Travel and Pay with Points

You can also use your ThankYou points to book any flight and car rental through their Book Travel portal. It’s basically the same flights that are available at Expedia.com, but sometimes at a slight markup. For example, the exact same flight from Los Angeles to Las Vegas cost $101.42 at ThankYou.com and $97.80 at Expedia.
However, another flight on American Airlines from LAX-JFK was exactly the same price on both down to the penny. So while the official redemption rate is a full 1 cent per point, a potential slight markup may ding the conversion rate a bit. However, this is also a good way to use up all your points as you can split the payment exactly between cash and points. For example, a $100 ticket could be paid with 5,000 points + $50 or 1,234 points + $87.66.

Note: If you have the Citi PremierSM Card which does have an annual fee, you have the added option of redeeming your points directly towards travel with the special rate of 1 ThankYou point = 1.25 cents towards travel redeemed on the Citi Travel Center. For example, 10,000 ThankYou points could be redeemed for $125 towards travel. That tilts things in favor of the travel option.

Why Everything Else Is Worse. Here’s a quick rundown of the other redemptions that you might think is a good deal but doesn’t work out when you do the math.

  • Pay with points at Amazon.com: 0.80 cents per point
  • Citi Prepaid Visa card: 0.63-0.67 cents per point
  • Cash reward: 0.5 cents per point
  • Statement credit: 0.5 cents per point

Note: Citi ThankYou Point Tiered System. I should point out that Citi does a confusing thing where they don’t offer the same redemption options to everyone. It is my understanding that they separate credit cards into “standard” and “premium” cards. As long as you have one premium card as a “Sponsor account” linked to your pooled ThankYou point account, then you will get the preferred set of available options even if the rest of your cards are standard and all your points come from them. I don’t have enough data points to figure out the exact breakdown of which card is premium and which is not. For example, I believe the Citi ThankYou Preferred card is premium, but the Citi ThankYou card and Citi Forward cards are standard. But all three have no annual fee?! I’ve never had a problem with this, but if you only have the Citi Forward card you may have come across it.

“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”

Filed Under: Banking, Credit Cards, Deals & Offers //

Capital One Consumer Bank Savings Account Review

Posted on March 11, 2013 // 20 Comments

Capital One bought ING Direct USA back in early 2012, and has finally completed their transition and re-branding. Their new savings account product is called Capital One Consumer Bank Savings. Since I’ve had an account with them for over a decade (September 2001, as they remind me every time I log in), here’s an updated review of my 2nd oldest bank account meant for both new and existing customers.

User Interface

At first glance, the only thing that really changed was that the primary colors went from orange and blue to Capital One’s red and blue. However, there are a few other tweaks that I noticed were different from the ole’ ING Direct days.

Login. This is still a little unique amongst online savings accounts. You login with either a username/account number and a PIN number (not an alphanumeric pA$sW0rd). If you have an old 4-digit PIN, they’ll ask you to change the PIN to a 6-digit number for better security. In addition, while the default entry method is via mouse clicks to avoid keystroke loggers stealing your password, you can also use a keyboard to enter the PIN with a creative key-to-number conversion that changes each time. See screenshot below:

Main account screen. The home screen is simple and straightforward, as always. There is better integration with their brokerage arm, Sharebuilder, with your balance automatically showing and the ability to perform same-day transfers between accounts. So if you have a Sharebuilder account, you essentially have a high-interest sweep option instead of a money market fund paying zero interest. Screenshot:
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Banking, Reviews //

ING Direct’s New Name: Capital One 360

Posted on November 15, 2012 // 23 Comments

ING Direct announced to customers last week that they would soon change their name to Capital One 360, effective February 2013. Goodbye big orange ball, you were the first no-frills savings account that paid high interest by piggybacking on regular checking accounts (no branches, no ATM access, no checks) and it worked brilliantly, creating an entire new banking niche. But the financial crisis happened, ING Group got a big Euro-bailout, and as part of the restructuring terms they agreed to sell their ING Direct unit for $9 billion dollars.

It was a fun ride, ING Direct. For a while, you paid me nearly 5% APY interest as I borrowed money for free using 0% APR balance transfers. Your website was unapologetically simple, but everything worked as promised. You created handy sub-accounts for savers to stash their money for specific needs. Good times. Of course, I can’t forget that you also had a nervous brainfart and bullied my webhosting company into shutting down my entire website without any warning. In the end, your interest rates also started to fade a little from the top while staying somewhat competitive, and being a rate-chaser I moved my money elsewhere. No hard feelings?

As is always the case, the new company promises to keep everything you loved about the old company, while also making additional improvements. I still keep about $100 with ING Direct to keep them from closing my account, mostly out of nostalgia I suppose. I’ll continue to wait and see how they integrate the site with the other recently-improved Capital One products like their 1.5% cash back personal cards and 2% cash back business cards. CapOne wants to join the big boys Chase/Citi/AmEx as a broad financial services company.

What are you planning to do with your ING Direct account?

Filed Under: Banking //

Chase Total Checking Account Promotion – $150 Bonus

Posted on July 24, 2012 // 12 Comments

Chase Bank is offering a $150 bonus for new customers when you open a Chase Total Checking account plus deposit $100 and set up direct deposit within 60 days of account opening. You can avoid monthly service fees if you make a $500+ direct deposit each month or maintain a $1,500 minimum daily balance. Must keep account open for 6 months to keep the bonus. Expires 8/15/12.

At least in the past, you could simulate direct deposit using an ACH transfer from an online savings bank. Fine print quoted below.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers //
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