Right now, EZtrader is offering a deposit bonus of $85 when you deposit $500 and $600 bonus when you deposit $2000. Starting in August, the bonus increases to $100 for $500 deposit, $875 for $2,500 deposit, and $1,800 bonus for $4,000 deposit. To take advantage of this offer, you can sign up for EZtrader.com here. Simply deposit using your credit card and the bonus will be reflected in your account the following business day. Once the bonus is received, you need to trade at least 3x the total value of your deposit + bonus for the bonus to be cleared for withdrawal. So, if you deposited $500 and received $100 bonus, you need to make $1,800 worth of trades for the bonus to be cleared. There is no expiration date.

How To Trade Binary Options

I tried EZtrader and I like it. The process is very simple. EZtrader offers a list of common stocks that users can purchase options. You can either purchase a PUT option or a CALL option. If you purchase a PUT option, you’re hoping that the stock price will go down below the strike price that was agreed upon before the transaction. If you purchase a CALL option, you’re hoping the stock price will go up above the strike price that was agreed upon. The options expire at the end of the hour. The image below shows a few of about 10 stocks EZtrader allows you to participate in. You can also trade in Indices, Currencies, Commodities, EU Markets, and others.

Some stocks have higher payout rate than others. The higher payout stocks are less volatile so it becomes more difficult to predict how the stock will behave during the next hour. All that’s needed to be done is select the stock you are interested in, click the green CALL button if you think the price will go up by the end of the hour, or click the red PUT button if you think the price will go down by the end of the hour. So, let’s say you placed a $100 CALL option on JPMorgan Chase at $40.283, as the image above shows. If at 2pm when the option expires, if the price is above $40.283, you earn 65% or $65 on your money. A total of $165 will be funded to your account. If the price went down below the strike price of $40.283, then you receive 5% of your original investment, or $5. If this happens, you lose $95. The most you can purchase in one transaction is $1,500. The minimum is $30.

Deposit and Withdraw Methods

EZtrader only allows deposit methods using a credit card. Mastercard, Visa, or American Express will work. There is no charge for this transaction and your credit card company will not charge you a Cash Advance fee. To make a withdraw, EZtrader automatically funds back to your credit card used for the deposit, up to the deposit amount. The remaining amount must be withdrawn using bank wire and it costs $25 for each transaction. So, if I made a deposit of $500 and I made a profit of $1,000 and want to make a full withdraw of $1,500, $500 will be funded back to my original credit card, and $1,000 will have to be withdrawn using a bank wire process. EZtrader does not charge any other fees associated with your account.

Customer Service

Customer service is actually pretty good. As soon as you sign up, a real live person will give you a call to make sure all your questions have been answered. There is also a live chat feature that can get the answers to your questions quick. If you have any questions or concerns, you should have no problems in getting the answers right away.

Real Time Stock Prices

EZtrader does not provide any analytical resources to help you with your trades. All they provide is the real time stock prices. I suggest using eTrade, Scottrade, or TradeKing to help you look at charts and graphs in real time. All of these stock brokers have trading platforms that are integrated with real time charts and graphs that will definitely help you make better decisions when it comes to binary options. By looking at these charts and graphs, along with Ask and Bid prices, you will be able to predict the behavior of the stock’s momentum more accurately.

So, go ahead and give it a shot. Try a practice trade first before you deposit and see if you come out on top.

Everbank is offering up to $75 cash back bonus with two of their online accounts, their Yield Pledge Money Market Account and their Freenet Checking Account. You can stack this offer with their ongoing offer of 2.25% apr for the first three months. Yield Pledge Money Market Accounts will return to its normal variable rate of 1.25% after the first 3 month period. Freenet Checking Accounts will return to their normal variable rate of 0.51% for accounts up to $10,000 after the first 3 months.

Account holders will receive $50 bonus after 4 months of maintaining minimum required balance for the money market account. Checking account holders will receive $25 bonus after 4 months of maintaining minimum required balance. Account holders can take sign up for both offers and receive $75 total bonus.

Yield Pledge Money Market Account Requirements

• $50 Bonus.
• Deposit $20,000 minimum and maintain this minimum balance for 4 months. Bonus released during the 5th month.
• 2.25% APR introductory rate for 3 months up to $50,000. 1.25% after 3 months. Any balance above $50,000 will earn 1.25% even during the first 3 months.
• $8.95/mo fee if the average monthly balance falls below $5,000.

Freenet Checking Account Requirements

• $25 Bonus
• Deposit $10,000 minimum and maintain this minimum balance for 4 months. Bonus released during the 5th month.
• 2.25% APR introductory rate for 3 months up to $100,000. Any balance above $100,000 will earn 1.25% even during the first 3 months.
• After first 3 months, the following rate tiers will apply: $100,000+: 1.26%, $50,000 – $99,999.99: 1.20%, $25,000 – $49,999.99: 1.16%, $10,000 – $24,999.99: 0.70%, under $10,000: 0.51%.
• $8.95/mo fee if the average monthly balance falls below $5,000.

You may also refer to other great online savings accounts with high interest rates.

Last week, I wrote about how my friend probably saved money by leasing a brand new civic for $199/mo with no money down. Yesterday, he told me that he has the option to purchase the vehicle at the end of his lease term at 60% of the MSRP price. He couldn’t remember what that number was so I went on to Honda.com and looked it up. Let’s just assume that his car is a brand new 2010 Honda Civic DX, priced at $17,205. Couple adys ago, I saw a Honda commercial that outlined $199/mo lease for 36 months or 0.9% financing. So, let’s compare the two deals and see which one makes more financially sense.

So according to the table above, financing makes more sense over leasing. You would save about $200 over the course of 36 months. If you’re able to sell it for more than 60% of MSRP, then even better. But let’s also consider the fact that you’ll be paying $285.58 less every month by leasing when compared to financing. This money can be put into an online savings account, such as Ally, which currently gives 1.29% return on your money. After every month, you deposit $285.58 into your new Ally account, you would have $10,414.53 at the end of 36 months. This earns you $133.65, meaning financing only saves you about $50 over leasing.

So, this proves that leasing is not always the better option. In the example above, it appears that there really is no big financial advantage one way over the other. Although tax, tags, and title fees are all included in the $199 monthly payment and not when financing, no one ever pays MSRP price anyway.

Bottom Line

You should lease a car if you like to drive a brand new car every 3 years or so, don’t like to pay for costly maintenance, and enjoy having lower monthly payments. You should buy or finance your next car if you need the comfort of having an ownership of your car and have plans to pay off your loan earlier to become payment-free, and understand the added costs for unexpected maintenance and repairs.

On a side note, visit Mrs. Accountability’s Outofdebtagain.com for her Yakezie Roundup this week.

I am a strong advocate of Netflix. I just love it. For awhile, I used blockbuster online rentals but once I switched to Netflix, I never turned back. Although Netflix already boasts over 15 million subscribers, they’re not done yet. They’re preparing themselves to tap into Canadian market and will start offering streaming only service in a few months.

Currently, due to lower profit per subscriber numbers, the Netflix stock price is declining. As of right now at 11:32 am EST, the price is down 10.66% at $106.81. I believe this might be a good time to invest in some Netflix stock. The fundamentals haven’t changed and the future still looks bright.

If you have not taken advantage of Netflix service, you can still try it out for free for two weeks. You can cancel within the two-week trial period and pay nothing. You can simply cancel the service online so you won’t have to deal with trying to come up with excuses talking to a real live representative.

I wrote about Netflix service a few times already. I have listed them here so you can refer to them easily.

Netflix Streaming Review: Save Money With Netflix
Roku Becomes Friendlier with Netflix
Use Your Wii To Stream Netflix, Save 10%
Hulu Competes With Netflix

I was watching TV one day with a few friends and they asked me what an APR was as we finished watching a Toyota commercial. I explained to them what it meant and then it dawned on me that not everyone understands the meaning of some of the key financial terms we toss around everyday. So I took it as an opportunity to make it into a blog post to define some of these key terms. As I was even writing this post, I had to look up a few terms myself just to make sure I had it right.

1. APR

Annual Percentage Rate refers to an interest rate that’s tacked on to the borrowed money. For instance, if you borrow $10,000 and the APR is 5%, then you would end up paying $500 in interests at the end of one year. However, if you borrow $10,000 and the interest due is 5% at the end of one month, then the APR jumps to 79% (1.05^12).  On the flip side, if you borrow $10,000 with an APR of 5% and pay back in one month, you would only end up paying 0.42%.

2. Refinance

Refinance generally refers to your mortgage. When you refinance, you’re basically selling your house at a certain price and rebuying it at the same price, but with lower interest rate. Typically, it is encouraged to refinance when the new rate is more than 1 full percentage point less than your current mortgage rate. I refinanced my mortgage twice in the span of 4 years. My initial rate was 6.75% and refinanced at 5.5%. Then I refinanced again at 4.375%. I’m currently saving over $400 per month from my original monthly mortgage payment.

3. Fiscal Year

Fiscal year and calendar years are different. They both have 365 days in one year, but the “seasons” are different. Calendar year is broken down into four seasons. Fiscal year is broken down in four quarters. First quarter begins in October and ends in December. Second quarter lasts from January to March. Third quarter starts in April and ends in June. Fourth quarter is from July to September. Fiscal year is used by businesses and corporate companies due to government business taxation and laws. Although different countries adopt different months for their fiscal quarters, the same principle applies.

4. Balance Transfer

When you have a credit card debt and your APR (see above) is really high, say over 15-20%, then you should consider transferring your outstanding balance to a lower APR credit card. There are many 0% APR balance transfer credit cards that are available to all of us. The 0% promotional period is typically anywhere from 6 months to 18 months. There is usually a nominal 3-5% fee on the transfer but that will quickly be paid back when you don’t have to pay any more interest on your outstanding balance for 18 months.

5. Credit Card Rewards

Nowadays, you can’t find a credit card that doesn’t offer some sort of incentive rewards program along with the card. Even the debit cards are now rolling out with rewards program of their own. Grocery store chains and pharmaceutical chains also have their own rewards program for shopping there. Rewards are typically given out in either points or cash value. In most occasions, you can convert the points into cash, or redeem the points to purchase something else. I currently take advantage of my Discover Card rewards program as well as my Chase Freedom rewards program. I believe they’re both very excellent in terms of getting back on what you spend. Currently, Discover Card is offering $75 when you sign up for Discover More Card. Chase is offering $100 cash back when you sign up for Chase Freedom Visa Card. When looking for rewards credit cards, focus on what would be most beneficial to you. If you fly a lot, then you might consider frequent flyer rewards. If you like music, then music rewards might be more suitable for you. If you drive a lot, then gas rewards cards would make sense.

6. Emergency Savings

People generally open up a separate savings account, whether it’s online or brick and mortar bank, it doesn’t matter. The purpose of this account is not to earn money, but to have money safe and easily available emergency purposes. How much money to have in this account differs for each person, but typically, a 3-month salary is a good rule of thumb. I currently do not have an emergency savings account, but I recently opened a Discover Bank savings account for all my wedding stuff.

7. Cash Advance

When you take money out of your credit card, it’s called cash advance. Basically, you’re borrowing money from your credit card company, at premium interest rates, sometimes going as high as 30%. I would stay away from cash advance transactions at all costs. If you have too much credit card debt with high interest, consider transferring your balance to a 0% balance transfer credit cards.

8. Equity

When you own something, you have equity. If you have cash, you have equity. If you have a mortgage and is 50% paid off, you have 50% equity on the value of your home. So when people ask you how much equity you have in your property, they’re asking you how much of it is owned by you. The more equity you own, the higher your overall net worth becomes.

9. Certificate of Deposits

Otherwise known as CDs, these are very similar to savings accounts, but you’re not allowed to deposit or withdraw from them until the agreed CD term expires. There are 1 month CDs, 6 month CDs, and up to 5 year CDs. CDs often have higher returns in interest than your typical savings account so if you know you won’t need the cash for a few years, purchasing a CD might be a good savings solution. Currently, Discover Bank offers a 1.50% APR for 12-month Cd and Ally offers 1.47% APR for their 12-month CD.

Have I forgotten anything? Please add to the list if you wish.

With the final table set for the WSOP Main Event, I got the itch to play some poker. I kept seeing those commercials on TV about how Hollywood Casino at Charles Town in West Virginia just opened up with table games and poker room, along with slots and such, so a couple friends and I decided to take the 80 min drive and check it out this past weekend. Normally, whenever we have the urge to gamble a bit, we always head up to Borgata in Atlantic City, but that’s 2.5-3 hr drive each way. We figured if Hollywood Casino made a good impression on us, we would make this our home casino.

Well, our first impression was not…well, let’s just say it wasn’t good. Waiting 90 minutes just to put our names down on the waiting list for poker was already ridiculous and waiting another 5 hours to sit down at a poker table was even more ridiculous. Just based on that experience alone, I never want to go back to Hollywood Casino ever again. Why wait 6.5 hours to play when I can drive to Borgata in less than 3 hours? I could also decide to play poker online at Pokerstars and try to win money like Boku87 instead.

While waiting for a seat at the poker table, we figured we’ll wait it out by at least playing some table games, such as blackjack, 3-card poker, pai gow poker, craps, and roulette.  We then ran into two major problems. One problem was that there was no open tables to play at. All of the seats were filled by other players and each table was hovered by dozens of people just watching. On top of that, the table game minimum limits were too high for our bankroll. At $50 minimums, we could only afford to play 4-5 hands before we go bust. Anyway, we were finally able to play some poker at around 7:30pm. We ended up leaving at around midnight.

I have to say that I cannot recommend going to Hollywood Casino for some table game action. You would be lucky if you can even find a seat.

With that said, if you ever decide to make a trip to Las Vegas or Atlantic City with your buddies, you should learn which games have the best odds of winning. Here are my top 5 games that have the best odds.

My Top 5 Best Odds Casino Game

1. Blackjack (0.48%)

House has 0.48% edge. Dealer stands on soft 17, player may double on any two cards, player may double after splitting, no surrender, no resplitting of Aces. This is a fast game and averages about 70 hands per hour.

2. Three-Card Poker (3.37%)

House has 3.37% edge, assuming you play both Ante and Play. The edge increases to 5.32% if you play Ante, Play, and Pair Plus. Three-Card Poker is a little slower than Blackjack and can expect to see about 50 hands per hour.

3. Mini-Baccarat (1.2%)

House has about 1.2% edge. This is also a fast paced game with expected hands per hour at around 70.

4. Pai-Gow Poker (1.96%)

In Pai-Gow Poker, you make two hands from 7 cards dealt to you. one 5-card hand and one 2-card hand. The odds of player winning both hands is 28.61%. The odds of house winning both hands is 29.91%. The odds of a tie or a push is 41.48%. So if you do the math, you will win or tie 7 of 10 hands played.  The game is played very slow at about 30 hands per hour.

5. Spanish 21 (0.40%)

House has 0.40% provided that House stands on soft 17. If house hits on soft 17, the house edge increases to 0.76%. This game is very similar to the traditional blackjack and is played at about 70 hands per hour.

What’s your favorite casino game to play? Also check out Ultimate Money Blog’s Yakezie Carnival.

I was fortunate enough to lock in my mortgage rate at a low 4.375%. There’s still some chance of going lower, but at this point, the chance of going up is greater than it is to go down further. But before you lock it in now, you must still be careful not to get ripped off. Yahoo Finance released an article today about some of the warnings. It’s a short article, but allow me to briefly summarize it for you.

Reliable lenders will help you as much as they can to give you the best rate as possible. But there are still some shady lenders out there and will oftentimes confuse the consumers with rate quotes, which is much different from rate lock-ins. Typical rate lock-ins take no more than a day or two, so if your lender is requesting more time, it should give you a red alert signal and stay away from this lender.

I didn’t have to worry about foul play during my refinancing process because it was through a friend who is a mortgage lender. I knew I could trust him. So, when locking in your rate, always have a documentation indicating such, instead of relying on the lender’s verbal statement.

To read the full yahoo article, you can do so here.

A friend of mine just leased a brand new Honda Civic for $199/mo with no money down for 36 months. His limits are 36,000 miles during the leasing period with $0.15/mi for each additional miles over the limit. His commute is only 15 miles round trip per day, equating to 75 miles a week. I’m not sure what his driving habits are during the weekend, but assuming 50 miles per weekend day, that adds up to 175 miles driven in any given week. Multiply that out by 3 years and you get a total expected miles driven over the course of 36 months to approximately 27,300 miles. This gives him an extra 8,700 miles of flexibility over the course of the leasing period. Total money spent at the end of his leasing period would become $7,164. He told me that he didn’t have to pay anything else at signing, except first month payment of $199. He also told me that he’s not expected to pay any additional end of lease fees either. He may be wrong about this, but that’s what he told me. Tax and tags are included in the 199 monthly payment.

So, is this a good deal? Everyone’s situation is different, but for my friend, I believe it’s a good deal.

5 Reasons to Lease Your Next Car

1. Get a brand new car every 2-3 years, depending on your leasing period.

2. Never pay for maintenance, except for everyday wear and tear such as oil change.

3. Free gap insurance, in case car is totaled.

4. The money you saved from lower monthly payments is the “equity” you build every month.

5. Option to purchase the vehicle at the end of the leasing period for reduced price.

There you have it. Remember to get an insurance quote before you buy or lease your car. You can get free online quote from Geico or Allstate insurance. Oftentimes, a leased vehicle has slightly higher premium than purchased vehicles.

I went a little further in calculating which is better, Lease or Buy Your Car – Explained in my other post.

I recently applied for mortgage refinance couple weeks ago and am in final stages of completion. My monthly mortgage payments will decrease from $2,020 to $1,800. With the extra couple hundred dollars I’ll now be saving, I plan to deposit that in my new Discover Bank online savings account, which I created for my wedding budget savings. One of the required fees for refinancing is credit check. I just looked at a copy of my latest credit report that was sent to me and I was pleasantly surprised at my score. When you request a credit report, you can receive three scores, Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. My scores were 820, 805, and 816 respectively!

I’m not quite sure how my scores became that high, but what I am sure of is that I always pay my bills on time and in full. Even when I purchased my diamond for the engagement ring, I put it on my Chase Freedom Card, so I could at least receive 1% cash back on my rewards. Then when my credit card bill arrived, I paid it in full.  I also pay my HOA fees on time, my mortgage payments on time, my phone and electric bills on time. I also paid all my car payments on time, 3 years early, in fact. Basically the bottom line is, if you make all your payments on time, you should be good to go. However, if you’re score is low to begin with, you can refer to my tips on ways to increase your credit score for more detailed information.

You can purchase your own credit report at myfico.com. They even have a free estimator. Just answer 10 simple questions. If you want to purchase individual reports, you can purchase TransUnion and Equifax scores for about $16 each.

Equifax.com offers similar products and you can purchase all three reports, TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian for $39.95. It’ll be easier to compare line for line when you purchase such package.

2010 World Series of Poker is well under way as the grueling day after day progresses. Players are scrambling to win chips from their opponents in hopes to be the last player standing at the end of the massive 13-day poker tournament. This year’s main event tournament was amassed by the second largest number of players in live poker tournament history with 7,319 players and $8.9 million going to the winner of the tournament. It’s very exciting for poker players in the world and fortunately for non poker players like us, a few money lessons can be derived from these poker tournaments. I came up with 4 lessons that can be learned from this year’s WSOP tournaments.

1. Bankroll Management

A good poker player will have a smart bankroll management plan. A bankroll is the amount of money a poker player will always have available to play poker with. With this money, he will use to purchase buy-in tournament fees into various poker tournaments. He will also use this money to play cash games.  With a smart bankroll management plan in place, the poker player will never ever go broke, unless he plays out of his bankroll plan. As long as he is within the means of his bankroll, he should be able to play poker forever without going broke. For instance, a good bankroll to have is about 100-250 times the amount of the highest buy-in fee for a poker tournament he is willing to play. The World Series of Poker Main Event tournament buy-in was $10,000. In order for any given poker player to be able to play in this tournament by directly buying into the tournament, he should have somewhere between $1,000,000 – $2,500,000 in his poker bankroll.  In the same way, he can play a cash game with maximum buy-in of $10,000 at the table to comfortably play without worrying about going broke. Poker is a game of skill and luck and professional players find ways to minimize luck and maximize skill. By playing within the bankroll, they minimize the risk and luck factor involved in the game. With this bankroll management practice, a poker player will never go broke. Refer to Boku87 Challenge for his bankroll strategy. Boku87 is an online professional poker player at Pokerstars who challenged himself to earn $100,000 from his $5 bankroll.

In the same way, we need to have a proper “bankroll management” with our money. We can do this by budgeting our everyday spending items carefully, and never spending outside of our budget limits. Once we spend outside of our spending budget, we’re allowing luck to factor in the system, which allows our budget to become less stable. Use a budgeting tool to help you limit on what you spend. If you budgeted yourself $500/mo for credit card purchases, do everything you can do to ensure you don’t exceed that amount in credit card purchases. You can download a free budgeting spreadsheet I personally use myself.

2. Patience Patience Patience

A poker player can not be judged on how good of a player he is after just one cash game session or one poker tournament. It only takes couple hours to learn the game of poker, but a lifetime to master it. A poker tournament is very similar. A single tournament can last well over 10 hours. The WSOP main event this year is played over 13 days, with each day lasting for over 10 hours. After only a couple of days, fatigue can definitely affect the way a poker player plays his game. Imagine just sitting there in your seat for hours and hours playing a card game. It can get quite boring and tedious and monotonous and will become a challenge to maintain a sharp mind to make optimal decisions hand after hand.

The same principle applies with your savings. Money doesn’t grow like wild weeds in your yard. But your savings will grow when they are properly taken care of.  It takes time though. If you put $1,000 in an online savings account such as Discover Bank or Ally which has an annual return of about 1.3% or so, you can expect to double your initial investment in about 55 years. If you are saving for your retirement, you are looking to save for about 30+ years. If you’re saving for college tuition for your kids, you will end up saving for about 18-20 years. The bottom line is that saving money takes time and patience. Keep working at it and stick to your original plan. The winner of this year’s WSOP will reap the rewards after 13 days of grueling poker. You, however, will reap your rewards in your future by being patient.

3. Avoid Emotions

Have you seen any WSOP coverage on ESPN lately? Have you observed the faces of poker players? They’re all emotionless, especially during a hand. Poker players must put all emotions aside when playing cash games or tournaments. If they allow their emotions to persuade their decisions, they will make decisions that they would not normally make, ultimately allowing them to bust out of the tournament or losing all their money in their cash game session. Seeing hundreds or even thousands of dollars move from one player to another player for many hours can have dramatic emotional effect. Good poker players are able to put their emotions aside and make sound decisions based on their poker experience, odds and probability, and their skills.

One thing I always used to do back when I was really into trading stocks was buying and selling according to my emotions. It cost me a lot of money trading this way. If I saw a stock falling, I would sell in panic. If I saw a stock rising, I would buy more in excitement. My emotions got the better of me. When you’re dealing with your money, whether in trading stocks or savings or personal budgets, you have to leave your emotions aside. Make sound decisions based on what’s reasonable. Don’t let your emotions influence your choices, especially when you’re shopping.

4. Short Term Goals

One thing a good poker player does is set short term goals and change gears in their gaming strategy as they reach their short term goals. If the poker player plays with the same strategy throughout the entire tournament, other players will catch on, allowing them to become vulnerable. If they don’t change gears in their strategy, they will lose all their chips to their opponents. Setting short term goals throughout the tournament will allow the poker player to change their playing strategy accordingly, ultimately confusing their opponents.

When you’re saving up for a big purchase, you need to set short term goals as well. If you need $10,000 in two years to upgrade your home or build a deck or need money for a down payment on a house, it can get a little overwhelming when you look at the final number of $10,000. But if you set goals in between, then it might become less intimidating. Set goals of saving $1,250 every 4 months and then re-evaluate. If you need to change your gears after the first 4 months, then do so to reach that ultimate goal of $10,000.

It’s definitely some exciting time of the year for poker players. It’s every poker player’s dream to win the Main Event of the World Series of Poker. What would you do with $8.9 million dollars?