February 11th, 2009 
Vijaianand I was asked this question by the visitor of this website. Instead of me answering, I am posting to our Budget Guru Shreyas.
Shreyas, Please go ahead and take the question and give your valuable thoughts.
Question
People are losing jobs everyday and having trouble even to meet their needs. We hear lot of about budgeting these days. How can budgeting help when we are having tough time meeting our needs.
Please answer with some real life situation.
Posted in Education, Financial Literacy, Financial Planning, Saving 
Tags: Budgeting, Financial Planning, Saving 
No Comments » February 9th, 2009 Vijaianand 
The Right place to find Right funds for Unsavvy Investors
Quick Intro about Fund.com
Fund.com’s goal is to help you reach your goals with mutual funds. They can help build a well-rounded portfolio, guide you in finding the funds that suit you best, and show you how successful investors meet their goals.
I accidently came across this user friendly website from their ad in Equities magazine. Just in my first visit, I found the site user friendly with tool to build your portofolio with a vast selection of funds by allocating asset according to your risk tolerance. It has unbiased mutual fund and ETF recommendations with detail insights about the markets from the anlayst to guide the ordinary investors to walk the market mine field carefully. They went one mile extra by lending hands via an Experts Desk with experienced bloggers thoughts and views.
It is hard to find companies that promote for financial literacy and I am immediately flattered by their effort. So I took the time to get in touch with them. I was able to catch Mr.Philip Gentile – COO of Fund.com. He was kind enough to spend little bit of time with me for a quick chat over the phone. Here is the snapshot of the Interview for you.
MRM Vijai>> Hello Philip. How are you? Thank you for taking time to talk to us. You got a very unique site with nice goal.
Fund.com Phil> It is my pleasure and Thank you getting in touch with us. Thank you for your compliments.
MRM Vijai>> Can you give some background about Fund.com?
Fund.com Phil>Fund.com was formed by 6 people who are basically from two different backgrounds internet and Wall Street. We joined hands to create a unique platform for investors in a way to provide financial literacy especially in Mutual funds and ETF to help them achieve their goals. We wanted to offer tools and technology to engage and embrace the young people to share their ideas with others in a new, user friendly media.
MRM Vijai>> Who are the audiences of fund.com?
Fund.com Phil>Any person who needs help in understanding Mutual Funds, ETF’s or general investing concepts. Asset Allocation and fund selection can be a scary experience for someone with little or no knowledge. Obtaining information from a source where you feel safe place especially during a shaky period of time like we are in today is something that we believe people will embrace. We try to show people how to to reach their life goals like retirement, kids college education, buying home etc., It is mainly designed to suit the 20-40 age category who are left out in the Mutual Fund world, however, any person regardless of age should find value from the site.
MRM Vijai>> Why funds and ETF’s? Why not Stocks?
Fund.com Phil>> Stocks are too risky in this tough economical situation we are in. It is not a safe boat to ride in during this wild stormy condition. But Mutual Funds and ETF’s provide an alternative that provide a good healthy place to nurture your savings and grow for the future needs.
MRM Vijai>> What is your business model?
Fund.com Phil>> Initially, our main model is to provide unprecedented information on Mutual Funds and ETF’s to guide people. We are just planning to make money out of advertisements and sponorsships. In the future, we have plans to provide our users with the ability to connect with financial experts.
MRM Vijai>> How are you planning to reach your audience, simply what is your marketing strategy?
Fund.com Phil>> Our current marketing strategy is to partner with other sites that will provide links back to us and social networking sites where you expect to find the 20-40 old investor. Places like facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to name a few. We already launched a campaign in Equities Magazine and will follow that up with a conference they are holding in New York in April. In the future, we are planning to conduct seminars and workshops to spread the work around.
MRM Vijai>> Finally, What are you future plans for the site?
Fund.com Phil>> We are planning to expand our help section to implement an Education Center with self help articles in partnership with Kiplinger on Mutual Funds and ETF’s. We are incorporating more Life maps which suits for different life styles. In coming months, we have plans to provide fund Prospectus,PDF Reports and an enhanced Fund Finder and Portfolio Builder. In the lighter side, we are looking to create games based on the LifeMap. Further out, we have plans to enhance the site with more information on ETF and Hedge Funds as well.
MRM Vijai>> Thank you for your time Phil. I am really interested connecting with you to form a relationship to share ideas and information for the benefit of our vistors.
Fund.com Phil>> Thank you and I am interested too. We will be in touch.
We are currently working with Fund.com to form a mutual relationship to share information between our websites. In essence, Fund.com already launched a new Money Really Matter section in the Expert desk. We are planning to bring some good blogs from fund.com to our readers as well.
This is just a small effort to make your life easier, so you all can gain the knowledge to make proper decision to path to financial success. Do you part, go to website fund.com and try it out. You will surely get addicted to it.
Happy Portfolio building!!
February 4th, 2009 Vijaianand Posting on behalf of Manisha Thakor, CFA
When it comes to numbers – we are all swimming in them. We have our home phone numbers, our cell phone numbers, our bank card PIN numbers and the list goes on and on. So when it comes to getting your finances back on track, here are three numbers that everyone should know as they head into 2009!
* $16,500 – This is maximum amount that you can contribute to your 401(k) plan if you are under the age of 50. With the scary market of 2008, a lot of people decided they didn’t want to go there. However if history is any guide, this is a great time to be adding to your retirement funds if you are young. The market is low and if you are under 50 you have time on your side. If you are over 50, the government is giving you some added turbo juice – you can put in an extra $5,500 for a total annual contribution of $22,000. A couple things to note. First, if your employer matches – meaning for every $1 you contribute they will put in $0.50 or $1.00 up to some predefined amount – you DEFINITELY want to do this. It’s free money. Second, it’s not enough to just sign up for your 401k / 403b / 457 plan, you have to specify what you want your funds invested in. If investing over whelms you, a target date retirement fund can be a great keep it simple option. Third, don’t touch this money unless it’s a life or death emergency.
* $5,000 – This is the maximum amount you can put into an IRA (individual retirement account) if you are under the age of 50. A lot of people don’t realize that you can have both a 401k and an IRA. If you are single and make less than $104,000 or less a year – or if you are married filing your taxes jointly and make less than $166,000 a year you can contribute to a special kind of IRA called a ROTH IRA These are special because you pay taxes on the money before you put it into the account but then when you take it out in retirement it’s all yours, no more taxes ever. Oh, and if you are over 50 you can add an extra $1,000 a year for a total contribution limit of $6,000.
* $5,950 (& $3,000) – This is the maximum amount a family (& a single filer, respectively) can contribute to an HSA (Health Savings Accounts). These are “tax-advantaged” savings accounts available to anyone who has a “high deductible” or “catastrophic” health insurance plan (“HDHP”). An HDHP generally costs less than what traditional health care coverage costs, so the money that you save on insurance can therefore be put into the Health Savings Account. You get an “above the line” tax deduction on the money you contribute and you do not have to pay taxes on the money you take out if the funds are used for qualified medical expenses. As an added bonus, unlike flexible spending accounts, the money can roll over from year to year and be used for any qualified medical expense (withdrawals for other uses will be taxed in a similar fashion to early withdrawals on IRAs)
No doubt, it’s scary out there. Our economy is going through a very rough patch. The best thing each of can do to protect ourselves is to focus on we can control. If you’d like to learn more about taking charge of your financial life, visit my site at www.OnMyOwnTwoFeet.com.
