Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

Chat with COO of FUND.COM

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!!

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Bargaining is the best tool

February 3rd, 2009 Vijaianand

Haggling or Bargaining whatever you want to call, it is the best tool you got at these tough times. I hear about it a lot lately compared to few years ago. In many money magazines, it has become normal to see articles about how to bargain to get a cheaper deals. 

This tool was once considered offensive and embrassing by many is now becoming more common. In India and Asian countries, its a normal  trading technique. You can also find it being used in Farm markets and Garage Sales.
 
Bargaining can be used to get cheaper deals on the private party sales like craigslist, Angie list sales or Garage sales websites. Even Medical bills can be to bargained by talking to the hospital or the physician you are using. If you don’t want to do it, there are professional who are experience at medical bills bargaining and you can find them at
http://www.billadvocates.com/

It is your money, don’t just give it away without a fight 🙂

Posted in Education, Financial Literacy, Saving, Shopping, Spending Tags: , No Comments »
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Be your own Financial Planner

January 29th, 2009 Vijaianand

In my last post, we saw how Goal Setting works better than Resolutions. I also promised to show, how Goal Setting Techniques works better in achieveing your financial dream. Let’s start with a quick check on your stand with money and move on setting some new goals, draft realistic plans and try to reach them by taking some action to make this year a fruitful one. 

Self assess yourself by answering these 3 questions below and figure out where you are in regard to financial planning.  Say “YES” if you have an answer or NO if you don’t have an answer or don’t know anything about the question.

Do you any personal financial goal like buying a new car or home? 
Do you have a Budget in place to track all your income and expenses?
Do you have a Savings Plans to grow your money?

If you said “Yes” to all of these questions, you are really way ahead of many people. If you said “No” to all them, its better you start thinking about them, now as it’s the right time.

Set/Revisit your Goals
When comes to selecting and Setting goals, Try to set SMART goals. These are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Trackable. For example, you may want to create an emergency fund in six months to have 3-6 months worth of your salary.


Allot a specific time. Sit down with a pen and paper or your computer. Start listing your goals, dividing them into three categories: short term, medium term, and long term.

• Short-term goals might include buying a new computer, or paying off credit card debt.

• Medium-term goals could be purchasing a car or going back to school.

• Long-term goals might be to buy a home, saving for your kids education or retire with enough money to live comfortably.

At the end, make sure you prioritize the list. Which ones are the most important to you? Which ones can wait? 


Define a Plan
People don’t plan to fail, they usually fail to plan. If you want to go to a place, you better know your directions, otherwise you are sure to get lost. It is as simple as that. Similarly, if you have set your goals, you better work on a clear and concise plan to reach them. Let’s define a plan by taking a simple goal.

The goal is to buy a home in 3 years with 20% down payment. That’s a SMART goal but to get you there you better draft a sound plan. In this case, you need to know things like:

Target Amount: Amount needed for the goal using today’s dollars. If your goal is to make a 20 percent down payment on a home valued at $100,000 today, you would need $20,000 for the down payment.

Target Dates: Enter the year or date when you want to reach your goal, say 2011.

Start out Amount: If you have $10,000 saved in a money market account, you may decide to allocate half of it to the down payment. In this case, you would write $5,000 under Current Assets.

Gap: Indicate the gap between the cost of each goal and the assets you have allocated, in our example $15,000.

Number of Years to Target Date: Enter the number of years between now and your target date, which is 3 years.

Amount to Be Saved Each Year: Divide the difference by the number of years to the target date. That amount you need to save each year to reach your goal is $5,000 a year.


Coming up with $5,000 for a year might be a tough deal. Try to split it monthly. You can then start a savings plan to save around $420 per month to get to $5,000 a year. The next and important step in the financial planning is executing the plan.


Ready, Set and Go: Take Action

“Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it,” said David Starr Jordan.

Making up goals and plans is just 20% of the challenge; executing them is 80%. In our example, you have the goal and plan to be ready to buy a house in 3 years with a 20% down payment.

How are you going to implement the plan if your financial situation is already tight? The first step is to analyze your current income and expenses to see where your money is going and what can you scale back. Start a simple budget to track your income and expenses, going after expenses which can be easily cut without affecting your lifestyle to achieve your monthly savings goal. Open a savings account or an add-on CD to put away a fixed amount every month. Or setup an automatic debit from your checking account to this savings account. This way you don’t have to do it manually.

Finally stick to the plan rain or shine and you are sure to reap its rewards. 

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