Author: stlplace

Categories
401k and Personal Finance

Time to get a new car, or a used one?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

(Update 07-24-2010) Got it, this is my new car (SUV, or tall wagon to be exact), 2006 Subaru Forester. BTW, I think this Subaru Credit Card reward program is quite interesting.


(Picture credit: edmunds.com)

(Original) As much as I love my 2001 family sedan, recent repair bills made me think hard on my options. Year to date I’ve paid $1,500 to fix the engine noise and windshield motor problems, not a small sum, considering the car itself is worth about $3,000.

Car problems show up as it ages, this is normal phenomena. I remember spending pretty money maintain my 1991 Corolla back from 1998 to 2002 (can not afford a new car). I bought my current car brand new a little over 9 years ago, now it’s aging fast, esp. since I started to commute again this Feb, after working from home for 15 months.

Besides the cost issue, another reason is we will need two cars, because now I need a commute car (better to be reliable), and my wife will need to take our baby girl sometimes, she will need the car to do her own thing too. Couple days ago I said “rent a car” is an option, but after 2 days of renting, I do see some of the inconvenience of renting as well.

I thought about getting a used car, but after recent my own car issue, and my own inability to diagnose and fix the car problems, I am thinking new car should also be an option. I know, financially buying a new car is not always smart, but a new car comes with warranty, and a piece of mind.

Buying a used car

Continue reading “Time to get a new car, or a used one?”
Categories
401k and Personal Finance

Cash Back Credit Card II: rebate category madness

Reading Time: < 1 minute

(Update 07-28-2010) I found Citi® Platinum Select® AAdvantage® World MasterCard® to be interesting. AA actually offers 3 cards: Master Card, American Express or Visa. They has a 30,000 miles promotion as of now. Another card, which is more useful in our daily lives, is the Upromise® World MasterCard® credit card with Dining & Grocery Rewards, offered by BoA. But I think I will go for the Subaru card, for the 3% cash back (Subaru dollars, good at Subaru dealers for purchase or service).

(Original)Costco American Express Card
3% gasoline
3% Restaurant
2% Travel
1% everything else (including Costco purchase)

Discover card
5% gasoline, hotels, movie and theme parks (July 1st to Sept 30). Discover rotates the 5% cash back category every quarter.
1% for everything else (after meeting those $2,000, $3,000 spending requirements, as I said in earlier post)

Citi Dividend Card
Citi Dividend changed its policy from July 1. It no longer offers 2% (3%?) cash back on groceries etc. Instead it’s taking a page from Discover Cash Bonus Card, doing the rotating category thing. For instance, for this quarter (July 1 to Sept 30) it offers 5% for restaurant (needs enrollment).

It offers 1% for everything else.

Citi Professional
3% cash back on gas station, restaurant, office supplies and car rental;
1% on everything else

Summary

Continue reading “Cash Back Credit Card II: rebate category madness”
Categories
China IPO

Ag Bank of China IPO: bull case, bear case

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Business week: Summary Box: China’s AgBank IPO nabs $19.2 billion.

Wiki; Official web site of Ag Bank China’s (ABC, 中国农业银行股份有限公司).


(source: ForeignHR)

Bear case
Ag bank of China primarily serves the less-developed regions and people in China: the rural areas, the villages, the farmers and peasants, the agriculture related business. Since the founding of People’s Republic (and Ag bank shortly after), farm produce price has been kept artificially low by the central government (in a way subsidize other industries), and since 1978 the reform of economy, the situation has improved, but the economy gap between rural and urban has increased in last 30 years.

Bull case

Continue reading “Ag Bank of China IPO: bull case, bear case”
Categories
401k and Personal Finance

SPG Starwood Preferred Guest AMEX credit card special offer

Reading Time: 2 minutes

First I want to thank everyone who used my referral enrolling in Ohio College Advantage 529 plan, esp. those of you who kept quiet after using my referral code. My daughter (although she can not understand what is college these days, being 3 months and 3 weeks old) and my wife also want to express their thanks.

Saw this Starwood Preferred Guest AMEX credit card special offer from dealsea.

SPG has a new promotion – free 30,000 Starpoints after you spend $1000 in 3 months. No annual fee for the first year (then $45). Offer expires 7/6/10.

Here is a review for the card. And another review which talks about points redemption. Quote:

Starwood Preferred Guest program was the first program that had no blackout dates, which meant that if they had a room, they will give it to you. You need 2,000 points for a weekday stay at a category 1 hotel and 3,000 points for a weekend stay. You could also use a combination of points and paying cash. For example, you can use 1,250 points and $25 for a category 1 hotel stay. Starwood also allows you to get a fifth night stay free at category 3,4,5 and 6 hotels. The minimum points required is 28,000 points for a category 3 hotel. Room upgrade requires a minimum of 1,000 points. You can also get 50% off regular rates by using just 1,000 points for any category hotel. Points can be used to redeem for an entire vacation – with hotel stays and flights as well.

Starwood hotels include brands like Four Points, Sheraton,Westin and W Hotels. It seems to me Starwood program is better than HHonors program (Hilton family hotels), and SPG points worth more than HH points. For instance, 3,000 points can get one free night stay at Four Points Daning in Shanghai. So I took the bait: applied the card just now, and got approved 😀

Categories
401k and Personal Finance

Credit card series I: Amazon Visa Card

Reading Time: < 1 minute

link here. This is the new card I got this year. I got the $40 first statement credit, and am very pleased to get the extra points for my Amazon purchase (quite a bit after our new baby born).

With your Amazon.com Rewards Credit Card, you will earn points for every dollar you spend on the card.

Earn 3 points on eligible Amazon.com purchases
Earn 2 points on eligible gas, dining, and drugstore purchases
Earn 1 point on purchases everywhere else

This is probably the most straightforward reward card.

Sample rewards
2,500 points can get you $25.00 Amazon gift card;
5,000 points can get you $50 check;
……
90,000 points can get you an air ticket to any where in the world (disclaimer: worth about $1,600).

One point is roughly 1 cent ($0.01).

Categories
Fun Life

World cup 2010 thoughts

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The soccer World Cup 2010 is already well in the process. This is also the first time An african country hosting the cup, interesting and exciting for the continent and the host South Africa. I noticed soccer’s popularity grew in the US over the years, from the 1998 word cup to this year. ESPN/ABC broadcast most games alive, and the new media, from NPR to newspapers, showed interest too. For me personally, I also have some observations:

Maradona (Lu Gu Sun, bu xu lian xiang)
I know, I know, he is a controversial figure. But I still remember he is the best player in 1986 (when I was in middle school), basically my impression is the only way to stop him, is to put him down. Despite so many up and downs after 1986, I am glad to see him back. That being said, I found this Maradona comment from Lu Gu Sun (one of the best English professors in China) and another comment form Wang Xiao Feng to be interesting.

(source: The Sydney Morning Herald)

Other old timers
Less known than Maradona, I saw both Jurgen Klinsmann (the German guy, wiki) and Rudd Gullit (wiki, one of three Holland guys in 1980s to 1990s) on ESPN as commentator. I did not recognized Gullit initially because he has short hair nowadays 🙂

China presence
Did you see the China Yingli Solar (Chinese and English interchangeably) Ads bulletin at the stadium? According to marketplace, Yingli paid pretty money ($100 m) on this one, hope they can get their money worth. One thing I noticed, they could learn from and Budweiser/Harbin beer (English with Chinese ), so that people (assume they know English) could understand the company name better.

Categories
401k and Personal Finance

What is American Funds and my 401k choice

Reading Time: 2 minutes

It’s 401k enrollment time, because of my recent job change. I have lived life without 401k contribution for several months now, although I tried to keep up with buying mutual fund Scottrade IRA account. But I found this IRA thing is not as easy my good old 401k account. Couple reasons:

1) Automatic payroll deduction and investment in 401k vs. manually deposit/buy fund in IRA;

2) Dollar average cost (DCA) for the investments (mutual funds) in 401k, vs. picking the best time to buy mutual fund cheap (not easy to time the market);

3) Choosing from about 10 mutual funds vs. choosing from thousands of mutual fund Scottrade offers (a daunting task, which I talked a bit in my earlier post).

Anyway, here is the new mutual funds and their respective weight I chose for my new 401k plan.

Continue reading “What is American Funds and my 401k choice”
Categories
Stocks

Valuation of Yahoo’s Alibaba stake

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Yahoo buys US$1 billion stake in Alibaba (2005-8-11, China Daily): $1 billion for 40% stake of Alibaba Group (parent company of Alibaba, Taobao and Alipay). Taotao and Alipay is Chinese equivalent of eBay and Paypal, repectively.

Yahoo sells direct stake in Alibaba.com (cnet, 2009-9-14). Quote:
======
Yahoo has sold 1 percent of its stake in the Chinese-based business-to-business trading site Alibaba.com, the company said on Monday. Reuters first reported on the story.

In November 2007, Yahoo invested approximately $100 million in Alibaba.com when it went public on the Hong Kong Exchange. Writing in an e-mail, a company representative said that Yahoo’s “sale of its shares in Alibaba.com is expected to generate pre-tax proceeds of approximately $150 million.”
……
According to Yahoo, it maintains approximately 40 percent interest in the Alibaba Group. “Alibaba Group owns approximately 70 percent of Alibaba.com,” Yahoo wrote in the e-mail, “and as such, Yahoo continues to own an approximately 28 percent indirect interest in Alibaba.com.”
======

1% of Alibaba.com (1688.HK) = $150 m
28% of Alibaba.com = $150 m * 28 = $4,200 m = $4.2 billion

Continue reading “Valuation of Yahoo’s Alibaba stake”
Categories
401k and Personal Finance

Don’t be stingy on windshield wiper

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Learned this lesson the hard way. Basically couple days ago on my way to St. Louis Bread Co for a coffee, the windshield wiper in my car stopped working (it was raining). To make things worse, I can hear the motor was still trying to rotate and making the annoying noises. Upon arrival at the Bread Co., I spent 10 minutes and finally turned off the motor and restore the windshield wiper to original position. But I have another problem. It was raining, and sometimes it was raining hard, and I need to get back to home for the day (I did not want leave my car near my work place). So what I do?

I drove along the Olive road, after driving for a while when the window is “dirty”, I drove off the Olive and to a parking lot, manually clean up the Window, back to the road. I had to stop 4 times in this 12 miles trip. Luckily the heavy rain turned into shower so it gave me some relief.

After the diagnosis at repair shop, the windshield wiper motor is indeed broken. Looking back, I think I may have done two things wrong to break it (if it’s my fault).

Continue reading “Don’t be stingy on windshield wiper”
Categories
401k and Personal Finance

Rent a car instead of buying/leasing

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I had to rent a car today because my car is in the repair shop. It seems I need to extend the rent one day, because the part was not available in the shop (it had to be ordered).

I rent a Hyundai Accent from local Enterprise Rent-a-car (across street from the car repair shop). The cost is $34.99 + plus tax. In recent months I thought about getting another car, but after this car rental, I think rent a car is a very viable option for us. We already have a car which I use for daily commute. My wife does not drive often. In case she needs one, I can rent a car for the day, and she can drive the family car. I think in extreme cases, we need to rent 40 (almost once per week) days, it will cost probably $1,500 for car rental. This is about the same as the sum of property tax + insurance cost of a new car (say a $18,000 Hyundai Sonata). Note I did not mention the actual monthly payment or the lump sum cost of the car itself.

Of course, if my wife needs to use car daily, this will be another story 🙂