Mint.com has a new iPhone App which allows the user to check account balances from anywhere. Mint.com and the iPhone App are completely free services. This is yet another great services that frees us from the desktop. Using your iPhone, you can monitor your checking, savings and credit card accounts; review your budget; and monitor investment performance.
It has been reported that Quicken.com will also release an iPhone App later this quarter.
In case you missed it last month. Quicken Online is now a free service. This online version of Quicken is yet another solution that allows you to move away from your desktop and make your life easier. And the price is definitely right.
Quicken Online allows you to manage your personal finances from any computer or even your mobile phone. You can view your accounts all at once – Checking, Savings, Credit Cards. You can track your money, get bill reminders and use their tools to help control your spending. Probably a good idea just time for the holidays. It seems fairly easy to use. If you tend to get late fees by missing payments, you should definitely use this to help save yourself some money.
I would expect Quicken to add even more features because of the competition they are getting from Mint.com, which is another good solution for managing your money online.
The FDIC deposit insurance limits were raised this month. The new magic number is $250,000. Generally speaking, under the new rules an individual person has coverage for $250,000 per institution. A joint account has coverage of $250,000 per person. So with two people on a joint account there could be coverage up to $500,000 per insured bank.
If you have your account titled in the name of your living trust you can take advantage of substantial coverage. For example, if a husband and wife have a living trust with two kids as the beneficiaries, the account could be covered up to $1,000,000 per institution.
IRAs and other retirement accounts are covered for $250,000 per owner. Corporations, partnerships and other entities are covered for $250,000 per entity.
Don’t rely on this post to clarify your personal situation, especially if you have more than $250,000 in any one institution. See The FDIC Guide to Insuring Your Deposits for more details. Better yet, the FDIC has a great tool called EDIE the Estimatorto estimate your deposit insurance coverage. It can handle every possble scenario, including all different types of trust account situations. We encourage everybody to try this at least once. (It’s not just for individuals; businesses can estimate their coverage, too.)
Remember that coverage is calculated per depositor per insured bank. It is not per account. So if you have multiple accounts at a bank, you need to take that into account. That is why EDIE the Estimator is such a great tool, because it keeps track of everything.
A special note: These rules are set to expire at the end of 2009 and revert back to the $100,000 base coverage. We expect more permanent rules before that time with coverage greater than $100,000.
