TD Ameritrade reported that their second quarter profit doubled due to an increase in commissions, fees and interest income, according to a MarketWatch.com report.

HOWEVER!  The best part of this report is that they will be lowering retail commissions to $9.99 from $10.99, putting my fears from a previous post to rest.  While it’s not much, it is a move in the right direction.

Starting today, Ameritrade has a new look to it’s website, and it appears that they’ve adopted many of the old TD Waterhouse logos …

In my search for information on business and entrepreneurship, I ran in to Inc.com, The Daily Resource for Entrepreneurs.

The website itself has a BusinessWeek.com type feel to it, but it’s more specialized in that is deals mostly in entrepreneurship issues.  They offer some great free tools for your business and have great columns dealing with issues that pertain to YOU, the entrepreneur.

Inc.com deals with tax and legal issues, startup issues, and it even has a personal finance section.  It’s definately worth a visit, and it’s even free to sign up to get access to their tools pertaining to your business operations.

After much deliberation, the students that are renting my house have decided they’d prefer me to provide the washer and dryer for an additional $30/month in rent.

My budget for a washer and dryer is $720 total.  This will give me a two year payout on the deal at $30/month.  Since I’ll be renting to college students that are moving out of dorm rooms, the chances are good that future tenants will also be in need of a washer and dryer, so I feel my risk is fairly low.

Anyway, I’m searching the Sunday ads to find the best deal on a …

Debit cards are a wonderful thing.  They make spending money much more convenient than carrying cash all the time.  They’re almost too convenient.

Debit cards rid you of all that emotion when you’re asked to part with your money at the checkout counter.  This lack of emotion, it turns out, is what get people into financial trouble.

According to an MSN Money article I just read, credit and debit card transactions account for 56% of all in-store purchases, with cash coming in at 33%.  And due to the convenience of plastic and that lack of emotion when it comes to parting with your money, it’s no wonder many people are having financial woes.

Well, today was a rough day in the stock market, primarilly due to oil prices reaching a front contract high of ~$75 per barrel.

Interestingly enough, a day after I covered my short CHAP shares, the price went down $3.  Go figure.  It’s back up today, so I don’t feel as though I missed anything fundamental about the play, it was just bad timing.

It appears that Google beat earnings expectations last night by a healthy amount, driving the price up significantly.  As long as they keep their management from spouting off cautionary statements to the …

In my continuing search for financing for my business ventures, I ran across a few more useful tools on the internet. A few deal with business plans, others deal with financing, but the one thing they all have in common is that they’re free. And free is good.

If you’re in the need of a business plan, check out BusinessPlans.org. They’ve got a lot of good examples, specifically the 2MBA example. Business plans are crucial when looking for capital. Additionally, they will validate your company by revealing the strategy and goals you have set out for the business.

If you are, you’re not alone.  According to an MSN Money article, there are an increasing amount of people that are paying mortgages on homes that are valued far less than what they owe.  In addition, many of the adjustable rate mortgages are coming due, and payments are rising faster than expected.

Unfortunately for those people who are underwater, I could have told you this was coming.

As I mentioned in a previous post, when you buy a house, you get once chance to negotiate the purchase price, but you can renegotiate the interest rate on the loan ever couple months if you want to.

I covered my Chaparral (CHAP) short shares this afternoon for a narrow loss.  After looking at the market action today, I found myself questioning why I was still holding the position.

It’s never good when you are wondering why you are still holding a position, because at that point, you don’t have a plan.

I had a plan for CHAP (I was going to cover at $56).  The stock went to $60 and then came back up to where I acquired it.  When I saw that starting to happen, I should have covered the position, but I didn’t.

We just got a postcard in the mail listing the dates of the annual neighborhood garage sale.  Usually, I don’t get too excited about this kind of stuff, but this year I’m going to make out like a bandit, guaranteed.

At last years sale, we sold about $200 worth of our stuff.  It doesn’t sound like much, but it also doesn’t include the huge deduction we were able to account for on last years taxes by donating all the stuff we didn’t sell.   All told, we had what amounted to $500 in deductions, just from the charitable donations in stuff we …

I received an email from BusinessWeek advertising their online courses.  I don’t like solicitations that ask me to shell out more money for something I probably don’t need.

But to my surprise, this is FREE!  And free is good.

BusinessWeek is offering Start-Up Basics for the First-Time Entrepreneur as an online course taught by Yvonne Phelps. 

Here are some of the highlights for the course:

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Understand some basic prerequisites for start-up survival and success
Assess whether you have what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur
Learn how to find gaps in the market and take advantage of entrepreneurial opportunities
Explore strategies for maximizing your investment of time, money, and energy

LESSONS

Do You Have What It Takes to Beat the Odds?
Identifying New Business Opportunities
Prerequisites for Start-Up Survival
Tips and Strategies for Entrepreneurial Success