Online banks definitely have the highest interest rates today.  One online bank with a very unique name that has some of the highest returns is “RedneckBank.com“. The company claims to have a good laugh, but taking care of your banking needs is no laughing matter. RedneckBank.com offers high interest, no minimum balance, no monthly maintenance fee and many other free services.

Redneck Bank is the Internet Banking Division of Bank of the Wichitas, a well-respected “country” bank established in 1913, and is insured by the FDIC, like all legitimate banks!

Right now RedneckBank.com is offering 5.25%APY under $10,000 on Rewards Checking and 3.10%APY under $35,000 for Mega Money Market Account. 

Below is a screenshot of comparisons of the Redneck Bank checking accounts:

For more information visit RedneckBank.com

Related Article: Earn More Money with Internet Banks

TaxACTOnline now allows you to prepare AND file taxes fast, easy, and best of all free! There are no rebates, restrictions, or gimmicks.

TaxACT is developed by professional accountants and CPAs making doing your taxes a hassle-free experience.  TaxACT is now in its eleventh tax season and is the 2nd most visited destination for do-it-yourself tax preparation services.

With TaxACT you can print a copy of your return, print individual forms, or have a printing-related question, you’ll quickly find the information you need.

For more information visit TaxACTOnline.com.

Many military families who were required to relocate because of change of duties have been hurt by the current real estate market.  Many of these families saw the value of their homes drop significantly. 

However, because they had to relocate, they sold their homes for a loss, couldn’t sell their homes or had to go into foreclosure.  Now there is help from the $787 billion stimulus package, signed into law by President Obama on February 17, 2009.  The stimulus package has a provision titled, “Military Homeowners Assistance Program (HAP)”.

HAP offers eligible applicants compensation for the difference between 95% of the appraised fair market value of the property prior to the announcement date, and the appraised value of the property at the time of sale, or the sales price, whichever is greater. Closing costs are reimbursed for private sales.  HAP extends to eligible n military homeowners who purchased homes before July 1, 2006 and who sell the homes before Sept. 30, 2012.

HAP was originally created because of the rising foreclosures and the credit crisis, and adds more than $400 million to help military homeowners who are in the middle of foreclosure, or unable to sell their homes in the event of a permanent change of station order.

HAP also assists wounded soldiers who must relocate due to medical reasons, and surviving spouses of fallen service members who are also forced to move.

For more information about the stimulus package go to Recovery.org.

Last week I posted a video clip of the “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” exposing the so called experts and executives who don’t know what they are talking about or just plain lying.  In the video Jon Steward blasted Jim Cramer, of “Mad Money” for telling investors that, “Bear Stearns is not in trouble…and…it’s time to buy, buy, buy”. The company collapsed 6 days later.  (See video post)

The clip definitely stirred things up between the men with a Jim Cramer getting invited to Jon’s show to clear things up. Below is the video of the interview.  In the video Jon Stewart is really hard on Jim Cramer who seems like he’s out of his league with this debate.

Video: Jon Stewart vs. Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 1

Video: Jon Stewart vs. Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 2

Video: Jon Stewart vs. Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 3

Related Post:  Jon Stewart’s Very Funny But True Video

Citi has released an informational video called “Facing Foreclosure” showcasing how Citi is working with outreach programs across the country to help stem the tide of foreclosure and keep people in their homes.

Video: Facing Foreclosure by Citi

Citi has also announced the “Homeowner Unemployment Assist” program, which is the latest program offered under Citi Homeowner Assistance, their multi-faceted program to help people avoid foreclosure and stay in their homes. Citi understands that unemployment is a major concern facing the American economy right now, and it especially worries mortgage holders. Homeowner Unemployment Assist will help recently unemployed, delinquent CitiMortgage customers stay in their homes by paying a reduced monthly mortgage payment for three months.

Below is a Question and Answer from Citi about the program:

How does this program work?

CitiMortgage customers meeting certain criteria who have recently lost their jobs will be eligible to participate in the Homeowner Unemployment Assist program. Often when families lose their homes, they are forced to downsize to a one- to two-bedroom rental residence. Under the Homeowner Unemployment Assist program, Citi will lower required monthly mortgage payments for the majority of qualifying customers to an average of $500 for three months. $500 is below the cost of the nationwide average rent for a one-bedroom residence.

How to I know if I qualify for this program?

If you make payments to CitiMortgage, are more than 60 days delinquent or in foreclosure and have a first mortgage loan that is for your principal residence, please contact CitiMortgage at 1-800-283-7918 and our mortgage professionals will look up your loan file to understand if you qualify for this program. At this time, this program is only available to customers who have a first mortgage owned and serviced by CitiMortgage and does not apply to second mortgages or home equity loans.

What kind of documentation is required in order to be eligible this program?

You must:

• Provide proof of unemployment
• Be actively seeking work as verified through State Unemployment benefits receipt, letter, etc.
• Be involuntarily unemployed for under six months

How are the payments determined and will the payment go towards my principal or my interest? What about escrow or insurance and taxes?

• Customers with a monthly escrow account payment of $500 or less with their CitiMortgage loan will pay a lowered monthly amount of $500.
• Customers whose monthly escrow amount exceeds $500 will be asked to pay the amount necessary to cover the monthly escrow.
• Customers who do not have an escrow account with their CitiMortgage loan, but who pay their own property taxes and other real estate costs directly, will pay a monthly amount of $300. Payments will first be applied to escrow, taxes and insurance. Any remainder will go towards paying off the principal with no interest accrued.

Can I be Self Employed?

If you have been involuntarily unemployed for under six months and are actively seeking work as verified through State Unemployment benefits receipt, letter, etc. you can qualify for the program.

What if I find a job prior to the payment ending period?

Borrowers who find employment during the payment relief period must resume their original monthly payments, or if eligible, receive a long-term loan modification under Citi’s streamlined program adopted from the FDIC.

What if I can’t find a job by the end of the payment relief period?

Citi will work with customers on a case-by-case basis to explore the best solutions for the customer.

Are other Citi businesses, such as CitiFinancial, Citibank, Primerica, taking part in this program?

At this time, the program is only available to CitiMortgage customers with a first mortgage loan.

Do you expect the other Citi businesses to launch similar programs for their mortgage and other customers in the future?

Citi continues to evaluate the best ways to help its customers and run its business safely and soundly in this challenging economic environment.

For more information visit CitiGroup.com or call 1.866.915.9417.

If you are in the market for a mortgage to purchase a new home or looking to refinance your existing home, then you should seriously consider ING DIRECT Orange Mortgage.   While other banks offer lower rates they cover these usually with much higher closing costs.  An ING DIRECT mortgage comes with no points and very low closing costs, usually only an appraisal and the title search.

You can get a free locked in rate for 60 days when buying a home or 30 days when refinancing with a 5/1 adjustable-rate mortgage with an interest rate 4.5% and a 7/1 adjustable-rate mortgage with an interest rate 4.75%.

The 5/1 adjustable-rate mortgage after five years adjusts annually to reflect current market rates or you can pay $750 to modify your loan and lock in the going rate for another five years.  So you can get this rate for 10 years.

The 7/1 adjustable-rate mortgage after seven years adjusts annually to reflect current market rates or you can pay $750 to modify your loan and lock in the going rate for another seven years.  So you can get this rate for 14 years.
 
For loans with values of $500,000 the 5/1 adjustable-rate is 4.841% and the 7/1 adjustable-rate is 4.996%.  A down payment of at least 25% to buy a home, or 25% equity to refinance.

For more information visit INGDirect.com.

If you are looking to make money on the side with the Internet, then consider Affiliate Marketing.  I kept hearing about people making a killing with Affiliate Marketing so I decided to do some research and I soon became an Affiliate Marketer.  

Affiliate Marketing is promoting products/services that you don’t own or provide for a commission.  You register with an Affiliate Company to get an account, which gives you access to hyper-links (via text or banners) to products/services.  You take the link and place it out in the Internet world (via e-mail, website / landing page, paid advertising) to send traffic to your affiliate.  When an action is taken (sale or lead generation), you get a commission.  

Some of the top affiliate companies include Commission Junction (CJ), AzoogleAds, ClickBank, PepperJam Network and Sharesale.  There are many others, but these are the ones I use the most.

There are a few Blogs run by Affiliate Marketers with articles on how they make money with Affiliate Marketing.   I registered with a few of them to get their email updates  and learned a ton.  After a while, I realized that most of the information was the same.  

At first, I tried marketing a few items but I was not successful.  I didn’t lose too much money, but  I never gave up and just kept trying to promote different items.   Then my luck turned and I promoted 2 items that generated $125,052 in commission in 10 months (last year – 2008).  I spent $52,086.15 advertising the items on Google, $15,492.96 on Yahoo and $856.74 on Microsoft AdCenter and was able to net $56,616.15 (before taxes) in profit.  See screen shots below, keeping in mind the numbers do not match exactly with the numbers I’ve stated due to a variety of reasons.

Screenshot of Affiliate Account

Screenshot of Advertising Accounts

The great thing about pay-per-click marketing is that you can try marketing a product or service fairly quickly and cheaply.   No need to build a website or spam people with e-mail marketing.  Let’s say you want to market diet pills.  You can go to Google and write an ad for diet pills.  Many Affiliate Marketers will build an advertising page (called a landing page) to pre-sell the item while others will link directly to the affiliate’s website.  Now to get people to find your ad, you bid on specific keyword phrases.  The beauty of this is only people looking for diet pills using the specific keyword phrases will find your ad.  

Someone going to Google looking for auto insurance will not be presented with your ad.   Someone going to Google looking for diet pills, or maybe a specific type of diet pill will be presented with your ad.  Now if you create appealing ads, with a good landing page to pre-sell the visitor and good keyword phrases, you will be able to send converting customers (customer who will buy or sign up) to your affiliate.  

Now the numbers have to make sense.  Lets say it costs you $100 to send 200 visitors to your affiliate who will pay you $50 per sale.  If your conversion rate is 2%, meaning 2% of the 200 visitors buy, then you’ll generate $200 in commission.  Minus the $100 you spent on advertising you’ll profit $100.  Now when you see that your promotion is working, you then want to scale the campaign by spending more on advertising and advertising on Yahoo and Microsoft AdCenter, where you now spend $1,000 per day for advertising generating you $2,000 per day in commissions with a nice $1,000 per day in profits.  

Affiliate Marketing takes some risk, hard work, money and a little luck.  It’s a trial and error system.  Try a bunch of stuff; learn from your mistakes and hopefully, eventually you will make money.  Maybe not the type of money you want, but you will make money.  I would imagine the majority of people don’t make a lot of money, but there are people doing it full time making over $1,000 per day and are labeled as “Super Affiliates”.  These people spend all day before their computers promoting products and services via mostly by pay-per-click advertising and it’s making them rich!

I’m always on the hunt for another big moneymaker, however, I do make some money with embedded affiliate links on my websites.  To find out more about affiliate marketing, I recommend using Google to find a ton websites and Blogs that will give you free information.  No need to pay for any training or buy e-books.  There are tons of people trying to sell you these items, when all the information is already free on the Internet.  It’s not rocket science.  It’s all about learning the basics, then trying it, learning from your mistakes, having discipline, hard work and never giving up.  That’s how I started!