I’ve been out of college for a little over two years now. For about half a year just after college I worked at Chili’s, which sucked. This was due mostly to the fact that I wasn’t a good waiter. I have a terrible short term memory and a complete lack of desire to sell you things you don’t need…especially when I’m being badgered to do so by overzealous, over-ambitious managers. For the most part I just lived paycheck to paycheck and didn’t really care that I wasn’t saving money because I wasn’t making much to begin with.
I quit that job in February of ‘06 and started a “real” job working for The Man (Clear Channel) in March. Not that Chili’s wasn’t The Man, it’s more like I didn’t really see much of the “Man-ness” as a lowly waiter…I just did my job. At Clear Channel I write web applications that aid salespeople in their quest to make ridiculous amounts of dough leasing billboard space. As such, I get a much broader view of the company and its various internal workings which makes it all the more apparent that I work for The Man…but I digress. I’m making more money now, and can afford to set a little aside for the future. Not having this luxury before left me with little experience in personal finance. But I kept my ears open, read a little MyMoneyBlog, talked to Big Neal and the Cheechmeister, and now I feel like I have a better grasp of what I’m doing. I put a little money away in an Orange Savings Account and I’ve recently started trading stocks with a Zecco account.
The Orange Account is cool because it has a fairly competitive interest rate (4.3% APY) and I can link it to my brick-and-mortar Wachovia account where I keep a little bit of money for quick cash withdrawals. Zecco is even cooler because I can try my hand at investing with free stock trades. Yes, free (up to 40 per month). Granted, I’m currently losing money on the market what with the recent real-estate bruhaha, but I didn’t have to spend any money on commissions in making the trades. And because they’re free, there is no reason why I can’t buy one share at a time of a given stock. If you’ve ever considered playing the market, I highly suggest you open a Zecco account. And if you let me refer you, we can split the $50 reward. I can also refer you to an Orange Account and you’ll get $10 for opening it. If you’re interested, shoot me an email. How can you pass up free money? (You can’t)