Finance Throttle

BlockFi – The Crypto Savings Account

Post author:Hyder A.
Post published:April 12, 2021

BlockFi is a crypto company that offers Interest Accounts, Trading Accounts, and Crypto-backed Loans. If you use Coinbase or another brokerage for buying your Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other crypto, you can transfer your money to BlockFi's Interest Account and earn as high as 8.6% APY on your crypto. I started using BlockFi back in January of 2021 by transferring 2.4 ETH of my Ethereum. Within the past 2.5 months, I have earned $38.40 in interest. Starting a few weeks ago,…

Top 5 Savings Accounts of 2021

Post author:Hyder A.
Post published:April 8, 2021

Growing up you were probably taught how important it was to save your money. Maybe it was your parents or a friend or teacher who convinced you to save. Most people just use the same bank their parent's used, or they open a savings account with a local bank because of the convenience. Brick & mortar banks are often the worst banks to use for your savings. They usually charge fees, have minimum balance requirements, and have very low interest…

Interest APY Rates are Down 2021

Post author:Hyder A.
Post published:April 5, 2021

There are two mindsets when it comes to money. You can be someone who likes to borrow or you can be someone who likes to save. On March 19th, I received an email from Betterment explaining that my Cash Reserve APY is going down from 0.4% to 0.3%. I quickly checked some other high yield bank accounts and found that Discover just went from 0.5% to 0.4% APY. I expect more banks and brokerages to lower their rates soon. In…

The $1000 Investment Challenge – 3 Month Update

Post author:Hyder A.
Post published:April 1, 2021

In 2020, I heard about the $1000 challenge between the online Finance community. It is a 1-year challenge where you invest $1000 in any way you want to see who makes the most money. Since the $1000 challenge has been around for a while, no one has done this challenge in recent times. I thought it would be an interesting experiment to try during the Pandemic. Because I run a personal finance blog, I decided to expand my experiment. I…

3 Month Blog Update

Post author:Hyder A.
Post published:March 29, 2021

Around Christmas of 2020, I decided to start my own personal finance blog Finance Throttle. My objective with this blog was to help people accelerate their net worth and learn more about personal finance along the way. Within a week, I created the blog and website through a Bluehost referral link and published the site on December 31st, 2020 for a January 1st, 2021 reveal. I started off publishing a new blog post EVERY DAY. This wasn't easy since I…

Financial Mistakes in Parenting

Post author:Hyder A.
Post published:March 25, 2021

No parent is perfect. Even I admit making some of these mistakes when teaching my daughter about money. Here are 9 mistakes that parents make when teaching their children about finance. 1. Keeping Quiet The biggest financial mistake a parent can make is not teaching their children about money at all. If you want to give your children the tools to understand the concepts of money and grow their savings, you need to have frequent conversations with them. One way…

What is a SEP IRA?

Post author:Hyder A.
Post published:March 18, 2021

The SEP IRA is an individual retirement account for the self-employed. If you own a small business or have a side job earning passive income, you can qualify for a SEP IRA. You may think that SEP stands for self-employed, but it actually stands for Simplified Employee Pension. As an alternative to 401k's, SEP IRA's give small business owners the ability to contribute money for their employees. A SEP IRA can be ideal for a small business with 10 employees…

Robo-Advisors – M1 Finance vs Betterment vs Wealthfront

Post author:Hyder A.
Post published:March 15, 2021

I have been passively investing with Betterment since 2015, but I recently opened another brokerage account and Roth IRA with M1 Finance. I also convinced my wife to open her first Roth IRA with Wealthfront so that I can use and compare all three. I have written comprehensive reviews on all three platforms so I won't go into every feature offered by these three companies. If you want to skip the reading, scroll down to see the table comparing the…

Reduce or Defer Capital Gains with a 1031 Exchange

Post author:Hyder A.
Post published:March 10, 2021

IRS Section 1031 is a code that allows you to swap one of your investment properties for another, as many times as you want, allowing capital gains taxes to be deferred. It is called a 1031 exchange and it is only applicable to investment properties of like-kind. You can do a 1031 exchange on an investment property that used to be your primary residence, but it must be classified as an investment property for at least 1 year at the…

Investing Versus Paying Off Debt

Post author:Hyder A.
Post published:March 8, 2021

Due to FOMO, or Fear Of Missing Out, most people will want the answer to be Investing. In reality, paying off debt is the better option for most people and most situations. As a velocity banker, I definitely prefer to pay off debt. Investing When it comes to Investing, there are many different ways to invest. You can invest in real estate, stocks and ETF's, bonds, index funds, and start up companies. Within stock market investing, you can choose to…