My Favorite Financial Web Sites
by Gerald Townsend, Financial Editor

The Internet is a treasure trove of useful and fascinating financial Web sites. Unfortunately, it is also a wasteland of links with inaccurate, misleading or just plain boring information. Here is a collection of financial sites I find useful. Hopefully you will also.

Financial Super-Sites:
These are general sites with lots of data, articles, links, calculators, etc.

•   Yahoo Finance: (http://finance. yahoo.com) This is my “home page.” It has a nice, clean presentation, plenty of data and links, and an easy way to set up and track various portfolios. My Excel spreadsheets are linked to Yahoo Finance so I can easily retrieve updated data on stocks that I follow.

•   SmartMoney: (www.smartmoney.com) This is part of the Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal family, so you know it will have all the data you could possibly want.

Financial Education:
Want to get a better understanding of budgeting, credit, economics, taxes, saving and investment strategies, etc.? Here are sites to help you, your children, or grandchildren learn the basics:

•   MyMoney: (www.mymoney.gov) is a U.S. government site dedicated to providing a financial education to everyone.

•   FTC Consumer: (www.ftc.gov/ftc/ consumer.htm) The Federal Trade Commission’s web site provides good information for consumers on many topics, including how to avoid scams and rip-offs.

•   Federal Reserve: (www.federalreserveeducation.org) The “Fed” impacts us daily through its conduct of monetary policy. Its education website is a great place to learn about our nation’s currency, economics, and how the Fed carries out its monetary policy. There are also links to each of the Federal Reserve banks, whose Web sites contain helpful consumer information.

Taxes:
From general information, to forms, to tax-saving strategies, check out:

•   IRS: (www.irs.gov) The IRS will never be thought of as warm and friendly, but at least its Web site is getting friendlier. Download forms and read articles on a variety of tax topics.

•   North Carolina: (www.ncgov.com) Not just for taxes, but the portal for all services of the NC government.

Investing:
In addition to the above financial “super-sites,” here are a couple of others:

•   Morningstar: (www.morningstar.com) Long known for its research on mutual funds, Morningstar also provides data and opinions on stocks, annuities, and other products.

•   SEC: (www.sec.gov) The Securities & Exchange Commission is responsible for maintaining fair and orderly financial markets. Public companies and mutual funds file many reports with the SEC and those reports can be accessed through the SEC’s Web site, under the “Filing & Forms” section.

Calculators:
Why reinvent the wheel? There are so many quick and helpful financial calculators and worksheets only a double-click away!

•   Martindale: (www.martindalecenter.com/ Calculators1A_1_Finance.html) It can be a bit overwhelming, but it does contain many financial calculators.

•   SmartMoney: (www.smartmoney.com/worksheets/) Some great worksheets here.

•   Kiplinger: (www.kiplinger.com/personalfinance/tools) Another collection of calculators covering a variety of financial questions.

Education Planning:
Planning for and funding a college education is expensive. Should you use a 529 Plan or an Education Savings Account? What about financial aid?

•   Saving For College: (www.savingforcollege.com) More than you really wanted to know about saving for college.

•   FinAid: (www.finaid.org) Will you qualify for aid? How can you increase your odds?

Retirement: From information on saving for retirement to sophisticated calculators designed specifically for retirement planning and distribution decisions, check out:

•   Choose to Save: (www.choosetosave.org) is a Web site devoted to financial education and contains many calculators, including its “Ballpark Estimate,” a quick worksheet to help you determine how much you need to save for retirement.

•   Firecalc: (www.firecalc.com) Easy input, but a sophisticated calculator. The “fire” stands for “financial independence/retire early.” You have to like the sound of that!

•   Social Security: (www.ssa.gov) Want a quick estimate of what your Social Security benefits will be? Trying to decide between taking benefits at age 62 vs. waiting until 65 or 66? Wondering what the most popular baby names were last year? All that and more at this popular site.

Well, that’s just a few of my favorites. If you have a personal favorite that you would like to email me about, perhaps I can review it in a future article

Gerald A. Townsend, CPA/PFS,CFP®,CFA® is President of Townsend Asset Management Corp, a registered investment advisory firm in Raleigh, NC. His email address is Gerald@AssetMgr.com.