Stealth Wealth Are you under the radar?

I’ve been an investor with Sharebuilder.com since 2/10/2005. I have no complaint with them at all and have been completely satisfied with them. I’ve been asked by gradgirl to go into further detail about the cost involved and why I like it so much.

Let’s start off with discussing how funding your account works. You can fund your account 4 different ways. You can:
1) deposit from your checking/savings account electronically (Easiest and free)
2) mail a check to sharebuilder
3) have a payroll deduction
4) do a wire transfer.

I personally stick with depositing from my checking account because I can log into my account and just with a few clicks have a transfer set up to take place. With mail you have to worry if they get the check and it takes so long. Payroll deduction just sounds like too much trouble. Finally who wants to pay a $10-$30 fee to send a wire from your bank to sharebuilder? (sharebuilder doesn’t charge to receive a wire)

Along with funding your account you can put money into your account as often or as little as you want. Also there is an option to automatically debit your account for an amount you specify on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis. Right now I have $100 transferred automatically the 1st and 15th of every month. If I have extra money I just set up a one time transfer. Also there is no minimum balance to open. I’ve seen alot of other online brokerages require anywhere from $500 - $2,500.

Ok, so you finally have your first transfer go through and you have it sitting in your account. Do you know what kind of account it is sitting in? It’s a money market account that is earning about 4.50% right now as this post is written. That’s pretty awesome! You can transfer all of your spare money that you want to invest into your sharebuilder account. Your money sits there until you find an investment that you want to purchase. So if you decide to invest in a week or month your getting paid to have your money parked in your account until your ready. Now there is no need to worry about your money sitting in your account losing value while you decide what company you want to invest in. Take your time and research to see if it’s a good buy while your money is earning a cool 4.50%!

Sharebuilder has 3 different pricing programs. You can see a chart of the 3 different programs by clicking this link.

I have the basic pricing program which involves no fee unless I actually trade. There is a small catch. To get the low rates in the “investments” column your order only goes through on Tuesdays. Your order has to be in by Monday on a certain time. If you want to buy any other time you have to pay the real time price.

The idea sharebuilder has for its customers is to build up your shares in a company by buying shares every month and investing for the long term. Sharebuilder offers fractional shares meaning you can purchase half of a share if you can’t afford a whole share that month. If I only have $100 and I want to buy a share that cost $500, I can buy a 0.20 piece of a share or 1/5th of a share. Now if you have your automatic investment plan to invest in the company every month then after 5 months you’ll have a whole share. The other pricing plans are set up to allow its customers that invest in several companies each month to get a price break. Let say I want to invest $500 each month into 5 different companies. I can purchase $100 worth of shares in each company even if its a fraction such as 3.54 shares.

When you get ready to sell shares just remember that you will have to pay the real-time price.

Sharebuilder doesn’t charge any inactivity fees or annual fees. You also have all of your statements at your finger tips online and you can download information into MS Money or Quicken.

Of all of the features that Sharebuilder offers my favorite would be the fact that the account your money goes into is an actual money market account. I transfer all of my money that I can spare into this account. I use it as an emergency fund and when I see a buying opportunity in a stock my money doesn’t have to wait a few days for money to transfer into my account.

I have called customer service twice since I’ve had the account and I didn’t have to wait an awful long time… only up to 5 minutes if that long, which is pretty good I think. They are very courteous and were able to answer my questions I had for them about dividends, mergers, or splits.

If any one is interested in opening an account I can give you a referral link and you will get a $25 bonus for opening an account. Just let me know. (I must disclose that I get 5 free trades for referring)

I hope I didn’t leave anything out. If you have any questions please feel free to ask away