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Home > > Pulaski Bank Gold Visa

Pulaski Bank Gold Visa

Low rate
No annual fee
0% balance transfers
No fee balance transfers

Don't be left out in the cold

with your current credit card

Annual Percentage Rate for Purchases and Cash Advances:
7.99%
Annual Percentage Rate for Balance Transfers:
0% APR for 6 billing periods from the posting date of the balance transfer check *
Grace Period for Repayment of Balances for Purchases:
You have 25 days to repay your balance for purchases before a finance charge on purchases will be imposed. If the new balance is not paid in full within 25 days, a finance charge will apply to both the balance remaining (including current billing cycle transactions) and to all transactions during succeeding billing cycles until the new balance is paid in full.
Method of Computing the Balance for Purchases:
Average daily balance method (including current transactions). The finance charge for a billing cycle is computed by applying the "Monthly Periodic Rate" to the average daily balance of Credit Purchases, which is determined by dividing the sum of the daily balances during the billing cycle by the number of days in the cycle. To get the "Monthly Periodic Rate" applicable to the current billing cycle, the APR in effect is divided by 12. Each daily balance of Credit Purchases is determined by adding to the outstanding unpaid balance of Credit Purchases at the beginning of the billing cycle any new Credit Purchases made on your account, and subtracting any payments as received and credits as posted to your account, but excluding any unpaid Finance Charges.

Annual Fees:
NONE
Minimum Finance Charge:
$1.00
Transaction Fee for Purchases:
NONE
Transaction Fee for Balance Transfers:
NONE

Transaction Fee for Cash Advances
Advances and Other Fees: Cash Advance Fee: None
Late Payment Fee: $15 for balance less than $100, $29 for balance of $100 to $1,000, $35 for balance greater than $1,000
Over-the-Credit-Limit Fee: $29.00
Insufficient Check Fee: $29.00
2

DID YOU KNOW?

Smart people sometimes make dumb mistakes when it comes to investing. Part of the reason for this, I guess, is that most people don’t have the time to learn what they need to know to make good decisions. Another reason is that oftentimes when you make a dumb mistake, somebody else—an investment salesperson, for example —makes money. Fortunately, you can save yourself lots of money and a bunch of headaches by not making bad investment decisions.

Don’t Forget to Diversify

The average stock market return is 10 percent or so, but to earn 10 percent you need to own a broad range of stocks. In other words, you need to diversify. Everybody who thinks about this for more than a few minutes realizes that it is true, but it’s amazing how many people don’t diversify. For example, some people hold huge chunks of their employer’s stock but little else. Or they own a handful of stocks in the same industry.

To make money on the stock market, you need around 15 to 20 stocks in a variety of industries. (I didn’t just make up these figures; the 15 to 20 number comes from a statistical calculation that many upper-division and graduate finance textbooks explain.) With fewer than 10 to 20 stocks, your portfolio’s returns will very likely be something greater or less than the stock market average. Of course, you don’t care if your portfolio’s return is greater than the stock market average, but you do care if your portfolio’s return is less than the stock market average.

By the way, to be fair I should tell you that some very bright people disagree with me on this business of holding 15 to 20 stocks. For example, Peter Lynch, the outrageously successful former manager of the Fidelity Magellan mutual fund, suggests that individual investors hold 4 to 6 stocks that they understand well.

His feeling, which he shares in his books, is that by following this strategy, an individual investor can beat the stock market average. Mr. Lynch knows more about picking stocks than I ever will, but I nonetheless respectfully disagree with him for two reasons. First, I think that Peter Lynch is one of those modest geniuses who underestimate their intellectual prowess. I wonder if he underestimates the powerful analytical skills he brings to his stock picking. Second, I think that most individual investors lack the accounting knowledge to accurately make use of the quarterly and annual financial statements that publicly held companies provide in the ways that Mr. Lynch suggests.

Have Patience

The stock market and other securities markets bounce around on a daily, weekly, and even yearly basis, but the general trend over extended periods of time has always been up. Since World War II, the worst one-year return has been –26.5 percent. The worst ten-year return in recent history was 1.2 percent. Those numbers are pretty scary, but things look much better if you look longer term. The worst 25-year return was 7.9 percent annually.

It’s important for investors to have patience. There will be many bad years. Many times, one bad year is followed by another bad year. But over time, the good years outnumber the bad. They compensate for the bad years too. Patient investors who stay in the market in both the good and bad years almost always do better than people who try to follow every fad or buy last year’s hot stock.

Invest Regularly

You may already know about dollar-average investing. Instead of purchasing a set number of shares at regular intervals, you purchase a regular dollar amount, such as $100. If the share price is $10, you purchase ten shares. If the share price is $20, you purchase five shares. If the share price is $5, you purchase twenty shares.

Dollar-average investing offers two advantages. The biggest is that you regularly invest—in both good markets and bad markets. If you buy $100 of stock at the beginning of every month, for example, you don’t stop buying stock when the market is way down and every financial journalist in the world is working to fan the fires of fear.

The other advantage of dollar-average investing is that you buy more shares when the price is low and fewer shares when the price is high. As a result, you don’t get carried away on a tide of optimism and end up buying most of the stock when the market or the stock is up. In the same way, you also don’t get scared away and stop buying a stock when the market or the stock is down.

One of the easiest ways to implement a dollar-average investing program is by participating in something like an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan or deferred compensation plan. With these plans, you effectively invest each time money is withheld from your paycheck.

To make dollar-average investing work with individual stocks, you need to dollar- average each stock. In other words, if you’re buying stock in IBM, you need to buy a set dollar amount of IBM stock each month, each quarter, or whatever.

Don’t Ignore Investment Expenses

Investment expenses can add up quickly. Small differences in expense ratios, costly investment newsletter subscriptions, online financial services (including Quicken Quotes!), and income taxes can easily subtract hundreds of thousands of dollars from your net worth over a lifetime of investing.

To show you what I mean, here are a couple of quick examples. Let’s say that you’re saving $7,000 per year of 401(k) money in a couple of mutual funds that track the Standard & Poor’s 500 index. One fund charges a 0.25 percent annual expense ratio, and the other fund charges a 1 percent annual expense ratio. In 35 years, you’ll have about $900,000 in the fund with the 0.25 percent expense ratio and about $750,000 in the fund with the 1 percent ratio.

Here’s another example: Let’s say that you don’t spend $500 a year on a special investment newsletter, but you instead stick the money in a tax-deductible investment such as an IRA. Let’s say you also stick your tax savings in the tax- deductible investment. After 35 years, you’ll accumulate roughly $200,000. Investment expenses can add up to really big numbers when you realize that you could have invested the money and earned interest and dividends for years.

Don’t Get Greedy

I wish there was some risk-free way to earn 15 or 20 percent annually. I really, really do. But, alas, there isn’t. The stock market’s average return is somewhere between 9 and 10 percent, depending on how many decades you go back. The significantly more risky small company stocks have done slightly better. On average, they return annual profits of 12 to 13 percent. Fortunately, you can get rich earning 9 percent returns. You just need to take your time. But no risk-free investments consistently return annual profits significantly above the stock market’s long-run averages.

I mention this for a simple reason: People make all sorts of foolish investment decisions when they get greedy and pursue returns that are out of line with the average annual returns of the stock market. If someone tells you that he has a sure- thing investment or investment strategy that pays, say, 15 percent, don’t believe it. And, for Pete’s sake, don’t buy investments or investment advice from that person. If someone really did have a sure-thing method of producing annual returns of, say, 18 percent, that person would soon be the richest person in the world. With solid year-in, year-out returns like that, the person could run a $20 billion investment fund and earn $500 million a year. The moral is: There is no such thing as a sure thing in investing.

Don’t Get Fancy

For years now, I’ve made the better part of my living by analyzing complex investments. Nevertheless, I think that it makes most sense for investors to stick with simple investments: mutual funds, individual stocks, government and corporate bonds, and so on.

As a practical matter, it’s very difficult for people who haven’t been trained in financial analysis to analyze complex investments such as real estate partnership units, derivatives, and cash-value life insurance. You need to understand how to construct accurate cash-flow forecasts. You need to know how to calculate things like internal rates of return and net present values with the data from cash-flow forecasts. Financial analysis is nowhere near as complex as rocket science. Still, it’s not something you can do without a degree in accounting or finance, a computer, and a spreadsheet program (like Microsoft Excel or Lotus 1-2-3).

“Discharge your obligations to all men; pay tax and toll, reverence and respect, to those to whom they are due. Leave no claim outstanding against you, except that of mutual love”—Romans 13:7–8 (The New English Bible).

There can be good debt as well as bad debt. Good debt can be described as debt that helps you build equity or increase your net worth. For example, education loans usually are considered good debt because in the long run more education generally translates into higher earning power. Most people borrow money for a mortgage to get a home—if the home purchase was a wise investment that increases in value and adds to your net worth, then it would be considered good debt. Another example of good debt might be loans to run a small business—for example, if you borrow money at 7% and use that money to make a 15% or 20% return, then it would be considered good debt because you are using the loan to increase your net worth. Good debt includes loans that help to build your financial future.

On the other hand, bad debts are the ones that negatively impact your financial future. Bad debt might be described as obligations that last longer than the purchase item and ones that have no return toward increasing your net worth. Before making a purchase via a loan, ask yourself is this good debt or bad debt—will the debt help to increase my net worth or will it decrease my net worth? Avoid as much bad debt as possible. The Financial Planning Association suggests that total debt should not exceed 10–15% of your take-home pay—excluding mortgages. Many credit experts recommend that debt should not exceed 25 percent of disposable income. Over indebtedness can push you to the maximum to repay your debt while still trying to maintain daily living expenses. A sudden unexpected event such as a job downsizing, divorce, a death in the family, an uninsured accident, theft, a large tax bill, or a major medical expense can have tragic results to your finances and result in a credit crisis. A major unexpected event combined with insufficient savings and insurance can easily result in a credit crisis. Assuming credit loans is something you want to avoid if at all possible. Few things are worth borrowing for. Avoid going into debt for rewards such as vacations or fancy restaurant meals; save for them and pay cash. Borrow as little money as possible and at the lowest interest rate possible.

Most debt can be avoided if you take action to live within your income. Consumer Credit Counseling Services stated that the number one cause of money problems with their nationwide clients was poor money management including impulsive spending. Practice delayed gratification—earn the money before you spend it. Save for purchases if at all possible until you can pay cash or use debit cards for them. When you borrow money, you pay interest plus the principal borrowed, so items purchased end up costing you much more than the original price. Practicing delayed gratification until you can pay cash saves you the added cost of the item and has less negative impact on your future net worth. Studies indicate that consumers generally spend about 25 percent less when they pay cash for items. This is due to the savings on interest charges and the fact that you waste less money on impulse purchases due to the temptation and convenience of credit cards. Many impulse purchases are for items you do not even need.

Forty percent of people pay off credit card purchases in full every month—the other 60 percent would benefit from making changes in their spending habits. If you purchase only what you can pay cash for, chances are you are in control of your financial life. You may be overextended if you cannot pay all of your debt—excluding mortgage—in 18 to 24 months. If you pay only the minimum amount due on your outstanding credit cards month after month, you might stay in debt indefinitely since most of the payment goes toward interest. You definitely have a credit problem if you cannot pay all of your monthly minimums. You should eliminate nonproductive, expensive debts as soon as possible.

“The rich lord it over the poor; the borrower becomes the lender’s slave”—Proverbs 22:7 (The New English Bible).

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