I just checked my e-mail and saw that I had received an e-mail from Jeroen Veth @ Zecco Trading. The e-mail states that as of March 1, 2009, Zecco will cease to provide 10 free trades per month to accounts with a portfolio balance of $2,500. Instead, accounts will need to either have a portfolio size of at least $25,000 or make 25 or more trades per month.

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I write a lot about our plans and strategies to reach “geographic independence”, but it is important to keep in mind that we’re also simultaneously pursuing a “traditional” retirement plan. That is, investing in our 401k and IRA options for asset and income growth. This past week my wife and I talked and we agreed to make some changes in those accounts.

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We opened our fourth CD in our emergency fund CD ladder over the weekend. As I commented on my own post about our third CD, we went with a local credit union rather than any of the online banks because the yield was so much higher.

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As I’ve mentioned previously, my wife and I are looking into using a covered call strategy to try and boost returns in our portfolio. So yesterday I spent some time running through a few trading scenarios to see whether there are some trades we should be trying to make. Here’s the process I ran though, and my logic of why it was the right thing to do. Please feel free to comment and let me know if you think we’re making bad decisions!

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ING Direct lowered their interest rates on a number of bank products yesterday. It hasn’t been all that long from ING’s last rate drop which I wrote about on December 30th, 2008, so I’m guessing this answers my previous question regarding how frequently ING changes its rates. More often, but smaller sized changes.

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