Now that the stock market has dropped drastically over the last year, it’s actually a great time to buy. Remember this sage advice from the world’s most successful investor:

“We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.” – Warren Buffett

Looking at today’s market, many people are fearful – that should trigger the time to be greedy. You would be hard pressed to find someone who’s confident in today’s market, or who’s not apprehensive about what the market is doing. Ironically that is the perfect time to buy. Prices are down, people are on the fence and afraid to buy, and that means bargains are a plenty.

But how does the average Joe go about buying stocks?  If one hasn’t invested in stocks before, where should they look?  The first thing you’ll want to do to be able to buy stocks, is to choose a brokerage. Here’s five, everyday brokerages that have easy interfaces, low fees, and even some great trend and charting features.

Here’s a review of 5 of the most popular online brokerages and banks:

E-Trade. A long time staple in online investing, I think almost everyone has seen one of their commercials. Although after I did some research and dug around their site, I realized it’s a lot of overkill. I found it difficult to find important information on their site quickly because it was cluttered, and offered way too many options for what I was looking for.

• The Good:
  • Lots and lots of account types, and features. Including savings, trading, and retirement.
  • International Trading
  • Great interest rate
• The Bad:
  • Simply too many features and options for me. Personally I like a bank to handle my checking and savings accounts, and a brokerage to handle stock trading.
  • Complicated pricing on stock trades. I hate trying to figure out how much my trades will be based on how many I do and how much assets I have. Just make it simple please.

Zecco. Kind of the new kid on the block – they focus on trading only, and offer 10 free trades per month. I like their philosophy, but wonder if they have lasting power.

• The Good
  • Easy and focused website. They only do trading accounts, so there is no overkill on various other types of accounts.
  • First 10 trades per month are free – as long as your account has at least $2500 balance.
  • Offers international trading.
• The Bad
  • Doesn’t offer other accounts, such as checking and savings, if you’re looking for that.
  • They’ve only been around for roughly 2 years, and might not have the experience or solidity of someone like E-trade or ING.

ING Direct (Sharebuilder). All things considered, sharebuilder is a great site, and ING is a great bank to work with. I have a lot of friends who use them for their online checking account.

• The Good:
  • ING offers many account types (checking, savings, retirement, etc) but separates it’s investing site into sharebuilder.com. I like the separation, it gives me the feeling when I go to sharebuilder, that I’m not bombarded with all kinds of accounts.
  • Offer a nice automatic investing program, for $4 dollars commission, you can buy stocks automatically each month. I like this because if you buy automatically, you 1) forget about it while you’re wealth grows. 2) the average cost per share goes down because you buy more shares when the price is low, and less shares when the price is high.
  • No Account minimums.
  • I like their site. It’s simple, and offers only the essential information without feeling cluttered and bloated.
• The Bad:
  • $9.95 cost per trade, which is expensive compared to zecco.com’s $0.

HSBC is also an online bank, that offers trading as well. They have been in business for a while, and have proved to have lasting power. Although because they are a complete online bank, I found that they offered more than what I wanted in terms of just investing. I found it hard to find what I was looking for, because there was simple so much information on their site.

• The Good:
  • Great savings accounts. I like online banks because they usually offer great rates on savings accounts. As of this writing HSBC offered 3.0% APR on it’s savings account.
• The Bad
  • Offers an “assisted” system for trading stocks. Their first step was to fill out a contact form, for an advisor to contact me. I’m looking for something more hands on, so this wasn’t what I was looking for.

TradeKing focuses on trading and stocks only. This I like. Their site is easy to navigate and offers a nice FAQ and community sections. I’ve read lots good reviews about them. Also they have received numerous awards (for customer service, and their website among other things). If you’re ok with the slightly higher commission than zecco, tradeking is the place to be.

• The Good:
  • Offered “Live Chat”. I love this, and think it’s great when websites utilize it. Of course there wait times, and lag to deal with but the fact that they offer it, I think is wonderful.
  • Offers a nice “community” section of their website, where you can compare, talk with, and befriend other investors. Great idea.
  • Cheap trades at $4.95 per trade.
• The Bad:
  • Online bank transfers take 5 days to clear, that’s in addition to the 5 days taken to verify your account when you first sign up. So you’ll have to be patient when you first sign up, and when making transfers.

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The national average price of a gallon of gas has dropped below $2.00 for the first time since 2005. This is great news, and shows that people are actually starting to drive less, and think conservative when it comes to driving and gasoline consumption. But if you’re like me, the falling prices aren’t good enough, and you want even more savings. I recently did some research on gas saving tips, and here’s what I found:

1. Gasbuddy.com. This is a great resource. It has 2 main features that I really enjoy. First the ability to plug in your zip, and find the gas prices around you. But the second, and even better tool this site offers is the Temperature map. With this tool you can zoom in on your area and find out what stations have the lowest prices near and around you – very nice.

2. Metro/Vanpool/Carpool. Using this method cuts the amount of gas you use drastically, because you split the cost of the gas by the amount of people in the car. How many times have you driven on a crowded freeway, only to see a virtual “parking lot” of 4 passenger cars with 1 person in them?

3. Lose the excess weight. The more pressure your car has against the road, the more gas it will use to move it. So the lighter you can make your car the better. This doesn’t mean throwing out essentials like the jack and spare tire. But if you use your trunk and backseat as a storage space, this could save you a lot.

4. Use traffic tools on google, msn or traffic.com: using these you can find out where there might be traffic alerts such as accidents which you can go around. They aren’t always accurate, and properly updated. But if you know there might be an accident, or something else clogging up the free way, it’s worth it to check it out before hand and find an alternate route. This keeps you from sitting in idle traffic, wasting gas.

5. Proper maintenance and keeping it clean: Making sure your tires have the correct air pressure, making sure you change your air filter, oil filter, and oil on schedule, and keeping your car clean, and waxed can save a lot on drag, and air friction. Doing as much as you can reduce the friction your car has with the air the better. If your car is clean and smooth, there’s less air friction.

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