How is Marcella’s lifestyle different as a result of using online services and computer technology? Discuss how each of the tasks would be performed differently without the technology.

Marcella was up early Saturday morning and seated at her computer.

She was meeting friends for brunch before they headed to the auto show and then to a concert. She had several tasks to do to get her financial resources organized but was going to make a big effort to get it all done.

Her first stop was her virtual bank web site. She wanted to see if her commission check had been transferred to her bank account via direct deposit. Seeing that it had not and worried that her checking balance was a bit low for some of her weekend spending, she transferred money from a money market account. She had an e-mail message that one of her CDs was up for renewal in 10 days. She checked the renewal interest rate and quickly went to a web site that showed CD rates being paid by banks across the country. She was happy to see that her bank was near the top so she sent a reply to her banker to renew the CD.

Marcella’s next stop was her online brokerage account. She checked the performance of her stock portfolio. It wasn’t performing as well as she had expected so she sent a question to her online broker and was surprised when she got an immediate response. He was waiting for a plane and had responded to her message using his BlackBerry. She also saw that her automatic trading program had activated a purchase of 100 shares of the tech stock she had been watching. Marcella was glad the order was placed without her having to constantly monitor the market or rely on a broker. The automatic calendar pop-up on her computer screen showed that she needed to make a quarterly contribution to her Roth IRA. She set up an electronic funds transfer from her bank to the mutual fund account to be sent the following Wednesday.