Vanguard Brokerage vs. Scottrade:

I'm currently testing Vanguard Brokerage to see if I want to switch all of my trading over to it from Scottrade.  I've been with Scottrade for over 12 years and being someone that doesn't like change, I'm hesitant.  However from a financial standpoint, it is a no-brainer! 

Scottrade offers $6 trades to me (I had them reduced from their advertised $7 trades).  Also Scottrade website is easy to navigate, and has a very nice charting program called Elite, if you have over 25k with them.

Vanguard offer $2 trades to me (plus I also get 25 free trades), and no commissions on trading Vanguard ETFs.  But, Vanguard offers no charting service.  I found a free real-time service which I'm now testing (http://www.freestockcharts.com/).  There are some paid charting services, but I'm cheap and want to see if free will work for me!

Since I currently make at least 150 to 200 trades a year, switching to Vanguard would be a huge savings!  Just take 150 trades which really equals 300 trades (both directions: buy and sell).  Scottrade would cost me 300 x $6 = $1800, Vanguard would cost me 300 x $2 = $600.  That is a saving of at least $1200/year! 

So far I don't think Scottrade's better technical website navigation and charting is worth $1200 or more per year!    Stay tuned to see if I switch over to Vanguard for everything (Investments and Trading).