Archive for August, 2007

Poll: Investing and Paying Credit Card Debt

You have been investing $100 every month for years. Then suddenly something unexpected happend and you are $10,000 in credit debt at 18% APR. Will you

Continue the monthly investment while battling debt?

Suspend the investment until the debt is paid off?

View Results

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The reason I want to conduct this survey is to see whether [...]

Save Money on Movies, Music, Television, and Books

[Each Monday for the next couple months, I’m going through many of the ways to save money. Read the whole Save Money series.]
I’m opening up the Save Money series with some tips on common forms of entertainment: television, movies, music, and books.

Television – Most people pay some kind of monthly subscription for television. [...]

No More Free Money – Pulling The Plug On Credit Card Arbitrage

After a year long run with 0% APR credit card arbitrages, it looks like it’s time to pull the plug.
The sole reason for ending this free money run is the lack of *good* 0% APR offers to continue transferring the existing balances. Most credit card companies now impose balance transfer fees at about 3% [...]

What Color Is Your Job? Job Classifications and Distinctions

I come from a family of white collar workers. But once in a while, I wonder — or even fantasize — about how it would be like to be working a different type of job: maybe something less stressful, like planting flowers in somebody else’s garden (but only in the spring and summertime), or [...]

Save Money Mondays

I was looking at my necessary expenses the other day and I realized that I save money in many ways. It shocked me that I hadn’t previously discussed all the ways that I save money. For the next couple of months, come back each Monday for an article about saving money on [...]

Personal Finance Review – Invasion of the Ants Edition

Our kitchen is being invaded by ants!  We’ve had a few ants here and there in summers past but over the last week they’ve shown up in full force.  Last weekend I bought some insect spray at Home Depot and sprayed around the outside of the house but it doesn’t seem like it’s done much [...]

Weekend Personal Finance Review – Boston Sports at their Peak? Edition

My regular readers know that I’m from Boston and that I’m a huge sports fan. I’ve been blessed by seeing the great Celtics teams in the 80s, the Red Sox World Series in 2004, and the Patriots three Super Bowls this decade. The stars may be aligned for 2007-2008 to top all [...]

China Life Closed at All Time High

It was just a week ago I was troubled by the steep decline of China Life Insurance (LFC) after the stock lost more than $12 in two weeks. Sure the market was cooperating during that time period when everything was down, but the more than 18% drop was a little bit scary. Then just as [...]

Eating Cheaply Doesn’t Mean You Should Hoard Free Ketchup! The Roundup

Golbguru’s post last week caught my eye when he discussed ketchup hoarding as a frugal sport. Is ketchup or condiment stealing stooping to new “frugal” lows?

Picking up those ketchup sachets on occasion or in small quantities isn’t really a big deal but I guess it’s the serious hoarding of freebies that may [...]

Posts I Enjoyed Last Week

Ben at Money Smart Life discussed how to start your eBay business without incurring credit card debt. For short-term obligation, my favorite way to borrow the money is to get 12-month 0% APR credit card.
Jeremy at Generation X Finance answered reader’s question about whole lift insurance and concludes that a term policy may be [...]

The Sunday Review #35: Awesome Marble Counting Machine Edition

Check out this video of a wooden counting contraption.. it’s really interesting. Watch it till the end.. it’s totally worth it.

[Feed readers, problems with the video? watch it by clicking here]
~*~
Now, here are some interesting articles published over the week.
Related to market jitters:

Nervousness and the markets by MBH @ Mighty Bargain Hunter.
A Stock Market [...]

My One Money Advice

The Digerati Life has tagged me to give my one piece of money advice. The meme was started by Moolanomy. He’s already had the popular suggestion of “save less then you earn.” While that may be one of the best pieces of advice, I prefer to give some new or at [...]

Video: Reuters Business Recap for the Week of August 20, 2007

The stock market’s recovery continued last week as the S&P 500 registered its biggest weekly gain since March. On Friday, US stocks got a boost from better-than-expected economic news. Durable goods orders for last month showed a strong gain of 5.9%, while new home sales increased an annual rate of 2.8%, according to the Commerce [...]

Why Do Car Dealers Have to Shout At Us to Sell Cars?

Why is it that car dealers think it’s necessary to yell at us in their radio ads? It seems like every car lot commercial I hear is the same.

“WE ARE LIQUIDATING OUR INVENTORY; EVERY CAR ON THE LOT MUST GO!! BAD CREDIT, NO CREDIT, NO PROBLEM! WE FINANCE EVERYONE!”

I have never gone to a car [...]

Barry Bonds Squash And Some Random Thoughts

Things have been a little crazy on the work/study front this week as I am trying to come to terms with my schedule for the fall semester. It looks like I might get more obsessed with saving minutes instead of saving dollars for the next few weeks.
Also, with each passing day in grad [...]

Friday Finance Findings For August 24th

Well, the announcement is a few months behind schedule, but it is finally official. I am the new writer for the Financial Planning category over at About.com. This has been in the works since April and there is still a lot of work to be done, but I look forward to expanding on additional [...]

My One Money Advice: Be Prepared For That Rainy Day

It’s been a while since I got hit by a meme and I have Doughroller to thank for it! In fact, I have to apologize to all those bloggers who’ve tagged me in the past with memes I never got around to posting about. I have to blame my horrible [...]

Weather the Stormy Market with a (Re)Balanced Portfolio

There are sellers, there are buyers, and there are investors doing nothing. In this stormy market, who are you?
I think I belong to the third group with a little bit buy activities. Rather than seeing the current market as the prelude of a recession as some have predicted, I treat the month-long decline as [...]

Prosper Beats the S&P 500?

“Prosper beats the S&P 500” – That’s the subject heading from an e-mail that appeared in my in box last night. If that surprises you it probably should. It surprised me and I support the company more than most people. However, there’s a graph and everything so it must be true, [...]

How to Start Your eBay Business Without Credit Card Debt

I had a reader email me in response to my post on using credit cards to buy eBay inventory.

“Many small businesses use credit cards to fund their initial expenses.  A lot of times when you’re just getting started you need some seed money and credit cards are a simple way of getting it.  Sure there’s [...]

If You Want To Succeed, Here’s How NOT To Promote Yourself Or Your Business

You want to market yourself? Then let’s get real about it.
I have an amusing but cautionary business tale to share with you.
I guess everyone wants to make something of themselves and get ahead in life. In the past, I’ve read and also written about how great ideas have changed people’s lives, presumably solving [...]

Investment Ideas from Berkshire Hathaway’s Portfolio

On August 14, 2007, Berkshire Hathaway filed with SEC its second quarter Form 13F. For the quarter ending June 30, 2007, Berkshire reported 40 stock holdings in its portfolio, including

American Express (AXP)
American Standard Cos. (ASD)
Ameriprise Financial (AMP)
Anheuser-Busch (BUD)
Bank of America (BAC)
Burlington Northern (BNI)
Coca-Cola (KO)
Comcast CMCSA (CMCSK)
Comdisco (CDCO)
ConocoPhillips (COP)
Costco Wholesale (COST)
Dow Jones (DJ)
First Data (FDC)
Gannett (GCI)
General [...]

Poll: What Will be the Status of Social Security When You Retire?

Recent studies show that over 50% of people in Generation X believe there will be no Social Security, and an even higher percentage of those who are younger have no faith in Social Security. So, what do you think will be the status of Social Security when you retire? Some project that the funds [...]

The (Lack Of) Relationship Between Intelligence And Wealth

According to the results of a study conducted at Ohio State University’s Center for Human Resource Research, super-intelligent people are only as good as (or as bad as) people with average or below-average intelligence, when it comes to better management of finances.
The study concludes that, generally, income increases with IQ; but, the increased income does [...]

Advertising versus Previous Experience

Earlier this week, I was reading how marketing affects how children perceive food at Get Rich Slowly. The original study claims that low-income children from age 3-5 perceived store-bought food in McDonalds’ wrappers as better tasting.
Five immediate thoughts came to mind:

Was it advertising or marketing that made the food appear to be taster… [...]

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