Photo by Gilroy Dispatch
Very busy week and a very busy day right before Thanksgiving! I’ve been attending a couple of “Thanksgiving Feasts” throughout the week courtesy of my kids’ schools, where families were invited to break a little bread in honor of the holiday.
I also had a chance to visit a [...]
It’s a little past the middle of the month, but this is the earliest I could get this update in. This is the first month where I didn’t have a typical day job, so I expected a drop. What I didn’t anticipate is a big drop in the stock market combined with a [...]
There are many means to the same end, and many roads to financial independence.
Photo by ziza.ru
Wouldn’t it be a great feeling to finally realize you’re financially independent? I know I would be. But to get to that point, we all need to build up enough of a nest egg that would be [...]
Besides homeowners who lost their homes through foreclosure, another victim in this sub-prime mortgage crisis is the lenders which provided the loans, including the nation’s largest banks which also exposed themselves to investments tied to bad loans. The financial sector was hit very hard and the steep decline of financial shares since the summer also [...]
An email from ShareBuilder reached my mailbox tonight with some “exciting” announcement: ShareBuilder has been acquired by ING Direct on November 15, 2007. Along with the announcemen, ShareBuilder also told its customers what change they can expect after the transaction: none.
Rest assured there have been no changes made to your ShareBuilder account. All of the [...]
Morgan Quitno Press recently published its annual City Crime Ranking which ranks 384 cities with 75,000 population or more across the country based on per-capita crime rates reported by the FBI. Serious crimes considered in the study include murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft. According to the publisher, each crime is [...]
When my latest issue of Registered Rep magazine showed up in my mailbox, I was immediately intrigued by the cover story. It stated that Americans are saving too much for retirement. What? How can this be? We have been told for years that we need to save more, but someone is saying that we’re [...]
The good and bad of market timing. Are you prepared to buy and hold forever?
Technically speaking, there’s no such thing as “buying and holding” forever because in order to be a responsible steward of your portfolio, you’d have to take it through times of evolution, growth, adjustment and reorientation, all depending on where you [...]
I’d like to thank my readers for sticking with me through two weeks of guest posts while I was away. From the comments, it seems like the guest posts went well. I want to thank those writers again and I only hope that I can keep up the quality of those posts.
Yesterday, we [...]
One of these days I am going to throw up on watching/reading testimonials from “real people”. I haven’t really understood the fundamental purpose of these testimonials. Do they really impress people into buying shady stuff? Are people really so dumb uninformed that they easily get suckered into emptying their pockets after hearing testimonials from [...]
It’s Time for Generation X to Grow Up by Jeremy @ Generation X Finance.
Pondering Financial Risks In Our Retirement by Super Saver @ My Wealth Builder.
How to Make Ends Meet When You Can’t Find a Good Job. by David @ My Two Dollars.
Short Term Disability Insurance is for Old Married People by Ben @ [...]
Silicon Valley Blogger at The Digerati Life suggested 15 painless ways to force yourself to save by paying yourself first.
Jeremy at Generation X Finance said it’s time for generation X to grow up and get ahead with their own retirement savings. It’s never too early to plan for the future.
Lazy Man at Lazy Man and [...]
I’ve received a good amount of feedback about one of my posts this week. It seems that my article on “tricking yourself to save” was picked up by a few sites recently including Dumb Little Man, Lifehack.org and The Simple Dollar. I would like to thank these sites for sharing this post with [...]
The stock markets were again under pressure last week after more bad investments were revealed by financial companies, which have dominated the headlines lately. The only bright spot last week was Wal-Mart which saw its shares up more than 8% in the past 5 trading sessions. Earning forecasts from other retailers such as JCPenny, Macy’s [...]
Chase Freedom Rewards card is now offering a $100 after opening a new card and making the first purchase.
I applied for this card in March was the bonus was $200 and my account was credited $200 less than 2 months after I used the card to make a small purchase. I was a little skeptical [...]
I apologize that this comes a day late, but I had put this together on Wednesday and set the timestamp on the post so it would show up on Friday since we have family visiting. Apparently I changed the month to December instead of November, so this post never published. That’s actually not a [...]
As E-Trade’s stock bounced back to $5+ level, it seems the bankruptcy rumor has calmed down a little bit. Actually, instead of going out of business, E-Trade may become a take-over target (that speculation played a big role in driving up the stock price).
Anyway, today I received an email from E-Trade regarding my account with [...]
When I first learned that my wife’s employer will provide a high deductible health insurance plan next year, I was quite happy that the option is finally offered because using such a plan ($3,000 annual deductible for a family) can 1) save us on health insurance premium now; 2) save money on future health care [...]
I was delighted to see that Chance Favors had taken the time to review this site, and the kind words are always encouraging. I signed up to his feed a few days ago, and I must say, there is some good stuff going on over there. We have very similar views and target [...]
Today’s reading:
Wise Bread suggested rolling your own cost-of-living index. The idea is fine (because you have to track your spending first), but it’s much easier said than done and the result could be misleading.
Mipgirl’s Fiscal Challenge has an excellent idea on what you can do when you stuck in traffic on your way home: save [...]
Last year, when I got our first heating oil bill after the summer, I was pleasantly surprised that from May to October, we only used 27 gallons of oil! Sure, the usage of heating oil probably dropped to the minimum in the summer (not the electricity bill though ), but still 27-gallon was just [...]
Earlier in the week I discussed the declining dollar and one possible way to take advantage of the situation. The comments to that post were varied, from those who want to stock up on international stock, buy gold, to even thinking that we’ve hit a bottom and the dollar is headed back up. So, [...]
This is a guest post from DebtFree-Revolution. I encourage you to subscribe to her RSS feed.
Lazy Man and I disagree on the whole debt idea. This surprises me, since as I have eliminated all but one debt (and that last one will go away very soon) I have discovered that debt elimination is [...]
I mentioned this quite a few weeks ago, and we had hoped to get everything finalized then, but there were a few technical difficulties that delayed the launch. That’s fine, because it is better late than never.
This first podcast is just one of many in a series that is being developed by About.com and [...]
I am a credit card person. If possible, I will use credit cards to pay everything so I earn rewards for the money that I have to spend anyway.
Half a year ago, American Express announced that it will let members make mortgage payments with AMEX cards. The news generated quite some buzz as it marked [...]
