Yesterday, I wrote how my wife’s friend getting married is a sudden expense for us. If you haven’t read that article I highly suggest you do, or this article might seem out of place. I got an amazing amount of comments on that post, I want to take a moment to thank everyone [...]
Recently my wife and I dined out a few times. While no particular meal was expensive, the aggregate of the three meals equaled 2 weeks worth of groceries. I didn’t think about it too much at the time. Everything changed with an e-mail my wife received on Sunday. In her words, [...]
I briefly recall hearing about something like this a couple years ago, but I didn’t pay much attention because I didn’t think it would ever come into fruition. Well, I guess I was wrong. The 401k debit card is real, and more companies are beginning to adopt it. As if it wasn’t bad enough [...]
One of the selling points of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is they are tax efficient because they funds themselves almost don’t generate any capital gain distribution, which can be taxed at a rate as high as 35%, comparing to their mutual fund counterparts. ETF capital gains are usually realized when investors sell the fund at profit.
This [...]
I want to thank everyone for their votes for Performancing’s Best Money Blog. The competition was tough and two of those competitors have more readers than many cities. The voting came to a somewhat predictable conclusion with those two, The Simple Dollar and Get Rich Slowly taking the top two spots. I [...]
One of the objectives we have is to generate incomes, dividends and capital gains, from our investments and hope one day these what I called passive incomes will replace the major part of our salaries before tapping into savings in our tax deferred accounts. In 2007, we continued to make progress in growing this part [...]
Our conservation plan is working. Our gas and electric bill is down 25% from last year!
We’ve recently found out how successful our plan was to replace a couple of ailing appliances that we inherited from the former owners of our home. Some couple of decades old, one appliance was our standard white fridge [...]
[Update: You’ll need to be a member of the site to join the chat. Sorry about that. I didn’t know this going in and don’t like it any more than you do. Perhaps you use Bug Me Not for quick access.]
For those of you who can’t get enough of my near [...]
I don’t know what to call this passport photo business, so I am just going to stick with “stupid ripoff” for now.
During the weekend, we went into a CVS Pharmacy Photo Center to get some passport/ID photos. We wanted a specific size (as they say “from chin to crown”), so we asked the dude [...]
The Fidelity Magellan Fund (FMAGX), which was once the nation’s largest mutual fund with an asset at $100 billion, will reopen to new investors tomorrow, January 15, 2008 after shutting its door more than 10 years ago, according to a Fidelity announcement. The main reason to make the flagship fund available to new investors is [...]
On Tuesday the 15th, I’ll be hosting a personal finance chat with Lazy Man over at the 40s chat at Grab.com at 7 pm EST. It will be an open chat available to everyone, and we’ll try to answer as many questions as possible. While it is being hosted in the 40s chat [...]
Peer to peer lending, person to person lending or social lending… everyone’s suddenly talking about it.
Everywhere I look around the blogosphere, there’s someone talking about the peer-to-peer lending industry. It’s an interesting space that has recently been picking up steam and getting noticed. With the credit markets under a lot of pressure these [...]
The Carnival of Peer-to-Peer Lending is going to be hosted at Brip Blap in the next few days. The deadline for getting in submissions for that is today. If you are a blogger and write about peer-to-peer lending I encourage you to submit an article today.
Recommended by Lazy Man: Prosper.com - Make [...]
After closing ten years ago in 1997 to new investments, Fidelity reopens the Magellan fund on January 15th. If you did any investing in the 1980s or early 1990s, you are probably familiar with this fund. The Magellan fund put the now-famous Peter Lynch on the map as an investing superstar while he ran [...]
When 2007 began, the rates of the 4-week T-bill were very attractive, with returns as high as 5.4% APY. Before FNBO Direct launched their 6.0% APY promotional rate early last year, 4-week T-bills were my main short-term investment vehicle for the good returns and automatic investments that were very easy to manage.
However, things started [...]
This past weekend my wife and I organized a bit of a date night. We saw No Country For Old Men. (Quick thought on it: Weird ending, without spoiling anything, it seemed to “yada yada” over what should have been the best part of the movie.) We also went to dinner [...]
HR Block sent me a link to a promotion that they are running. Specifically they are allowing you to ask a tax advisor questions for free through Jan 31st. I’m going to test them with a question that has puzzled few other tax advisors I’ve talked to in the past. It’s a [...]
Silicon Valley Blogger at The Digerati Life offered some debt defying strategies to get rid of your debt.
Jeremy at Generation X Finance looked at the current market condition and urged not to make drastic long term decisions based on short term market fluctuations.
Ben at Money Smart Life continued discussions on taxes. This time, he discussed [...]
I don’t have a lot to say other than I’m so glad it’s Friday. This week has been brutal trying to service clients who are freaking out because of what they hear on the news about the stock market. To further compound the issue, our 4th quarter statements went out with a calculation error [...]
There was a short Q&A in The Wall Street Journal yesterday where the question being asked is the following:
I would like to buy only a few stocks in certain companies. Are there any online brokers that handle people with only a couple hundred dollars in their account and don’t charge heavy fees for infrequent [...]
The $100 bonus offer from OptionsXpress is back!
To get the bonus, $500 must be deposited into the account by March 31, 2008. I opened an account when the offer was around before the new year. Now I am just waiting for the free money
Meanwhile, TradeKing is also giving $100 bonus for new accounts [...]
The continuing television writers’ strike has greatly reduced the value of our cable television subscription. Yet there’s still just enough need for us to continue the subscription. The last month we’ve turned to renting movies via a DVD Play kiosk at our local Safeway. We love this option since it’s only a [...]
I thought this was pretty interesting.
Tata Motors, India’s largest automobile company, unveiled the world’s cheapest car today - according to a press release on the company’s website. This brand new two-cylinder vehicle is priced at INR (Indian Rupee) 100,000 equivalent to $2549 US dollars.
Image source: www.tatapeoplescar.com
Honestly, when I heard about this concept more than [...]
A couple of months ago, my wife and I were taking a trip. On the flight back home, my wife started reading The Nanny Diaries. For the next 5 hours, I was subjected to comments like, “Oh my, that’s so true… listen to this…” followed by snippet from the book.
For those [...]
Lost in thought and lost in time
While the seeds of life and the seeds of change were planted
Outside the rain fell dark and slow
While I pondered on this dangerous but irresistible pastime
I took a heavenly ride through our silence
I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life
I took a [...]
