It is the opinion of many, many people that Rich Dad, Poor Dad is the worst personal finance book. It is widely considered the Gigli of personal finance books. That said, there are some strong supporters of the book, but they appear to be in the minority.
If it’s possible to learn from what [...]
People generally don't like talking about death, especially planning for it. I'm no exception, but with the new home and child coming, I'm looking into insurance more seriously. Before, with both of us working and make comparable income, life insurance wasn't really a consideration because there weren't any financial dependents in the picture. The [...]
This is a guest post from Brooke at Dollar Frugal. Brooke writes about ways to get to the bottom line on your life costs. If you like this article, check out her RSS feed.
An emergency fund is one of the first things you should build up before getting crazy with paying off debt [...]
Get rich from the comfort of your home! No strings attached, make a real income from home! Make money fast! Yadda yadda yadda. My instant reaction when I hear these claims is to scoff at them and ask questions. But it seems like there are people out there who can’t help but [...]
January Blog Review…
Top Articles
Here are the top articles I wrote, voted on by… me.
I wrote about the seven things you must do to prepare for an emergency
I finished the month off with a detailed comparison of personal finance to football.
I won a blogging award.
I detailed my 2008 goals
I wrote why I chose Netflix over Blockbuster.
My [...]
Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
The family of dividend-paying ETFs just got a little larger.
State Street Global Advisors on February 12th launched a new dividend-oriented exchange-traded fund, S&P International Dividend ETF (DWX). The new fund tracks the S&P International Dividend Opportunities Index, which was introduced a month ago on January 25, 2008. According to [...]
This week I’m featuring Energy Saving tips, save some money by conserving energy!
Heating and cooling your home uses more energy and drains more energy dollars than any other system in your home. Typically, 61% of your utility bill goes for heating and cooling. What’s more, heating and cooling systems in the United States together emit [...]
I’m going to Prosper’s annual community conference today. I plan on reporting back with what I’ve learned this week. I expect to hear at least one or two announcements worth passing on.
In other news, I’ll be giving away a couple of copies of H&R Block’s Taxcut (Premium online edition) in the next couple [...]
We are just about to close on our new house and we've come across many things that should be completed before closing.
Here are 8 things to do before closing on a house:
Get your New Mortgage Ready. After you've shopped around for the best rate, meet with your mortgage rep to sign off on the papers [...]
Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
I want to thank those who used my referrals to sign up their brokerage and bank accounts in January!
Tonight, I sent out several $20 Amazon.com gift cards to readers who responded to the referral invitations and opened and funded their Zecco and TradeKing accounts. The account opening process has [...]
Yesterday, I had the unique opportunity to get a couple of private tastings and tours in Napa. It was due to a connection that I had through a group that I am a part of. We drank bottles of very rare production lines. This reinforced my notion that it’s often more about [...]
I was not so shocked to hear that Trent from The Simple Dollar has decided to quit his job, hearing how well he’s been doing with his writing projects. But I’m much more surprised about this obvious trend that’s been developing among financial bloggers: many are shedding their day jobs and eschewing a corporate [...]
Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
Staples.com is currently having a tax preparation software sale.
H & R Block TaxCut Premium + State 2007: Sale price at $34.99. Buy this product and Microsoft Money Deluxe 2008 (price $40.00) and receive a $40 mail-in rebate. Note that this version of TaxCut doesn’t include e-file.
TurboTax Deluxe w/State 2007: [...]
This week I’m featuring Energy Saving tips, save some money by conserving energy!
Checking your home’s insulation is one of the fastest and most cost efficient ways to use a whole house approach to reduce energy waste and make the most of your energy dollars. A good insulating system includes a combination of products and construction [...]
Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
Do you a lot of shopping online? If you do, do you use any portal to earn rebates?
I do and one of the portals I use quite often is Ebates.com. So far I have earned a total of $60.46 rebates. Not a lot, but still good. A couple of [...]
This week I’m featuring Energy Saving tips, save some money by conserving energy!
The first step to taking a whole house energy efficiency approach is to find out which parts of your house use the most energy. A home energy audit will pinpoint those areas and suggest the most effective measures for cutting your energy costs. [...]
[This is my response to a two-part guest post by Adfecto of Aspire 2 Wealth. You might want to read both part 1 and part 2 before continuing. The topic is controversial and as I imagined it drew many strong feelings from commenters]
I’d like to address a few of the main points that [...]
Ooooh. Calculators galore! For the money nerd in you.
Gone are the days when all that we had to do was balance our checkbook once a month to keep track of our money. It seems like our financial affairs have grown more complicated in lock step with the rest of our modern lives. [...]
This is a guest post by Milk Your Money — a daily blog dedicated to helping it’s readers reach their financial goals by making smart everyday money decisions.
Historic Economic Policy Beliefs
Historically, Republicans have believed in policies that favor a free market. Policies that would in any way burden businesses from growing, innovating, or conducting [...]
Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
Buy.com has TRENDnet 108Mbps 802.11GWireless Router for $12.99 after $30 mail-in rebate with free shipping. Rebate offer expires on February 29, 2008. The same product is selling at $22.99 on Amazon.com.
Also, Buy.com Brother HL-2140 Personal Laser Printer for $54.99 after $20 mail-in rebate. Laser printer is getting cheaper and [...]
Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
I have been automatically transferring a certain amount of money from our checking account to savings account on payday for quite a while. At first, $300 was moved every two weeks from our checking account at Bank of America to savings account at Emigrant Direct as part of our [...]
As energy costs continue to rise the monetary payback for time, effort, & money spent on energy conservation goes up as well. This was brought to my attention as I looked over our latest heating bill and realized that the only place energy costs have to go is up. I started doing some research and decided to [...]
This is a guest post by Ciaran McKeever and he is a Certified Financial Planner that runs the Chance Favors blog. Chance Favors hopes to educate, encourage and empower those in their 30’s and 40’s to achieve financial independence.
If you’ve been following the stock market then you know the last 2-3 months have been [...]
Time to share some great articles that I found over the week.
The Financial Blogger has hosted the 140th Carnival of Personal Finance. This issue was a bit more creative than usual as he used the "Prison Break" theme. MDJ submitted a "best prisoners" (and controversial) article "Ask the Readers: Talking about Money".
John Chow reports how [...]
Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
According to a NY Times article (registration required) yesterday, the US Supreme Court has ruled on February 20th that workplace retirement plan participants can sue the plan administrator to recover their losses under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.
The case, LaRue vs. DeWolff 06-856, is filed by [...]
