The Money Writers

Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
Free Schick Quattro Titanium Razor/Trimmer
Here’s another chance to get a free Schick Quattro Titanium razor/trimmer.
Use the above link and follow the instruction to upload a picture to start making a movie. At the end after the movie is played, select Save to save your movie. On the next screen, [...]

Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
Stocks Fell Like a Rock
The last time I inserted the Dow’s intra-day chart, the benchmark dropped some 400 points. That’s was less than three weeks.
Today is another bloody day for stocks, under similar circumstance as 20 days ago:

Oil surged past $140 a barrel;
More writedowns are expected at financial firms [...]

How much will your home makeover cost and is it worth it?

With the debate between renting vs owning a home continually raging on, I’d like to chime in with a few advantages to owning a home. Here are some things I particularly like about home ownership:

You have the freedom to do whatever you [...]

This is a guest post series by Brian Poncelet who is an independent certified financial planner (CFP) working in the financial services industry since 1994. Along with insurance, Brian Poncelet focuses on mortgage and retirement planning.
The justification for the purchase of insurance is endless but in general, insurance is typically purchased [...]

When it comes to our investment accounts, one of the most overlooked aspects is the beneficiary form. In some cases, people don’t add a beneficiary at all, and in other cases, the information is outdated and the wrong people are listed on the account. Nobody likes to think about death, but the beneficiary information is [...]

Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
TradeKing Review: A Discount Broker with Loads of Features
I have wanted to write a review of TradeKing for very long, but kept postponing it. One of the reasons is that I don’t use TradeKing as often as I do with Scottrade or Zecco.
I opened a TradeKing account last December [...]

It’s not exactly perfect, but I found something pretty close. We just refinanced with a 5/5 Adjustable Rate Mortgage. The terms actually equate to very inexpensive 10 year mortgage if you choose to use it that way.
Adjustable Rate Mortgages
We previously had a 5/1 adjustable rate mortgage. I discussed our original reason for having an [...]

Saving money on gas is more important than ever as fuel prices continue to climb.  Follow these gas saving tips to make it easier for your car to go farther with less fuel.
Make Your Car More Fuel Efficient
Although we’re the ones shelling out more money for expensive gas, don’t forget your car is still the one doing [...]

The following is a guest post from Rich Credit Debt Loan. The site focuses on mostly on topics of wealth building, a pretty rare trait amongst personal finance blogs. I encourage you to sign up for his RSS feed.
Right now, the news is filled with images of foreclosed properties, falling home values and pretty much bad news all around for the housing industry. Does that mean that now is the best time to take advantage of the housing crisis? Yes and no! Is investing in real estate a good idea? Yes and no! While there is no [...]

A while ago I was reading Location Independent Living, and I came up with three questions that I had about actually implementing it with a family. Most of these questions probably would arise reading the now-famous Four Hour Work Week, too, but I have yet to read it.  In my last post, I asked the [...]

This is a guest post series by Brian Poncelet who is an independent certified financial planner (CFP) working in the financial services industry since 1994. Along with insurance, Brian Poncelet focuses on mortgage and retirement planning.
Everyone likes to talk about rates of return, but as my dad always said “your health is [...]

Buying a Computer
It’s been awhile since I bought a new desktop computer. Liv has been around for a few years. To really begin the story of Liv, I should start with my laptop, Sarah Michelle. Most of the time Sarah Michelle runs fine - after all she’s just a couple of years old. However, now and again my 754 open tabs in Firefox brings her to a screeching halt. In fact, in the last month, Sarah Michelle simply shut off on me in the the middle of my typing a sentence. She put her [...]

Time for more lists! Mrs. Micah got pretty creative with her carnival theme this week, when she presented the Carnival of Personal Finance #158. If you want to pick up some financial tips while learning a bit more about Buffy The Vampire Slayer , then do visit her site! Some cool [...]

I came across an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about how more and more companies are taking into account a CEOs net worth and past earnings in order to justify reducing or limiting their compensation. I encourage you to read the article, which can be found in its entirety at Yahoo! Finance.
The article [...]

Are you an economic whiner?  I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve had my share of negative things to say about gas prices, taxes, & government red tape.  However, what I witnessed last week has inspired me to whine less and work harder.
If they can do it, so can I…
Who are they?  The hard [...]

I’m horrible at organization! I get motivated all the time and clean up all my to-do lists, email boxes and papers… then I fall back into the old trap. Marc came to my rescue with How To Get Things Done in 1 Minute. I’m going to try to completely empty my inbox every day… we’ll [...]

A while ago I was reading Location Independent Living, and I came up with three questions that I had about actually implementing it with a family. Most of these questions probably would arise reading the now-famous Four Hour Work Week, too, but I have yet to read it. First, a lot of people [...]

I read a report from RBS predicting that there will be a global market crash come the end of summer/beginning of fall 2008. The crash will be due to the price of oil, increasing inflation, increasing interest rates, and more global credit issues coming to light.
Here are some snippets of the highlights:
… the bank’s [...]

It’s not possible.

Were you fairly represented in the reader survey?  Check out the results below to see where you fit into the mix of Money Smart Life readers.  If you feel your demographic group was under represented, go ahead and take the survey, I can’t count you if you don’t take the survey!
Anyhow here are the results [...]

Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
Early Termination Fees Slashed at T-Mobile
Early this month when I called T-Mobile to complain the 15 cents they charged me for sending me a text reminder, I also asked their early termination policy and was told that if I want to get out my contract before it expires, [...]

What does a market crash look like?
Forget charts and graphs, if you want to see what investment risk, a market slide or a volatile stock looks like, then here’s a different kind of visual.
All around the world, a market crash looks the same, etched in the faces of many who watch it unfold. [...]

Every time I’ve heard about Parkinson’s it’s been in the context of the debilitating medical condition that my grandmother died of. Recently I’ve read about a different kind of Parkinson’s - Parkinson’s Law. Even if you don’t recognize the name, I’m betting that you’ve come across the phenomenon. Wikipedia’s definition is very brief, Parkinson’s Law is the adage that “work expands to fill the time available.”
Three Ways I’ve Been Impacted by Parkinson’s Law
If you read a little more into the Wikipedia definition, you’ll see that a more general definition is “the demand upon a resource tends to [...]

Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
Bank Dividend Yield Revisited
Last November, shortly after the Dow peaked at 14,280 points, I had a post on dividend yields of the largest banks in the country. At that time, I thought that, with many bank stocks yielding 6.0% or more, buying banks make some sense if the banks [...]

Last night I got a call from a friend looking for some financial help. He has $14,300 in debt and has a goal to be debt free by November. Before I put together a plan for him, I’d like to hear what you have to say about it!
Debt Details
Here are the details of his debt:

Personal [...]