The Money Writers

On Tuesday, both presidential candidates and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Shelia Bair had made statements encouraging congress to allow the FDIC to increase the limit of protection. The $100,000 limit per account has been in place since 1980, and suggestions have been to increase the limit to $250,000. It’s interesting to note that [...]

Photo courtesy of krisandapril
We have recently attended a number of weddings, birthday parties and other celebrations.  With little time to shop for gifts we resorted to giving cash or gift cards in most cases, but from now on I think I’ll opt for simply giving cash.  Here are a few reasons why:

Cash can be spent [...]

The financial bailout plan got scrapped. This “rescue package” failed and the stock market didn’t like it.

I won’t lie — what happened yesterday with the stock market has made me nauseous, and it doesn’t help that I’m trying to recover from a nasty bug. The stock market is being fueled by fear at the [...]

With the Dow recording a record 777 point loss in one day, people are flocking to the phones to call their brokers or going online to make changes to their investments. In almost all cases, this is a very bad idea. If you’re reading this site, you’re probably not as concerned by the recent turn [...]

One of my favorite parts about My Dollar Plan is getting to hear from you. Where you are at financially, what your questions are, what you are thinking about and what your goals are. I took some time out to answer reader mail before and it was fun, so here’s another round of questions and [...]

Every so often, I get questions from readers. I’d love to get more (contact me) but sometimes the questions I do get deal with topics that are a little outside my level of expertise. When this happens, I often try to direct the person to place that I think can help them find [...]

Original Post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
What Zecco Has Done to Improve Their Service: An Interview with Zecco Trading
It has been more than one year since I became a Zecco customer. Since then, I have used my Zecco account quite actively (especially with my play money) and shared my experience. Like many other Zecco customers, [...]

I didn’t see that one coming. Then again, nobody did.  I’m a little bit shocked - our family’s net worth dropped about 10% in one afternoon, wiping out years of savings - but then again, I think the cure would have been worse than the disease.
In every analysis and op-ed I’ve read, I’ve failed [...]

FNBO Direct offers one of the best rates available for a high yield savings account and unlike many other banks is not in danger of failing.  In fact, at First National Bank of Omaha, deposits are growing and the number of customers is increasing during these troubled economic times.  So why is FNBO Direct remaining [...]

Welcome to the recurring monthly net worth update - The September 2008 edition.
Seems that lately having the word “frugal” in my handle is hypocritical.  As one of my regular readers puts it, I’ve been “spendy”.  This month, it started with the new HD TV along with cables, then of course we had to get a [...]

Welcome to the recurring monthly net worth update - The September 2008 edition.
Seems that lately having the word “frugal” in my handle is hypocritical.  As one of my regular readers puts it, I’ve been “spendy”.  This month, it started with the new HD TV along with cables, then of course we had to get a [...]

Photo courtesy of lrargerich
While perusing a few of my favorite personal finance blogs over the weekend I ran across an article last week from All Financial Matters, One Reader’s Reasoning On Why Younger People Don’t Save.  I like the way JLP addressed each concern raised by the commenter, whose attitude reminded me a bit of [...]

Original Post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
Dow Jones Posts Largest Point Drop Ever
While I was sleeping in China, something ugly, very ugly happened on the Wall Street and on the Capital Hill.
The first I noticed when I turned on my laptop this morning was headlines like this Dow posts record point drop as House rejects [...]

Photo courtesy of Seamus Murray
Much of the news over the past couple weeks has been dominated by the financial markets, specifically the $700 billion bailout plan proposed by the current administration.  There are many personal finance lessons to be learned from the recent bank failures, and the regulations pushed by the last two administrations, both [...]

When making the foray into real estate, have you thought about whether you’d buy a new house or an older home? Does it matter? Here are some pros and cons.

Thanks to the present housing slump, potential home buyers are finding some great bargains, if they have the patience and the savvy to haggle the [...]

Original Post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
Washington Mutual’s Failure Hurts Some Mutual Fund Investors
On September 25th, Washington Mutual (WM), the Seattle based loan and savings giant, was seized by the FDIC after depositors withdrew more than $16 billion from the bank in 10 days over concerns that the bank, unable to find a buyer quickly [...]

We all have one. Something we love that we can’t bring ourselves to give up even when we’re busy paying down debt or saving for a really important goal. And our plans are only as good as our weakest financial link.
Questions to Ask Yourself
Not all weaknesses are bad. For example, if you’ve given up everything [...]

Working from home isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be – especially when there are children in the mix! Scraping spaghetti-o’s, off the ceiling when you’re up against a deadline might make you laugh, but it really does happen when you work at home with your kids. If you want the best of both [...]

Working from home isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be – especially when there are children in the mix! Scraping spaghetti-o’s, off the ceiling when you’re up against a deadline might make you laugh, but it really does happen when you work at home with your kids. If you want the best of both [...]

While all of my posts are for your entertainment to some extent, this one in particular is intended as pure entertainment. I have to say such things, because otherwise people may think I’m serious.
If you didn’t read the above italics and somehow missed the word “stupid” in the title, let this be yet another [...]

I’m writing this Sunday evening when the bailout package has been finalized but not yet voted on. I’ve been stunned by the speed that this bailout has rushed through Congress, much like the Iraq war rushed through.  I stopped and imagined for a minute what would happen if we had an all-hands massive push combining [...]

 
Photo courtesy of Michael Casey
After news began trickling out of Washington that we may be due another stimulus check, Pete from Bible Money Matters put together a great post asking why not just create your own stimulus check?  With news of the government (taxpayer) supported bailout plan dominating the news recently, I thought I [...]

There was an interesting report by Merrill Lynch that Canada could be facing a similar real estate/financial crash that the U.S is facing right now.  The rationale being that Canadians have turned from being savers to spenders with an increasing net household deficit.  While I agree that the real estate market in Canada is due [...]

Details have been sketchy in terms of the specific details surrounding the $700 billion financial bailout, but as of Sunday night it looks like the revisions made by the democrats will be supported by republicans, and the bill should be cleared by the House on Monday, and acted on by the senate sometime Wednesday. The [...]

I watched the debate with great interest on Friday. I also dealt with some serious out-of-the-blue back pain starting Thursday evening.  The back pain was unusual since I have never suffered from back pain, so my best guess is that it’s time to start being slightly more careful when swinging Little Buddy around, now [...]