If you’re older than 3, you’ve probably had your fair share of worries here and there. You’ve worried about whether you should play marbles or chess, whether you should try out for the basketball team or not, whether you should ask Susie or Phyllis to the prom or whether you should go to State [...]
The pros and cons of living in a small house.
Image by Eco Joe’s
Downsizing Our House
A few years ago, my spouse and I bought a gorgeous, late-1920’s Dutch Colonial home in a not-so-fabulous hamlet where I was raised. This house is about 2,800 square feet on a little less than two acres, and was something [...]
This is a post from The Digerati Life.
Don’t have a GPS unit yet? Get one for free.
KeyBank, which used to offer free iPod in the past for its checking accounts, now gives Garmin nüvi GPS for free if you open an new account April 24, 2009.
Two models of Garmin GPS are offered in this deal: nüvi 205W GPS ($159 value) for either [...]
Original Post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
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Yesterday, the Obama administration issued an ultimatum to GM and Chrysler, asking Detroit’s troubled auto makers to restructure immediately or they will face other options including bankruptcy. Unlike last December when the Bush administration gave GM and Chrysler $17.4 bailout to keep them operating, this time the government decided to take a hard line on [...]
Original Post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
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What Happens to Your Car Warranty if GM or Chrysler Goes Bankrupt
The $15,000 home buyer tax credit that was scaled back in favor of an $8,000 First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit in the economic stimulus plan is showing signs of life again!
Last week, Republicans proposed the Responsible Homeowners Act, which revives the $15,000 home buyer tax credit.
$15000 Home Buyer Tax Credit
The proposal includes a [...]
TradeKing has released the latest edition of their “Intelligence Report” series, this one is called “Taxes and Trading”. It caught my eye since just yesterday I just published our Investor’s Tax Guide.
TradeKing Taxes & Trading
Of course I was curious and downloaded the TradeKing report to see how it compared to the information in our investing tax [...]
Welcome to the Million Dollar Journey March 2009 Net Worth Update – The Market Rally Edition.
Finally, some relief from the markets where buyers are starting to come back. Investors seem to have renewed faith in financials and other dividend paying blue chips. My feeling is that this is a temporary rally, but who knows what [...]
Many parents today are finding out that their kids have racked up thousands in credit card debt. Often it was to float tuition payments and associated school expenses (as it was in my case), or to survive a layoff for a stretch of time. Either way, it’s tough for a young person to get established [...]
This is a guest post by Neal Frankle. Neal found himself in a financially fragile situation at the age of 17. Both his parents passed away while he was still in high school, leaving behind a small insurance settlement. Neal sought out a financial advisor to help him invest his nest egg so that it [...]
About the Author: Jeremy is a retirement planning specialist and founder of Generation X Finance and the guide to Financial Planning at About.com. To learn more, follow Jeremy on Twitter.
3 ½ Steps You Can Take To Eliminate Money Fights With Your Love Bunny
How much does unlimited fun cost? To us, it’s $13.99 a month or a mere $168 a year.
I’ve been a long-time Netflix subscriber since 2005, and there was a time when I’d spend some of my downtime just sifting through the Netflix movie lists and constructing my Netflix queue with great care. It’s [...]
This is a post from The Digerati Life.
Did you know that April is National Financial Literacy Month? That’s right, there’s a whole month dedicated to increasing financial literacy. I like to think that around here it’s a 24/7 financial literacy marathon, but a lot of media outlets and finance blogs will be joining forces over the next few weeks to bring financial [...]
About the Author: Jeremy is a retirement planning specialist and founder of Generation X Finance and the guide to Financial Planning at About.com. To learn more, follow Jeremy on Twitter.
IRS today announced a special tax break for new car purchases (the tax break was actually approved by the congress as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009). If you are planning to buy a new car, then you may get a break on state and local sales taxes and deduct taxes [...]
Original Post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
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Tax season has probably never meant more to taxpayers than it does this year. As we prepare our 2008 tax returns the government is spending billions of dollars of our tax money in an effort to unfreeze credit markets and stimulate the economy.
Stock Market Losses
At the same time, many of us saw the value of [...]
Early this year, I compared performance of actively managed funds in my portfolio against some Vanguard index funds. In addition to the fund returns in 2008, which are all quite different between the two group of funds (four out ten funds beat Vanguard while the other six lagged), another thing I noticed from the comparison [...]
Original Post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
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I haven’t mentioned it in a long-time, but in former life (we are going back to my high school and college years), I was a pharmacy technician. I found it incredibly dull and couldn’t understand why one would ever want to make a career of it. Life has it’s interesting twists and turns [...]
Want to add some extra income to your pockets? If you’ve already analyzed one side of your cash flow with 15 Budget Trimming Tips, it’s time to focus on the income side.
Here are some ideas to bring in extra income. Some are quick, some take more time; some are easy, and some are complicated. [...]
I’ve had this conversation a few times with friends and family: when do you give up on your career? It’s a terrifying thing. You’ve invested years of your life and made countless sacrifices to get to a certain point, and suddenly one day you realize that you can’t keep going because:
the job market in [...]
There is a great comment discussion in a recent post about it being an ideal time to purchase your first home. With real estate being a hot issue these days, the discussion evolves to a topic which everyone has a different opinion. That is, if home ownership (principal residence) is considered an investment.
Here’s my take. [...]
With April 15th fast approaching, and a couple things lining the calendar for the next couple weekends, I thought I would bite the bullet, fire up TurboTax, and finalize my 2008 taxes. Besides, the weather was dreary out and there wasn’t much else to do. I ran through estimates earlier in the year, and thanks [...]
I knew that training a dog was a lot of work. However, with the help of Will Farrell, Jake is behaving fantastically. You didn’t know that Will Farrell was good with dogs? Check it out:
Now for some personal finance links:
Money Writers:
Brip Blap wonders internet job boards – wasted effort?
Frugal Dad [...]
In the heels of our post about how to save on groceries with printable online grocery coupons where we listed some useful sites for coupons, I thought to bring up more online resources that I’ve found particularly helpful.
Image by PSFK
If you know where to look, you can pick up a lot of free stuff [...]
This is a post from The Digerati Life.
Last weekend, I shared a video from INO which examined the rally of the Dow Jones Industrial Average occurred in the past couple of weeks and concluded that it was just a temporary bounce in a down market.
This week, INO released another educational video for its take on the recent gains of the S&P 500, [...]
Original Post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
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With the month of March coming to a close (that was fast), my wife and I sat down yesterday to hold our monthly budget committee meeting. It occurred to me that in the sixteen months or so of writing here I’ve never mentioned them before. I’ll save you all the boring details, but will share [...]
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. – John Lennon
If you can’t tell from what I’m writing, things are in a constant state of flux for me right now. I’m increasingly convinced that I’m going to have a very tough time finding employment in my current field, auditing, and I’m [...]
Photo courtesy of plindberg
Tonight at 8:30pm (local time) Earth Hour organizers have asked us to turn off our lights for one hour, as a vote for our planet against global warming. Despite how you feel about the politically-charged issue of global warming, I am convinced energy conservation is a good thing for our planet, our [...]
