The Money Writers

I took a little time off this weekend declaring it my Tax Pre-Preparation Weekend. Yep, my taxes are so complex it requires prep before you prep. I long for the days when I could spend a couple of hours putting data into TurboTax and be filing taxes before Valentine’s Day. The small business aspect along [...]

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When I worked in Bucharest, we’d go out to lunch from time to time. Our office was in a building that had a soup/deli thing on the ground floor.  The other option was a McDonald’s about a block away.  When you were there in the winter, the sidewalks would be covered by ice – public [...]

how to defeat fear is an original article from the website brip blap.

Not that kind of a snowball…. read on. Why Young Entrepreneurs Should Hold Down a Job After College:  If you plan on being an entrepreneur I’d imagine a job would be a great way to learn about your industry before leaping out on your own.  SodaStream: Product of the Year 2010: I love SodaStreamas well [...]

the snowball, and links is an original article from the website brip blap.

What if you had nothing? No home, no DVD player, no car, no skills, no money and couldn’t even speak the language? What if you had nothing except a suitcase full of clothes and a few photographs? Welcome to the outlook for many immigrants. Politicians roll out the immigration debate all the time, but what [...]

why we need immigrants is an original article from the website brip blap.

I’m going to keep things short and sweet this week because I’ve got a nasty cold and should probably be sleeping instead sitting on the computer. So, no detailed introduction, no comments about all of the individual links. But I assure you, they are all good reads. Planning a Wedding On a Budget @ Frugal [...]

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.

Friday Finance Findings for January 28th

I’m going to keep things short and sweet this week because I’ve got a nasty cold and should probably be sleeping instead sitting on the computer. So, no detailed introduction, no comments about all of the individual links. But I assure you, they are all good reads. Planning a Wedding On a Budget @ Frugal [...]

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.

Friday Finance Findings for January 28th

Quick reminder that we are giving away a couple copies of The Idiot Millionaire by Derek Foster. Contest ends tomorrow (Sat Jan 29), so make sure to enter now if you haven’t already.
TFSA vs. RRSP – Best Retirement Vehicle? @ The Archives
New Mortgage Rules @ Canadian Money Forum
Planning a Wedding On a Budget @ [...]

I currently run our utility and gas purchases through our credit card to simplify the monthly bill-paying process, and to earn some cash back rewards for things we’d have to pay anyway. Of course, we pay off the credit card balance each month. I’ve heard commercials for Perkstreet Financial and their cash rewards debit card, [...]

Post by Frugal Dad

It’s been a long time since I’ve written about Lending Club. Truth is that I’ve been a little disappointed by the peer-to-peer lending space. I was an early adopter and I got burned. I put some significant money in Prosper and bid on a bunch of sub-prime loans. I might as well been in the [...]

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Tradeking Brings Real-time Trading to Your iPhone or iPod Following the success with the BlackBerry trading app, Tradeking recently announced the launch of their newest mobile trading app for both the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Don’t worry iPad users, a version for that device is also right around the corner. While other brokerages have [...]

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.

Tradeking Launches New iPhone and iPod Touch Apps

As a CRPC and having spent time in the retirement planning industry I have seen a lot of trends emerge. Most notable is the huge disparity between what people have actually saved for retirement versus what they need to have saved. This is nothing new, and if you turn to any financial news outlet you’ll [...]

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.

Are You Saving Too Much for Retirement?

Though we are nearly one month into 2011, the deadline to make 2010 contribution to IRA account won’t end until the 2011 tax day, on April 18th this year. So you still have time to make last year’s contribution if you haven’t done so (see how to open an IRA account). And if you are [...]

Original Post on The Sun’s Financial Diary

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ING Direct $50 Bonus for New IRA Account

As Derek Foster (DF) is pretty well known in the finance space here in Canada, while reviewing his latest book The Idiot Millionaire, I thought it would be a good opportunity to snag an interview with him. My telephone conversation with Mr. Foster was casual, informative and entertaining.
It turns out that my financial path is [...]

If you are not careful, planning a wedding can lead to acute sticker shock. According to The Wedding Report, a market research publication, the average price of a U.S. wedding in 2010 was over $24,000. While your “Big Day”is certainly a major rite of passage, it’s important to remember that $24,000 is a big chunk [...]

Post by Frugal Dad

Today, I’d like to tell you about my favorite purchase of last year – SodaStream. If you told me a month ago I’d be writing this article, I wouldn’t have believed you. I put it at the bottom of my Christmas list behind a Kindle and a 2 Terabyte Hard Drive for my media center [...]

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Getting a new vehicle involves a lot of decisions, such as what type of vehicle to buy and where to shop. In addition, it’s a good idea to compare the pros and cons of buying versus leasing a car. We’re actually ready to embark on replacing our older model Honda Odyssey van. We’ve contemplated on [...]

Leasing vs Buying A Car: Things To Consider

Sometimes it’s hard to come up with a subject to blog about, so tonight I’ll borrow Syd’s thoughts: If you decide not to have children, you’re also going to have to learn how to fit in to a world that doesn’t understand you.  When people find out that you don’t want kids, be prepared for [...]

should you have children? is an original article from the website brip blap.

Have an iPhone? Expect tax refund this year? Now you can check status of your refund on smartphone, thanks to the new iPhone and Android Apps released by the IRS today as the 2011 tax season is in full swing. The free app, called IRS2Go, is available in Apple App Store for iPhone, iPod, and [...]

Original Post on The Sun’s Financial Diary

Special Promotional Offers

• Scottrade 3 Commission Free Trades
• Free FICO Credit Score
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus
• Chase Freedom MasterCard $100 Bonus
• Discover More Card No Fee 0% APR Balance Transfer for 12 Months

IRS App Lets You Check Refund Status on Smartphones

In addition to having an Online Savings Account that pays 1.25% APY, Discover Bank also has a line of CD products with terms from 3 months to as long as 10 years. Though I don’t expect anybody get locked in that extreme long CDs in what is basically a low rate environment (Fed benchmark rate [...]

Original Post on The Sun’s Financial Diary

Special Promotional Offers

• Scottrade 3 Commission Free Trades
• Free FICO Credit Score
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus
• Chase Freedom MasterCard $100 Bonus
• Discover More Card No Fee 0% APR Balance Transfer for 12 Months

Discover Bank CDs

After my article about How HP/Palm’s webOS can compete on Friday, PreCentral went out and got the specs for the new iPad killer (I’m just joking about the “killer” part.) Anyway, I’m a little wrapped up in the awesomeness of it for today and I hope to work on a couple of side projects, so [...]

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Clothing exchanges are wildly popular right now.  The reason behind this is really quite simple.  Frugal families simply can’t afford to buy new things every time their children hit a growth spurt or grow tired of the toys that they already have.  Rather than shell out money to purchase new clothing and stuffed animals, parents [...]

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.

Thred Up Because Kids Outgrow Clothing Fast

Ever sit down to do your taxes or hand everything over to your tax preparer only to wish you’d done a better job of tracking all of those potential deductions that could have whittled down your tax liability? Stop wishing it and stop wondering how much you could have saved this very instant by taking [...]

Original Post on The Sun’s Financial Diary

Special Promotional Offers

• Scottrade 3 Commission Free Trades
• Free FICO Credit Score
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus
• Chase Freedom MasterCard $100 Bonus
• Discover More Card No Fee 0% APR Balance Transfer for 12 Months

Stock Up Deductions Now to Save Later

Derek Foster is back again with his fourth book – The Idiot Millionaire (link).  This book follows a common theme about investing,with the focus on “idiot proof” stocks rather than exclusively dividend achiever type stocks.  To Mr. Foster, idiot proof stocks are those that have global brand recognition and have a distinct competitive advantage.
For those [...]

The following guest post is from MD. A recent college graduate that makes personal finance fun for 20-somethings at Studenomics and has recently started writing about his journey through the world of entrepreneurship at Passive Income Now. At some point during college in between the late night keggers and the 48-hour study sessions you may [...]

Post by Frugal Dad

I have heard some good things about PenFed, like their awesome customer service and generous rewards for their credit card customers. One of those rewards that I heard most often is that they give 5% cash back on gasoline purchases for cardholders of their PenFed Visa Platinum Cashback Rewards Card, which is very rare these [...]

Original Post on The Sun’s Financial Diary

Special Promotional Offers

• Scottrade 3 Commission Free Trades
• Free FICO Credit Score
• TradeKing $50 New Account Bonus
• Chase Freedom MasterCard $100 Bonus
• Discover More Card No Fee 0% APR Balance Transfer for 12 Months

PenFed No Longer Offers 2% Cash Back on Groceries and Weekend Linkage