Personal Finance Advice

Are you a news junkie? If you are, hopefully you’re not making investment decisions based solely on the financial news or stock market analysis that the media provides all day and every day. When the stock market goes down, they say ask the question, “Has the next recession finally arrived” and when the market goes [...]

The savings account is about as in style as 90′s rock sensation Pearl Jam (Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of them) but much like some of those same 90s fads, the savings account is making a reemergence. Everybody is happy when interest rates fall and they can refinance their homes, but they forget [...]

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” is what you’re thinking. Here come all of the obesity facts. You think I’m going to talk about all of the money you spend on fast food, junk food, and those other sinful pleasures, or at least sinful as defined by the health nuts with six pack abs. No more guilt trips. [...]

In the wake of the post-Christmas sale frenzy, I found myself wondering, “Why is it that people will beat each other senseless to save 75% on wrapping paper and cards, but they won’t take advantage of the biggest sale of all: A down stock market?” Back when the market was tanking in 2008 and 2009, [...]

You may have heard about the movement to automatically opt employees into their 401K’s. Right now, the default option is for you not to contribute. When you’re hired they ask you if you’d like to contribute and how much. If you say no, then nothing is taken out of your check. There is a movement [...]

SavingAdvice is starting a new column that’s going to look at strange, offbeat ways to save and make money. Anything that’s a little odd, uncommon, or contrarian is fair game – as long as it’s legal. You probably already know about Roth IRA’s. These are IRA’s that you fund with after tax dollars and then, [...]

This week we moved on to Baby Steps Four and Five, which are saving for retirement and saving for your kids’ college education. Baby step four was on deck first, which is to save 15% of your household income in tax-advantaged plans. Dave points out that, at the time this class was filmed, 53% of [...]

This week was about the basics of investing. Once you’re out of debt and have your emergency fund, it’s time to move on to creating serious wealth. You do that by investing (or winning the lottery, but Dave doesn’t advocate that method). Obviously in a one-hour lecture Dave can’t touch on all of the intricacies [...]

If you are at all interested in finance, you’ve probably heard that it is necessary to be debt free in order to build substantial wealth. While a few gifted investors manage to build wealth while having a lot of real estate debt (think Trump) or debt that finances a business venture (think the people who [...]

With the death of defined pension plans, 401(k) retirement plans have become a staple for many employees, but the recent financial turmoil has put these once infallible savings vehicles under the microscope. There have been numerous news articles detailing the stunning losses of the stock market since October of last year. Such stories usually offer [...]

Dave Kansas of the Wall Street Journal has what I like to see in a capitalist economy: optimism. Talking about the year ahead, he described the stock market as looking “to the future, rather than the past.” Isn’t that exactly what we should do with our money? We save for the future, we plan for [...]

Although we are financially secure and tend to make wise decisions regarding our finances, we still screw up sometimes and do things that we later regret. We’re human. However, while we may have regrets I choose to look at them as learning opportunities. Whatever we regret from this past year is something that can be [...]

By Maggie Ellis, guest writer I know many people who are followers of Dave Ramsey’s financial advice. Since the economy has tanked, it seems like I’m seeing even more people joining the Dave bandwagon, looking for a way out of the financial messes that they have gotten themselves into. His “Total Money Makeover” and the [...]

Is this a recession or opportunity knocking? I’ve seen this question posed all over the media. A lot of the articles are aimed at higher income execs who work the stock markets. But I’m beginning to see front porch lights coming on in businesses everywhere. Yes, we’re all still feeling the pinch of high unemployment [...]

I have a friend who is, shall we say, “crunchy” (in the best sense of the word). She and her family eschew many modern conveniences such as dishwashers, fast food, and big box stores in favor of doing things the old fashioned way. They are environmentally conscious to a fault and very outdoorsy. A few [...]

I was chatting with a neighbor – Mike — over the weekend. Mike’s daughter is a senior in high school and looking at a lot of different colleges. Mike is a successful dentist but he is still worried about the economy and the costs of putting his daughter through school, even though he has already [...]

At any given time in your life you may find yourself in a financial situation not of your making. The recent credit crisis in America is a prime example. It is a uniquely perfect storm to be sure, the kind of economic crisis that comes along once every 50 -100 years perhaps, but that doesn’t [...]

Why do many people opt to spend rather than save money? Because saving isn’t fun. It’s not as much fun as going to the movies, or out to eat, or to an amusement park. And why is that? Because many of the things we do for entertainment are social. They get us out amongst other [...]

What I Know Among today’s financial headlines is the prediction that stocks will rise today because traders are optimistic about the Freddie and Fannie takeovers. The articles I read commonly noted this optimism, but none of them explained to me why government intervention was cause for optimism. Strangely enough, another headline noted that oil was [...]

Our personal finances mirror many things in life, and fantasy football is no exception. Wittingly or not, we apply many of the same tactics to succeed in both. At the risk of using way too many football analogies in one article, here it goes: An Investment In Your Future First and foremost, fantasy football is [...]