When it’s time to leave a job you have more than the loss of income to think about in regard to your personal finances. You also need decide what you will do with the accumulated money in retirement plans at the company. That is a question that this reader has:
My wife will be retiring […]

By Teri Newton
I keep reading general financial advice and disagreeing as it applies to me. Obviously, every one has a unique financial situation. Overall, it is better to get financial advice tailored toward your own situation. But over and over I notice that financial advice does not really apply to my case simply because I […]

By Amy L. Fontinelle
Since I live in an area of the country where housing prices are higher than what I can afford, I was considering buying property in a very affordable state where I used to live and renting the property out. That city has a lot of available duplexes and quadraplexes, so I decided […]

By Teri Newton
Just when you think the tax code couldn’t get more complicated, we approach 2010, when a multitude of taxes are waived and taxpayers are given large breaks (e.g. estate taxes repealed in 2010). There is one newer tax provision, however, that I have not heard discussed much at all is very lucrative for […]

When you make financial decisions, there are times when you’d like to have others take a look at the decisions you have made and give their honest opinion on whether or not they think you’re on the right track. That is exactly what the writer of this email was looking for:
I earn approximately $77k and […]

By Amy L. Fontinelle
In order to justify expensive purchases, many people, including plenty of otherwise very intelligent folks, like to refer to certain types of spending sprees as “investments.” Luckily for me, from the time I was about four years old, my father took any opportunity he could to tell me that anything that loses […]

By Teri Newton
Hanging around the frugal online personal finance communities I see the general advice to buy the cheapest house you can afford. I disagree with this pretty heavily. We moved to a lower cost of living area in our early 20s because it was frankly the only way we could have the […]

By Teri Newton
Donating appreciated stock to charity is a very common tax tool for the wealthy. When you donate stock that you have held for more than a year (through direct transfer of the stock to the charity) you get a tax deduction for the fair market value of the stock, on the date […]

A lot of problems with finances are the direct result of being financially lazy. That is, you know what you should be doing, but you’re just too lazy (or have a convenient excuse) not to do it. And while life is certainly not about making sure every detail of your finances is perfect 24 / […]

There has been some discussion and I have received a couple of emails pertaining to the question of how good of an investment the forever stamp will be when it arrives. My answer: Lousy. While on first appearances purchasing forever stamps and holding onto them may seem like a good investment, the reality is there […]

It always amazes me that people want to invest their money in stocks when they are carrying credit card debt with double digit interest rates. Except for a few people that credit card arbitrage, almost everyone is better of investing their money into paying off their credit card debt than trying to invest somewhere else. […]

When people decide that they want to leave the corporate rat race and build their own business, they will often be faced with the choice of whether to purchase a franchise business rather than start from scratch. Franchises offer many attractive attributes including a business model that is already proven to work and much of […]

If you are looking for ways to begin, improve and / or confirm your investing knowledge, you don’t have to pay a lot (or any in this case) money to do so. Morningstar offers 172 free investing classes broken down into 4 areas: stocks, funds, bonds and portfolio. An added bonus is you can earn […]

You don’t see them very often these days (I remember getting them as gifts from my parents when I was young - just to date me), but at one time you actually received a certificate when you purchased stock (shares are now typically held for investors in “street name” at their stock brokerage firm) to […]

The old adage that the higher returns you receive when investing, the higher the risk is one that everyone should pay close attention to, but when it comes to investing, how do you know what your risk tolerance is? Here are five quizzes to help you determine your risk tolerance:
How Much Risk Can You Handle?: […]

Here’s the question I get asked most often when people learn that I write this blog: “So how can I become rich?”
Here’s the answer: “Do what you already know.” That’s the secret. Your already know everything you need to know to be rich. The problem is, even though you know, you probably aren’t going to […]

This will not be the typical list of investments you probably would think you’d find on a personal finance blog, but it gets really boring reading personal finance advice when it’s the same everywhere that you go. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. When doing research on the basics of personal finance, you want to […]

It’s seems to be a video weekend. I came across this series of ten NASDAQ 100 commercials that I thought some people woud find interesting. There are a good range of leaders of companies promoting the NASDAQ stock exchange:
NASDAQ - Visionaries: Intel (Craig Barrett), Cisco (John Chambers) and Staples (Tom Stemberg)

NASDAQ - Visionaries: Microsoft (Steve […]

There are a large number of steps you can take to help you become financially successful, but all your hard work can be for nothing if you are also doing things that undermine the financial success you’re seeking. The financial steps to success are important, but understanding the steps that will ensure financial failure are […]

I know this is a gag, but at the same time, I know quite a few people that would be more than willing to invest their money with a investment firm that practiced like this if they consistently beat the market. I don’t know if I would venture to say that most people would, […]