Personal Finance Advice

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 and [...]

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 [...]

Weekend reading is a round-up of personal finance and money related stories that caught the eye of our forum members this week:

International Central Banks Team Up
Governement Planning to Transfer All Bad Bank Debt to Taxpayers
SEC Plans to Temporarily Ban Short-Selling
Government Buying Bad Debt
Money market accounts not so safe
Bernanke: “We [...]

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 [...]

Like any good financial nerd, I spend a lot of time watching and reading the media’s coverage of the economy. Over the last few months the tone has gone from mildly concerned, through concerned, and on to full blown panic. This amuses me because you can literally watch the rhetoric ratchet up and up, [...]

I’m a big fan of index funds because, quite frankly, I don’t know much about investing and I would rather spend my time doing other things than learning how to invest in individual companies. Warren Buffett agrees with me on this as his response to a question at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting:
“If you [...]

School is out and the kids are home. If it hasn’t happened already, chances are it won’t be long before you hear those famous words: “I’m bored.” Now would be a good time to use that boredom to teach kids a little something about finance in ways that are fun. The more kids learn about [...]