A boy gets a job while he’s still in school, saves up some money, puts it in a savings account that is jointly held by one of his parents (as it almost always has to be, since minors almost always cannot enter contracts by themselves). The parent at some point withdraws the money because the … Read more
We’d been having issues with our riding lawn mower for quite some time. Last fall right at the end of the season we broke one of the mower spindles halfway through running over the leaves in our yard. This spring, when we tried to get the mower out to replace the spindle, it wouldn’t start. … Read more
JLP of All Financial Matters passed on a local story about people waiting up to twelve hours just to get $40 worth of free gas. He didn’t have the link to the article; I think this is it here: Dallas-area residents wait hours for free gas I agree with JLP that this is a poor … Read more
Figuring out what to do with your income is fundamentally what budgeting is all about. If you don’t have consumer debt, the choice, once you’ve accounted for expenses and charitable giving (including tithes), the money is either saved or invested. Just put the money to good use working for you. If there’s a $15,000 credit … Read more
I got wind of this chatting with some of my colleagues today. One of them referred to his truck as “worthless” because dealers around here were refusing them as trade-ins. (I was the gas-sipper of the bunch with my Corolla.) Predictably, car dealers are getting a lot of SUVs and trucks as trade-ins, and some … Read more
$15 gas is coming. Maybe not for a few years, but within a decade isn’t out of the question. This CNBC interview included commentary from Robert Hirsch of Management Information Services and lead author on Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management, commonly known as the Hirsch Report. Hirsch says in the … Read more
The Prosperous Peasant by Tim Clark and Mark Cunningham, subtitled “Five Secrets of Fortune and Fulfillment from the Samurai’s Temple School,” is a pretty easy read with a straightforward story centered around traditional Japanese life that doesn’t overshadow the points of the book. I won’t give all five points away but one of the five … Read more
Free Money Finance posted a question from a reader who’s paying on a house that’s now worth less than what’s owed on it. The reader is upside-down on his mortgage, but the mortgage is a 30-year fixed-rate, and he paid 20% down. It wasn’t a teaser loan by any stretch, and it didn’t really sound … Read more