The March 2006 issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine has a feature called “Good Looks for Less.” They outfit a number of rooms with various accoutrements, divided into “save” and “splurge” columns. The “save” columns contained the thrifty options: $10 for a can of stain to update a kitchen island $13 for a can … Read more
A nice overview article on shopping around for auto insurance on Money Central today: Shopping for Auto Insurance It has a good combination of topics: Some tips to use Some pitfalls to avoid A list of risk factors that contribute to your premium Brief explanations of the types of coverage you might get One caveat … Read more
Last week I had the excellent opportunity to be interviewed by Scott at the Money Blogger Podcast. Scott asks great questions; I’ll leave it up to your judgment whether I provided great answers or not! 🙂 And if you’re in a podcast sort of mood, Scott also interviewed Jim, Cap, Flexo, ~Dawn, and Jonathan! Enjoy … Read more
Any predictions for future asset values involve assumptions about the rates of return of particular investments. Usually there’s a history to look at — perhaps a very long history of over a century — so you can at least say with confidence how a particular investment has done in the past. Of course, there’s always … Read more
The March, 2006, issue of Money magazine talks about what to do when going out to dinner with someone who makes a lot more, or a lot less, than you do. It’s also online: Through Thick and Thin Wallets — Ryan D’Agostino The main tactics the article mentions to smooth things over, if you make … Read more
Ran across this article on Yahoo! Finance by Robert Kiyosaki: Putting Debt to Work for You The article describes his and his wife’s experiences with making a down payment for a house — with credit card debt. This strategy ended up working for them, so the story goes, as they bought properties from which they … Read more
Sometimes people will take on debt to start up their businesses — from $7,000 up! If you already have debt, it doesn’t seem to make semse to take on more. Starting a business can be an avenue not only to debt reduction, but also to financial independence. There’s certainly a lot of effort to get … Read more
Conventional wisdom suggests that diversifying your holdings in your investment portfolio reduces risk because one bad year for one type of investment vehicle won’t kill your net worth. Conventional wisdom also suggests that different allocations are appropriate for different stages of life, with more volatile investments being appropriate at a younger age and more predicable, … Read more