Basics
« Previous EntriesSave For One Year, Retire With $1MM
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008Most “retire with one million dollars” articles focus on slow and steady savings over the course of decades. That works of course, and saving regularly is a great habit to get in no matter how much money you have.
But if you’re young enough, with some concerted effort you can save for only [...]
Solid Advice: ALWAYS Question Commissioned Salesmen!
Monday, December 10th, 2007I remember being told during broker training for PaineWebber (now UBS) that if a prospect asked about fees or commissions that I was to basically show them the door. PaineWebber’s stance was that clients who bickered about fees weren’t going to be good clients. Of course there will always be people who want [...]
The Real Key to Acheiving Your Goals
Thursday, November 29th, 2007It’s easy to turn your dreams into goals on paper, but you’re much more likely to acheive those goals–and be satisfied when you do–if they reflect your true values.
Planners and Fees
Tuesday, July 10th, 2007Money Magazine has a feature each month called The Mole, which is a column written by an anonymous financial planner. I’m not exactly sure why he’s anonymous unless he’s scared of colleagues harrassing him. Regardless, it’s usually an entertaining column and this month’s column is no different:
I’ve never met a financial planner who [...]
Budget Help for a Reader - What’s Your Advice?
Monday, June 18th, 2007I received the following email from a reader. Although his situation isn’t good, it could be a lot worse. One thing he mentions in the email stood out to me like a sore thumb. Let’s see if you can spot it:
I was contemplating taking some retirement money to pay off some debt, [...]
A Follow-up to the Dave Ramsey Mortgage Post - This is Interesting!
Thursday, March 8th, 2007Chris, an employee of Dave Ramsey and a blogger at Pour Out, left this comment on yesterday’s Dave Ramsey post about mortgages (I truncated Chris’ comment in order to emphasize what I want to talk about):
He [Dave] doesn’t want you to pay off your home in 15 years; He wants you to pay it off [...]
A Great Credit Website for College Students (and everyone else)
Tuesday, March 6th, 2007Yesterday, my local paper reprinted an article by Kara McGuire of the Star Tribune. The article was about credit scores, and included three interesting lists that she found on WhatsMyScore.org, which is a great resource for college students.
COMMON MISTAKES THAT CAN LOWER YOUR CREDIT SCORE
Paying bills late.
Not paying the [...]
Protect Yourself From Identity Theft
Tuesday, March 6th, 2007My friend Michael Domingo and his partner John Hetzel run Cadence Financial Advisors, LLC in Dallas, TX. They sent me a copy of their February Newsletter (PDF), which contained the following advice on protecting yourself from identity theft. It’s some good advice!
Protect Yourself: Identity Theft
We have all heard horror stories about identity [...]
How We Got Out of Credit Card Debt
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007In light of last night’s post on Dave Ramsey’s Snowball Method vs. Suze Orman’s Method for Getting Out of Debt, I thought I would share our experience in paying off our credit cards.
We paid off our last two credit cards nearly a year ago (Card #1 and Card #2). It was an amazing feeling [...]
Dave Ramsey’s Snowball Method vs. Suze Orman’s Method for Getting Out of Debt
Tuesday, February 20th, 2007Here’s Dave Ramsey’s Snowball Method for paying off credit cards:
Step 1 - Make a list of all your credit cards, ranked in order from the highest balance to the smallest balance.
Step 2 - Beginning with the card with the smallest balance, pay as much as you can on that card while paying the minimums on [...]