Archive for March, 2008
Updating My Goals And Shooting For The Stars
March 31, 2008 :: Blogging, Financial Planning :: 24 Comments
At the beginning of the year, I shared several goals and established some milestones to be achieved by April 1st. In this post, I am planning to update these goals and set new ones for the future. I am doing this because I believe having clearly defined goals is the ...
My Plan For The Tax Refund
March 28, 2008 :: Taxes :: 15 Comments
Hank at My Investing Blog is hosting a giveaway with a few prizes up for grab. There are a couple of ways to enter, and one is by answering the following question: How will you spend/save your 2007 tax return? If you aren't getting one, how much do you owe? Photo by ...
Real Estate Investing: Return On Investment and Leverage
March 27, 2008 :: Home and Real Estate, Investing :: 22 Comments
One of the commonly touted advantage of real estate investing is the financial leverage that can result in enormous return on investment. A typical example usually compares investing an amount in real estate versus the stock market, where the return on investment for real estate investing far exceeds that of ...
Don’t Buy Credit Card Life and Disability Insurance (GP)
March 26, 2008 :: Credit and Debt :: 3 Comments
You would never take out an insurance policy on behalf of your bank and pay its premiums, would you? But that's exactly what you're doing when your credit card company convinces you to buy life and disability insurance. The sales pitch plays upon fears of the unknown: What if you ...
5 Strategies to Survive An Economic Slowdown
March 25, 2008 :: Financial Planning :: 25 Comments
With the recent turn of events, I have been giving a lot of thought about what to do in event of economic slowdown -- i.e., recession, stagflation, depression, financial doom, or whatever you want to call it. As I put this list of 5 strategies together, I realize that they ...
SmartyPig Teaches Your Children About Savings For Financial Goals
March 24, 2008 :: Financial Planning :: 8 Comments
Yesterday I stumbled upon SmartyPig. It is an online piggy bank where you could set up savings goals, and invite family and friends to contribute to your account. While your savings is accumulating, it's earning a competitive interest rate of 4.30% APY. Once you reach a savings goal, you can ...
A Dollar Saved Is Better Than A Dollar Earned
March 21, 2008 :: Frugal Living :: 16 Comments
Benjamin Franklin popularized the expression: "A penny saved is a penny earned." However, Ben got this one wrong because a penny saved is much better than a penny earned! This is one reason why being frugal is such an important aspect of wealth building. Of course, frugality on steroid is ...
Are You Selling Your Credit Score?
March 20, 2008 :: Credit and Debt :: 14 Comments
I knew that applying for too many credit cards could adversely effect on my credit score. However, the concept wasn't picture perfect until I read Rocket Finance's story where he said, "we traded our credit score of 748 at it's highest point in exchange for favor from credit card ...
Meandering Into Real Estate Investing
March 19, 2008 :: Home and Real Estate :: 22 Comments
Investing in real estate, specifically small rental properties where I'd buy single-family or multi-family houses for the purpose of renting them out has been one of the things I wanted to do. However, the three musketeers of fear, doubt, and uncertainty discouraged me from taking any action toward residential real ...
Gold hits $1,000: Should I Invest In Gold?
March 18, 2008 :: Investing :: 11 Comments
On March 13, 2008, gold hits $1,000 per ounce for the first time in history, the dollar fell below 100 yen, and crude oil price is setting new records. With the sub par stock market performance over the past few months, it's hard not to second guess yourself, and dream ...
7 Key Factors to Build Successful Alternative Income Streams
March 17, 2008 :: Making Money :: 33 Comments
Some people views anything related to alternative income streams (aka, making money) as scammy, waste of time, or taking too much effort. Some give alternative income building a try and give up shortly after, because it takes too much time and effort for the minuscule initial results. Why should they ...
You Must File 2007 Federal Tax Return To Get Economic Stimulus Tax Rebate
March 14, 2008 :: Taxes :: 15 Comments
On my way to work this morning, the news was talking about the economic stimulus tax rebate check. In short, the Treasury will begin sending economic stimulus payments to more than 130 million households starting in May. Adopted from Economic Stimulus Payment: Marketing Products for Partners To receive this tax rebate, there ...
TaxCut Giveaway Winners!
March 13, 2008 :: Miscellaneous :: Leave a Comment
Yesterday, I announced that I was giving away TaxCut Online Premium Software + E-file by randomly picking 2 winners from email submissions (see the announcement). First, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who participated in the giveaway. As promised, the winners were selected this afternoon. ...
Is Suze Orman Right, Can You Be Your Own Financial Planner? (GP)
March 13, 2008 :: Financial Planning :: 18 Comments
About the Author: This is a guest post by Kent E. Irwin. He is founder of eFinplan.com, online comprehensive financial planning software for consumers. He is also a Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC), a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP) and a Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU). He can be reached at kirwin ...
TaxCut Giveaway, Alltop.com, Easton Ellsworth, and Carnivals
March 12, 2008 :: Miscellaneous :: 5 Comments
TaxCut Giveaway On February 24th, I announced that I was giving away TaxCut Online Premium Software + E-file by randomly picking two winners from people who left comments and trackbacks between February 24th and March 7th. As it turned out, the winners I selected already did their taxes -- good ...
