Risk management is a methodology to mitigate negative consequences resulting from threats and uncertainties. In this article, I’ll be exploring financial risks focused on personal finance and how to minimize these risks. Since risk management is a huge topic, I am going to limit it within the scope of the REAL Wealth Building framework — … Read more
In doing your investment research, you may have come across a Tic-Tac-Toe-like box similar to the one below. This box is called the Morningstar Style Box. This particular one came from Vanguard 500 Index (VFINX) profile on Yahoo! Finance. What Is a Morningstar Style Box? Morningstar Style Box is a visual tool created by Morningstar, … Read more
I have been dealing with insurance a lot recently, and as expected, one of the insurance agents pitched a whole life insurance for my child with the usual emphasis on it being dirt cheap to get a policy. Actually, he was quite a good salesman and at one point he had me convinced that I … Read more
Annuities are insurance products designed to help you invest for retirement and provide supplemental income during your retirement. The most common form of annuity is income annuity where the investor pays the insurance a sum of money in exchange for a series of regular payment for a period of time, up to a lifetime contract. … Read more
Kent Irwin, who recently wrote a guest article: Is Suze Orman Right, Can You Be Your Own Financial Planner?, sent me a free license to use his eFinPLAN online financial planning software. In this post, I am going to provide you with my initial experience, and I will follow up with a second post to … Read more
In The Only Guide To A Winning Investment Strategy You’ll Ever Need, Larry Swedroe dedicated a major portion of the book to the discussion of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), specifically to explain why investing in passively managed funds is a winning investment strategy. What is Efficient Market Hypothesis? The Efficient Market Hypothesis asserts that … Read more
If you watch Suze Orman’s TV programs you will hear her comment that people can be their own financial planner. Before I answer this question, I think I need to clarify what type of financial planner I believe Ms. Orman is referring to. There are several types of financial planners, but for simplicity I will … Read more
In the first post How Much Life Insurance Do I Need?, I worked with my insurance sales agent on how much life insurance my wife and I need. One of his suggestions is to buy a minimal amount of whole life insurance so that we have a little something to take care of our final … Read more
Recently, I wrote about lending money on Prosper, which is one of the many peer-to-peer lending networks that are popping up everywhere. The post itself didn’t say anything about socially responsible investing (also known as, SRI, morally responsible investing or ethical investing). However, a lively discussion on this topic came up when Kevin stated his … Read more
“I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to GEICO.” I am sure you heard that famous line before. In this post, I will share my story about how I saved $1,145 per year, or 30% off my original insurance bills — and it wasn’t with GEICO. It all started … Read more