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Posted
Aug 11 2008, 05:23 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
What do you have to show for your last few pay raises (assuming you've been getting some)? Not sure, eh? Todd at Harvesting Dollars has a plan for getting real value from those raises while amassing retirement savings and preventing the insidious, invisible creep of lifestyle inflation. He calls it the Save Your Raise finance game.
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Posted
Jun 05 2008, 01:53 PM
by
Karen Datko
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Meg at All Financial Matters bemoans her friends' and associates' lack of knowledge about managing money. "Every single one of my friends and peers, it seems, are people who couldn't explain compound interest if they had to, ignore the 401(k) matches offered by their employers (despite my pleas), are comfortable having debt, and spend like they all have huge inheritances coming to them," she writes, adding, with hyperbole, we hope, "And these are my college-educated peers. Fellow finance majors, for crying out loud."
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Posted
May 19 2008, 07:14 PM
by
Karen Datko
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Do you want to be absolutely sure that you'll work many long years and retire with little more than a paltry Social Security check? Then make sure you read and obey Kevin's "10 steps to avoid becoming a millionaire" at No Debt Plan. This blogger manages to put a humorous spin on a very sobering topic. Here's No. 6: "Ignore work benefits. 401(k) plan? Sounds kind of funny to me. Why would the company want to give me money? Plus, I'd miss that 3% in every paycheck."
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Posted
Apr 10 2008, 12:25 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
We sometimes have this discussion with our younger friends: You're not saving for retirement because ...? But young folks aren't the only ones thinking they won't live long enough or can't save enough, or otherwise are resigned to living out their days on meager Social Security payments. Michael B. Rubin at Beyond Paycheck to Paycheck excoriates just about every silly excuse people have for not saving for the future. (To read his post, click here.) No. 1 is "my house is my retirement savings." Michael says, "Oh c'mon! Open a freakin' newspaper."
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Posted
Mar 24 2008, 11:29 AM
by
Karen Datko
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Grace's post at GRACEful Retirement will sound familiar to many aging boomers watching the effect of Wall Street gyrations on their retirement accounts. Grace is 58 and playing catch-up after getting a late start on socking away money for her hopefully golden years. "I started this blog last July with $176,000 in retirement savings. Now I'm down to $146,000, notwithstanding the money I keep putting in," writes Grace, who plans to retire in 10 years. That drop, "when I allow myself to think about it, scares me to death." Yet she continues to invest $1,025 a month in index and growth funds. She tells herself she's right to keep buying when the market is down because it inevitably will come back up. She asks, "When do I find out if I passed the test?"
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Posted
Mar 11 2008, 12:06 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Han Solo has too much debt. Darth Vader "wants it all, now!" Yoda didn't save for a rainy day and certainly didn't anticipate that he'd live to be 900. Why else, Monevator asks, would he be dining on pulped vines in a leaky hut? Monevator goes where another personal-finance blogger we've featured has gone before -- wait, that's another space opera, but you catch our drift -- and writes about personal-finance lessons to be gained from Star Wars. In "Who's your Star Wars money hero?" Monevator examines the financial blunders of our favorite second-trilogy characters, gives them directions for success, and also recommends PF blogs and books to read. (Monevator rightly, we believe, stays away from what he calls "the Trilogy of Shame.")
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Posted
Feb 20 2008, 05:24 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Shana at Smart Easy Money knows it can be tiresome -- even patronizing -- to say something like "If I knew at your age what I know now." But Shana, at the ripe old age of 37, manages to explain 10 financial lessons she wishes she'd known in her 20s with humor and good grace. Lesson One: "Save early and often." Shana regrets that she didn't contribute to a 401(k) until she was 29, and then put in only 4%. She adds: "Well, I did have a 401(k) for about 15 minutes when I was 23, but I'd only contributed about $20. By the time I paid the fees for cashing it out (when I left the job), it was only about $3."
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Posted
Jan 31 2008, 01:58 PM
by
Karen Datko
As an article at MSN Money points out, more middle-class people are finding that homeownership is beyond their financial reach. But a couple of personal-finance bloggers have offered ideas for making it more affordable. Savvy Frugality says he agrees with parts of the article, but wonders: "Why not buy a home you can afford -- the proverbial 'starter home' -- or simply move to an area where housing is cheaper?" Stephanie at Stop The Ride offers 13 reasons why a smaller house is better. No. 1 is affordability.
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Posted
Jan 23 2008, 03:02 PM
by
Karen Datko
The blogger at Grad Money Matters religiously funds his 401(k) retirement account at work. In fact, he maxed out his contribution last year. He was shocked when he checked his returns earlier this week and saw that they were negative. That's the day he finally understood "why people who have money still worry about money." He also learned some lessons about investing for retirement. First among them is not to check your returns every day if you want peace of mind. Don't fixate on the stock market's recent slide; investing requires a long-term outlook. In that context, his recent 5% loss "is but a ripple in the pond," he says.
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Posted
Jan 22 2008, 12:49 PM
by
Karen Datko
Mike knows how to build houses and fix cars, but he's not much into personal finance. So after one of Mike's co-workers withdrew all funds from his own 401(k) when it started losing money, Mike wondered if he should do the same. He turned to his favorite personal-finance blogger, glblguy, for advice. "My immediate reply was 'No!' and I explained to him why this was such a bad idea," glblguy writes at Gather Little by Little.
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