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Posted
Jul 16 2008, 04:20 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller. If you are in the market to buy your first or next home, a HUD home could potentially save you tens of thousands of dollars on the purchase price. But there are some things to watch out for. In this article, we'll cover the basics of buying a HUD foreclosure home and some tips on getting the lowest possible price.
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Posted
Jun 25 2008, 06:52 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller. Generating multiple streams of income can have a major impact on your finances. Even an extra income of $500 each month could go a long way to paying down debt or increasing your investments. We often hear about the importance of diversifying our investments, but diversifying our income streams is just as important, particularly in difficult economic times. Let me show you just how valuable even an extra $500 per month can be. Then I'll list the factors to consider in deciding how to generate extra income, followed by 10 multiple-income-stream ideas.
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Posted
May 14 2008, 04:51 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller. With gas prices nearing $4 a gallon, saving money on gas is more important than ever. Fortunately, there are a lot of relatively simple and inexpensive things you can do to save money on gas. What follows is a list of 25 ways to reduce what you pay at the pump.
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Posted
Apr 30 2008, 05:37 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller. If you haven't figured it out by now, The Dough Roller isn't really about money; it's about life. More specifically, it's about how money affects our lives, and how we can leverage money to live and achieve our life's goals. Crunching numbers on a spreadsheet, while important, won't help us seek out and find our life's purpose, but there are three questions that might.
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Posted
Mar 26 2008, 06:32 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller. An earlier version appeared on MSN Money here. Traditional retirement looks like this: work until you're 65 or so, and then stop working until you die. More recently, views of retirement have begun to change, as more and more "retirees" are forced to work long after 65. There is a major problem with the traditional approach to retirement, which I'll come to in a moment. But first, how would you answer the following question: How much of your life today is spent doing what you want to do when you want to do it? If I were to answer that honestly, the answer would be about 20%. Yuck! And I don't hate my job. I wouldn't work where I do if I were independently wealthy, but I have a good job, work with good people, and earn a good wage. But I still work. I still get up five days a week, spend one hour getting ready for work, 50 minutes commuting to work, about nine hours at work, and then another 50 minutes returning home. Under the traditional views of retirement, I will keep doing this same routine for the next 24 years, then I'll stop cold turkey and do who knows what until the end of my days. I started The Dough Roller in part because I don't like the traditional way of looking at retirement. And what's worse -- here's the major problem I mentioned a moment ago -- I believe that looking at retirement as something that happens decades from now for many of us is one of the major reasons why so many people don't save for retirement. It's just too far away to worry about, many believe. I want to change that way of thinking, so consider the following questions:
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Posted
Mar 19 2008, 05:59 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. So let's not waste ours today. Here are four useful financial calculations that you can perform in your head: What am I giving up in retirement savings when I spend money today? This is an easy one: Add a zero to the price tag. Assuming you have 30 years until retirement and earn 8% annually on your investments, that $3,000 watch would have been worth $30,000 in retirement if you had invested the money instead. Coming down to earth a bit, the $4 latte (it's always the latte) purchased five days a week costs about $1,040 a year, or $10,040 in your retirement account 30 years later. How much do I need to earn before taxes to buy stuff that I want? Assuming you're in the 28% federal tax bracket, multiply the cost by 1.4. That means a $20,000 car costs $28,000 before taxes. Yikes! Of course, this doesn't account for state tax and Social Security and Medicare taxes, all of which would make the multiplier even higher.
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Posted
Mar 12 2008, 06:30 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller. As Roth IRA and Roth 401(k) retirement plans gain in popularity, unsuspecting investors may fall prey to a potentially expensive mistake. Money in a Roth 401(k) or Roth IRA account can be withdrawn tax-free, assuming the withdrawal meets IRS requirements. In contrast, withdrawals from traditional 401(k)s and IRAs are taxed as ordinary income when you take the money out. As a result, a dollar in a Roth account is worth a dollar at retirement, but a dollar in a traditional retirement account is worth a dollar minus the taxes you'll pay when you withdraw the money. What's the potential gremlin lurking in your 401(k)? It's treating Roth retirement savings the same as traditional retirement savings when making your investment decisions. Let's look at an example to see how this mistake could impact your investments.
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Posted
Feb 20 2008, 05:50 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller. "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit." -- Aristotle So often we define our lives by the big events. Graduation, marriage, children, a big promotion and retirement are some of the milestones that many of us remember -- or will remember -- as defining moments in our lives. What often gets neglected, however, are the little things we do each and every day that make the big events possible. As Aristotle said, it's what we "repeatedly do" that produces excellence. So when it comes to money and wealth, what do you repeatedly do? Financial security cannot be reduced to a simple formula. But, like excellence, it is the result of our daily habits. This can perhaps best be seen in the high-income individual who, due to daily habits, fails to achieve financial security. It also can be seen in the individual who, with relatively low income, achieves financial freedom. So what are the seven habits of wealth?
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Posted
Feb 13 2008, 06:27 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller. This past weekend my son had to have a video game. All Sunday afternoon he kept clamoring for one of us to take him to EB Games. Eventually we gave in, and off we went to the store with his hard-earned money. As fate would have it, the game he wanted was not in stock. But he needed his video-game fix, so he indulged in something I'm sure all of us have from time to time -- impulse buying. He picked a game that he had not planned on buying. What made the decision so important was that the store doesn't allow returns. He knew that and he knew it was an impulse purchase. We discussed it before he put down his money. We could have said no to the purchase and made him think about it for a day or two. But what would he have learned?
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Posted
Jan 23 2008, 05:56 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from partner blogger The Dough Roller. Would you cash a 35-cent check? Two days ago I wouldn't have known the answer to that question. Now I do, and, I'm sorry to say, the answer for me is yes. Yesterday I spent 30 minutes traveling to my bank and back to cash a 35-cent check. Here's the story and what I plan to do with my spoils. Two weeks ago I received a letter from my health insurance carrier. Excited to be receiving an unexpected check, I tore into the envelope and retrieved a check written out to me for the grand sum of $0.35. I went to chuck the check into the trash bin, but some unknown and unseen force held me back.
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