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Posted
Sep 15 2009, 07:26 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Jim Wang at partner blog Bargaineering.com.
One of the biggest challenges in almost anything you do is knowing where your blind spots are. In simpler terms, you don't know what you don't know.
So, today I'll point out four money mistakes you might be making that you don't even realize you're making. Hopefully, you're making none of them. If you are making one of these, don't beat yourself up over it. Now you know you're making it and you can take steps to fix it.
Paying too much tax too early. Would you give the government several hundred dollars a month, for no reason, just for the government to write you a check in April? Would you give the government a zero interest loan? Probably not (if you would, feel free to send me money). However, that's exactly what you're doing when you get a tax refund in April.
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Posted
Aug 10 2009, 04:52 AM
by
Karen Datko
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from J.D. Roth at partner blog Get Rich Slowly.
Kris called me at 7 the other night, just as I was sitting down to write the Friday "Ask the Readers" post. I was sorting through the week's questions when the phone rang.
"Are you busy?" she asked. "Can you do me favor?"
"Maybe," I said. "It depends on what it is."
"Ryan's car broke down," Kris said. "He's stranded here at the lab and can't get home. Can you give him a ride across town?"
"Sure," I said. But I did the mental math: The trip would take me a couple of hours. Because I hadn't yet started on the morning's post, I knew I'd be up late.
I drove to Kris' office to pick up Ryan. Ryan's a young man, just out of college. He did some temp work in the construction industry before getting a job as a scientist. He and his girlfriend are getting married in two weeks. They rented a house together and were supposed to have moved out of their apartment by tomorrow. With Ryan's car in the shop, that was going to be difficult.
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Posted
Aug 06 2009, 05:57 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar.
A while back, I wrote about my best friend (besides my wife), John. John doesn't spend money on frivolous things at all. He spends way less than he earns and is really careful with his money, saving up for the future. He lives in a very small apartment in a poor neighborhood, bicycles to work, and doesn't engage in any expensive hobbies.
Until recently, he had been socking his money away in an ordinary savings account. He bought a few certificates of deposit along the way to increase his savings rate, but he was (and still is) pretty risk-averse. He had no interest in putting his money at risk.
Several months ago, he shocked me by announcing he had purchased 20 acres of undeveloped land within driving distance of Des Moines, a pretty serious investment. Given how risk-averse John was with his money, the purchase really surprised me. He never struck me as a real estate developer.
Recently, he invited my family down to the land to camp for the weekend. He had wanted to "clean it up" some before we checked it out.
We were really impressed.
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Posted
Jul 31 2009, 06:33 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller.
One of the features of many 401(k) retirement plans is that you can borrow money from your own account. While 401(k) plans are not required to permit plan participants to take out loans, many plans do.
Much has been written about the pros and cons of 401(k) loans. One of the potential drawbacks comes into play if you leave your job (voluntarily or otherwise) while you still have an outstanding loan from your 401(k) plan.
When this happens, you generally have two options: Pay back the loan in full within 60 days, or don't. If you follow the second option, the IRS will treat the loan as an early withdrawal from your 401(k) plan and, with some exceptions, smack you with a 10% penalty of the outstanding loan amount AND require you to pay taxes on the distribution.
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Posted
Jul 22 2009, 09:18 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Grace of GRACEful Retirement is 60 years old, and she plans to work for nine more years. Otherwise, she won't have enough savings for even a modest retirement.
So a recent study was sobering news for her: Nearly half of retirees leave the workforce earlier than planned.
Here's how she summed it up: "Job loss, age discrimination, family duties (such as caring for a spouse or one's parents) or a personal health crisis make a mockery of well-laid plans."
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Posted
Jul 20 2009, 01:45 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This guest post comes from Frank Curmudgeon at Bad Money Advice.
I'd been hoping for a Brett Arends column I could say something nice about, and I got my wish in the form of "Baby boomers to kids: Kiss your inheritance goodbye." The theme of the article, or the first few paragraphs anyway, is the trend of dropping a nice inheritance for the kiddies from the retirement plan in reaction to the market swoon.
I myself am just a bit too young to be a baby boomer and my parents just a little too old, so I am merely an outside observer on this one. But I have to ask those kids of boomers out there: You were expecting to inherit something? From the Me Generation? Really?
A few paragraphs into Arends' column, he abruptly starts talking about annuities. This may seem like a non sequitur, but it follows nicely from the idea that retirees may be jettisoning the legacy for the children from their planning.
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Posted
Jul 13 2009, 07:58 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This guest post comes from "vh" at Funny about Money.
If you're in debt, you're not alone. AARP recently published the results of a poll (.pdf file) in which respondents were asked what proportion of their monthly income their monthly debt obligation amounted to.
Nineteen percent of adults under 50 said they owed more than their monthly income. That's almost one in five Americans. We old buzzards weren't much better off: 14% of people 50 and older were in the same boat.
Among the younger set, 24% saw about three-fourths of their monthly income go to debt service, and 25% spent about half their income on debt. An incredible 26% of us dinosaurs said we spent 75% of our pay on debt.
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Posted
Jul 06 2009, 08:35 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This guest post comes from Mr. GoTo at Go To Retirement.
Our vacation home is on a lake in a rural area. The nearest small town is a 20-minute drive. Although we do not live on a farm or have lots of land, it is a country lifestyle with a waterfront bonus. When we spend time here, I often think about the positive and negative aspects of retirement in a small town or rural community.
Benefits
Our neighbors across the street retired years ago and live at the lake full time. Our neighbors next door are retiring this summer and plan on living at the lake after they sell their city home and farm. That has caused me to think even more about the combination of small town country living and retirement for us.
Cost of living. Food is more expensive in our local grocery stores. If we were to drive another 30 minutes, we can find larger chain groceries with lower prices. When we start living here for longer periods, that might make sense.
Everything else that we buy in our rural community seems to be less expensive, including utilities, insurance, and maintenance services. I think that a lot of that is related to real estate. The land is cheaper, houses cost less, and property taxes are lower compared with city living. This flows into all other cost-of-living categories.
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Posted
Jun 23 2009, 03:21 PM
by
Karen Datko
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
"Fame! Fortune! Advice from Liz!" screams a headline at Liz Pulliam Weston's personal-finance blog.
Liz admits that it's a tad over the top. But she is seeking families to star in a series of webisodes produced by MSN. And they will get advice from Liz, author, award-winning columnist at MSN Money, and the Web's most-read personal-finance writer by far.
She writes in her "casting call":
We're looking for families with children who have questions about money issues, such as the best way to save for retirement or college, how to create a workable budget, the right way to pay off debt, protecting yourself from identity theft, how to polish your credit scores, and more.
Here's what you need to know if you want to volunteer:
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Posted
May 07 2009, 10:48 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This guest post comes from Frank Curmudgeon at Bad Money Advice.
A reader named Trent pointed me to a story that "60 Minutes" did recently, "Retirement dreams disappear with 401(k)s." It's not their best work, and I'm not one who thinks much of their best work.
Helpfully, the CBS Web site gives a near transcript of it, so I can easily quote the way over-the-top copy read by the reporter, Steve Kroft.
It was a gray, chilly morning in midtown Manhattan and a line of unemployed, mostly white-collar workers stretched for blocks around the Radisson Hotel. More than 1,000 middle managers, stockbrokers, consultants, secretaries and receptionists had come hoping to find a job.
It was called a career fair, but there was no merriment -- only a whiff of desperation.
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