Search results for financial planning
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Posted
Oct 25 2007, 06:47 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Sarah Winfrey at partner blog Wise Bread . Most of us have ideas we think might sell, and most of us think we'd love to work for ourselves. Is that really a good idea? Here are 10 things to consider if you're thinking about starting your own business. Do you care? You have a good idea that might make some money, and you envision yourself conducting business by cell phone while watching the waves in Fiji. But do you actually care? Do you want to make people's lives better, easier or more fulfilling through your new business? If you don't care, you'll run out of steam before the long haul of building a business even gets started. Do you have what it takes? The reality of an entrepreneur's life is, well ... craziness. Long hours. Disappointments. Patience even when the bills are piling up. You are investing all of yourself and much of your future in the public's response to a product. If you don't have the persistence, the blasted stick-with-it-ness to keep going no matter
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Posted
Nov 16 2007, 08:20 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar . Recently, one of my friends quit his job as an actuary for a large insurance company. He’s single, has a Ph.D. in mathematics, and has no debt. He quit for one reason and one reason alone. I’ll let him tell it to you: I got tired of going home every night mentally exhausted and sitting in front of the TV playing Xbox. It’s what I did almost every night, without a weekend. I made a lot of money, but I had no life to do anything at all. My job ate all of my energy. What’s he doing now? He works the night shift at a local factory, driving a forklift. Half the time he sits on the forklift waiting for a new load, so he has started reading a lot of the classics. He makes $11 an hour, far less than he earned as an actuary, but enough to live on, because he banked most of his income from his actuarial work. You know what? I applaud him. I think it was an excellent response to what I call professional exhaustion. Here’s why I think
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Posted
Nov 01 2007, 07:34 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post was written by Philip Brewer at partner blog Wise Bread . When people resist the idea of budgets, the most common reason is that they view a budget as an unwelcome constraint. That's completely wrong. A budget is not a constraint. It's a tool for maximizing pleasure and satisfaction. People do operate under constraints. Everybody has limited resources and time. Everybody operates within a constellation of other constraints: legal, moral and social, as well as old obligations and family expectations. My point is that the constraints don't come from a budget; they come from the real world. A budget is a tool for managing your resource use in the face of those constraints. A budget allows you to plan how to allocate your limited resources so that your expenditures align with your values. If you attempt this without a plan, you easily can slip into a situation in which your spending doesn't match your values: You can't afford dinner out with your friends because you bought a book
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Posted
Dec 31 2007, 08:36 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This devil's advocate post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. What do Suze Orman, Robert Kiyosaki, David Bach and every other so-called personal-finance expert have in common? They don't know you, but they know exactly what's wrong with you and how to fix it. Orman thinks you're a moron, that you need tough love, and that those 0% financing offers from Ford are awesome. Kiyosaki says you're like his poor dad, you should aspire to be like his rich dad (who apparently isn't real), and that you should buy one of his books. Bach thinks, without the indignation that comes with Orman, that you should get out of your own way and make things automatic. I think you should ignore personal-finance experts -- all of them. You might think this is a self-serving devil's advocate post -- and it is, because personal- finance bloggers aren't experts. Then again, bloggers don't treat you badly and tell you how you need a wake-up call. Bloggers just write about themselves and invite you to check out how normal and bad at personal finance we are. Experts are a totally different animal, and here's why you should ignore them.
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Posted
Jan 09 2008, 06:00 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller. ![clip_image002[6]](http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/images/smartspending/WindowsLiveWriter/ThinklikeMr.SpockbutactlikeCaptainKirk_104EF/clip_image002%5B6%5D_thumb.jpg)
Sound personal-finance and investing decisions flow from two things -- knowing the numbers and knowing ourselves. If we know the numbers but not ourselves, our decisions will look good on a spreadsheet, until our real-world decisions deviate from the plan. If we know ourselves but not the numbers, our decisions may feel right, but will lead us down the wrong path. What's the answer? We need to think like Mr. Spock, but act like Captain Kirk. Allow me to explain.
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Posted
Jan 10 2008, 01:09 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Ana's thoughts upon reaching her 35th birthday will sound familiar to many people: "Looking back, I've been a bit of a wild child. I shudder to think of how much money I have spent over the years on alcohol, cigarettes and assorted junk that has long been thrown out," she writes at DebtFree-Revolution. She also has a mere $391 in her retirement account.
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Posted
Jan 16 2008, 08:40 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Madison at My Dollar Plan is so disgusted with the illogical way contestants play "Deal or No Deal" that she's thinking about not watching it anymore. It's all mathematics, people, specifically a concept called "expected value," she says. Madison contends that if you apply the equation, you won't walk away like the lady who turned down a $5,500 offer from the "Banker" and became the first contestant to end the game with a penny. She'd earlier rejected higher offers, including one for $207,000.
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Posted
Jan 14 2008, 02:57 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Inspired by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's advisory system and his own quirky sense of humor, Frugal Guy at A Frugal Living Blog by a Frugal Guy has devised his own Financial Risk Advisory System. It has five "threat levels" ranging from green to red, and it's even written in bureaucratese. For instance, if you're at Threat Level Red (underemployed/using credit), he advises that you "implement extreme frugality initiatives" and "prepare selective defaulting plans." If you're fortunate enough to be at Threat Level Green (employed/positive savings), "It is the responsibility of citizens in this state to undertake efforts at budget preparation and to adequately prepare for an involuntary transition to a higher threat level."
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Posted
Mar 03 2008, 05:57 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from J.D. Roth at partner blog Get Rich Slowly. Do you save for one thing at a time, or do you pursue several goals at once? If you're like me, you work toward several financial goals simultaneously, but you dump most of your money in one account. It's easy to forget how much you've saved for each goal. And it's easy to borrow money from one objective to pay for something else. In his book "The Six-Day Financial Makeover," Robert Pagliarini advocates "purpose-driven investing." I've found that I can apply that concept to my personal bank accounts as well.
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Posted
Mar 11 2008, 12:06 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
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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