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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
Jul 28 2008, 02:07 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
An article in The New York Times about more Americans than ever living on the verge of financial ruin got "Frugal Zeitgeist" thinking about her own contingency planning for disasters. If a terrorist attack, a catastrophic illness or job loss struck, would she survive financially? This blogger does have a plan -- in fact, several -- and she is worth listening to. She's so financially disciplined that she just paid off the mortgage on her New York City apartment and did it in less than seven years (although some would argue that's not always the best way to use extra money).
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Posted
Sep 10 2008, 06:09 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
An article this week at MSN Money describes rude and inappropriate behavior by cashiers that is bound to drive shoppers elsewhere. We'll add another bad behavior by employees to the list. "So Cal Savvy" describes it ever so wonderfully in a post called "The 1950s housewife." Her story involves a bank employee who was a big sexist jerk. She dubbed him "Mr. BankTellerMan."
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Posted
Mar 17 2009, 01:32 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Some people are physically unattractive and wealthy. Some are poor and very cute. If you had to choose between the two, which would you pick?
J. Money opened that discussion at Budgets are Sexy. Here's the question he asked:
Would you rather be attractive as hell BUT you never make more than $30k a year for the rest of your life, or you're pretty damn ugly BUT you're as rich as Oprah Winfrey?
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Posted
May 21 2009, 05:34 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
How many ways is your iPhone saving you money? If you've overlooked its personal-finance potential, David at My Two Dollars lists 10 PF applications he's trying out.
David Weliver at Money Under 30 topped My Two Dollars' David with a list of his 16 favorite money-management iPhone apps. Banking, buying stocks and tracking your spending are just the beginning. The only finance activity these apps can't do is make money grow on trees. And many are free or dirt cheap.
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Posted
May 26 2009, 04:36 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.
I thought it would be fun to share an interview with my real millionaire next door, a man we'll call John. He used the basic tenets of money management to build wealth and to retire early. Here's how I described John when I first wrote about him last year:
John is a 71-year-old retired shop teacher who lives in a modest ranch house on half an acre, the same house he's had for over 40 years. He has an old barn filled with salvaged lumber, outdated appliances, and who knows what else. When he's around, he drives a junkie 25-year-old station wagon. But most of the time, he's not around.
He spends his winters in New Zealand helping friends on a dairy farm. His summers are spent fishing in Alaska. For a couple of months each year, he's home, puttering in the yard. Year-round, he rents his house to boarders. He leads a very active retirement.
John's story was popular with Get Rich Slowly readers, and many of you asked me to interview him. I had to wait for him to return from New Zealand, but recently the opportunity finally presented itself. John agreed to sit down for a chat.
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Posted
Jul 17 2009, 04:12 PM
by
Anthony Mirhaydari
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
What a week. Despite some apprehension among investors heading into the second-quarter earnings season, companies have reported some impressive numbers. This helped push the major indexes up some 7% since Monday.
So far, 55 of the S&P 500 companies have reported Q2 earnings. Among these, 71% have reported earnings above analyst expectations, 9% reported in-line results, and 20% fell short. Since 1994 a typical quarter sees 61% of companies beat estimates, 19% match, and 20% miss. Recession or no, corporations are clearing the hurdles of low expectations. The aggregate earnings "surprise" is 11.2% above estimates -- far above -11.3% surprise factor seen over the last eight quarters.
The overall impression is that executives are managing through this difficult economic period as they should: By hunkering down, cutting expenses, and waiting for a sales recovery. This is great in the short-term, as it limits the trickle-down effect of revenue compression on the bottom line. But it's not sustainable and it won't be enough to meet higher expectations in the third quarter.
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Posted
Aug 28 2009, 04:25 PM
by
Teresa Mears
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
To keep their most loyal travelers coming back, airlines are making it easier to qualify for elite status in their mileage programs. In some cases, they're also making it easier to earn miles, The New York Times reports.
"What we're seeing is a bit of a resurgence on the airlines' part in focusing on their frequent-flier programs," Tim Winship, who writes about loyalty programs for SmarterTravel.com, told The Times.
Unfortunately, the airlines don't seem to have made it easier to actually get a seat with your frequent flier miles. If anything, cutbacks in flights have made such seats harder to come by this year, the McClatchy News Service reported.
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Posted
Oct 06 2009, 03:57 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Retail sales dropped 3% or more during the 2008 holiday period. Same-store sales at a number of large chains were down much more than that. The trend was so bad that thousands of store locations closed early in 2009 and tens of thousand of workers lost their jobs.
The 2010 holiday sales season may be nearly as bad as last year’s. The National Retail Federation expects a hard winter.
The NRF reports that it expects holiday retail industry sales to decline 1% this year to $437.6 billion. The number falls significantly below the ten-year average of 3.39% holiday season growth.
The news may be bad for the entire industry, but it will be particularly troubling for retail chains that have already had difficult years.
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Posted
Mar 18 2008, 04:31 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
As a smart shopper, you normally pass on those extended warranties offered by the store cashier, don't you? Well, apply the same sound judgment when you're buying a new car. So says Consumer Reports, that respected consumer-advocate publication. Why? A recent survey of more than 8,000 readers shows you'll likely spend more for the extended warranty than you'll save on repair costs. On average, those who bought warranties spent $1,000 (for 2000 and 2001 model years) and got only $700 of benefit. Rik Paul, automotive editor for Consumer Reports, said buying an extended warranty is like betting against the house. "Extended warranties sell costly 'peace of mind' for repair nightmares that probably won't occur," Paul said. Who wins here? On average, dealers collected $795 for each extended warranty they sold last year, CR says.
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