Archive for March, 2006
« Previous EntriesGo Ahead, Reduce my Life to a Number…
Friday, March 31st, 2006I’m a 5.4! Huh? Anyway, the Bloglines “top links” list led me to this interesting little life quiz. I’m not sure if it really proves anything, but there is actually some good information attached to each life area, and it also includes advice from other test takers.
If anything, it’s fun to see how […]
Number of U.S. millionaires jumps to record high
Tuesday, March 28th, 2006I’m not sure what explains this, but the number of American millionaires reached a record high last year. The U.S. now boasts almost 9 million millionaire households, which is 9% more than 2004. I’d like to think it has something to do with all the personal finance blogs popping up all over the place, but […]
Inspired to save more by the men of Babylon
Monday, March 27th, 2006A part of all you earn is yours to keep. That’s one of the first wealth lessons Arkad taught to the less fortunate men of Babylon. Of couse, I’m referring to the book, The Richest Man In Babylon, which recently called to me from a dark corner of the book shelf and begged to […]
How Do You Measure Up as a Money Saver?
Saturday, March 25th, 2006According to the 2005 Retirement Confidence Survey (PDF) done by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a full 52% of all workers have less than $25,000 in savings. Even more shocking is that fully 70% are in the 25-34 age bracket!
In my age group, 35-44 (I’m 37), only 10% has saved somewhere between $100,000-$249,999. With a […]
The Holy Grail of Budgeting
Thursday, March 23rd, 2006Until November of last year, my idea of budgeting was listing all our expense categories on a spreadsheet, assigning amounts to each one, comparing the totals to our monthly income, and updating it once a month. I never really tracked our actual income & expense transactions against the spreadsheet, so it was pretty much useless […]
Let the Debt Reduction Begin!
Monday, March 20th, 2006If you read about my credit card hell VIP membership, then you already know 2006 is the year of debt reduction and getting back on financial track for me.
It all begins today because I came home from work to find a shiny new Discover card in my mail. They approved me for enough to consolidate […]
A cross cut shredder could save your a$$!
Saturday, March 18th, 2006You know all those wonderful credit card offers you get in the mail? What do you usually do with them? Hopefully you don’t just rip them in half, or even into tiny piece and toss them in the trash.
Why? Because they have YOUR name and address on them and someone might just fish them out […]
Paper or Plastic? er, I mean Electronic… Statements that is.
Friday, March 17th, 2006I was rifling through a stack of papers this morning trying to find a statement from one of my brokerage accounts. The frustration brought on by this search made me start thinking about the age old question… Should I choose paper or electronic statements?
It seems that every time I log into one of my […]
My Exclusive Membership in Credit Card Hell
Thursday, March 16th, 2006So, I guess it’s time to bare my soul and reveal just how bad my credit card situation really is. As I mentioned in my previous post about financial troubles, I’ve let myself get somewhat complacent over the past 2-3 years and we had some recent unexpected (large) expenses due to our home construction project.
Anyway… […]
Which online savings account is best?
Wednesday, March 15th, 2006Thanks to a post I found over at the 2 Retire At 50 blog, I was able to finally make my decision as to which high-yield online savings account to open. My choices were ING Direct, Emigrant Direct, and HSBC. ING is definitely well known for their famous ‘Orange’ savings account and you’ve probably even […]
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