Living for today - Planning for Tomorrow
I watched a great interview with JD Roth from Get Rich Slowly today. I was surprised to find out the interviewer was Ramit’s brother. I have to say I was impressed with Maneesh’s questions and he’s clearly an intelligent guy. So, now I’ve subscribed and will keep my eye on Maneesh’s site (Hack the System). Both Maneesh and JD Roth are doing a great job
If you happen to follow me on Twitter, you know that I put an offer in on a house last week. It was the first time I’ve actually attempted to buy a rental property and I definitely learned a few lessons. I keep a constant eye on all the properties in my area to get a sense of the real estate values, but also in
Have you seen this? It’s GREAT! Vanguard has a very “simple to use” tool that lets you slide a few bars and get an idea of whether your nest egg will last long enough to fund your retirement. They use the Monte Carlo simulation, which is a basically a really big math equation with lots of variable inputs. Since I have a bachelor of arts
If you haven’t already done so, now would be a good time to check your retirement accounts to ensure they are balanced appropriately and that you are contributing as much as you can. The maximum contribution amount for 2012 is $17,000 and if you’re 50 or older, you can contribute up to $22,500 to your retirement account. I have tried to keep our contributions maxed
Have I ever mentioned how much I absolutely love technology? Awhile back I posted an article about how we had cut cable back to just the local network channels and were paying $6.95 a month for an old Tivo subscription so we could record our favorite network shows. This has worked really well so we can watch shows like Modern Family and The Big Bang
I absolutely hate winter. I know I was destined to live somewhere South because I really do detest the winter months in Washington. It’s dreary, cold, gray and I only feel good when I happen to see how much more daylight we get than my friends in Alaska. All that being said, there is one month during the winter that I enjoy from a financial
Have you seen this great website for “America Saves Week”? It has a ton of great information about saving and I especially liked reading about people who have started saving and overcome their financial problems. Here are some great highlights of the site: Saver Stories: http://www.americasavesweek.org/read-savers-stories Assess Your Savings Progress: http://www.americasavesweek.org/assess-your-savings-progress Are You Saving Enough for Your Retirement: http://www.choosetosave.org/ballpark/ Mortgage Payoff Calculator:
In what is becoming a very commons occurrence in the US, Bank of America announced that it will be freezing it’s pension plans for existing employees starting in July. This means that worker’s pensions will only pay out whatever they’ve accrued until July. After July, Bank of America will start adding an additional 2-3% to their 401K matching for workers. http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/23/news/companies/bank_of_america_pension/ I have to admit,
Lately I’ve been spending some time looking over our budget to see if we have any areas that we can shave our expenses and I thought I’d summarize a few key data points. We have always strived to minimize our expenses for things that don’t matter to us. The result has been that we don’t have much of what I’d call “leakage” to our monthly
Up until recently I’ve always ignored all the short sale real estate listings in my area. I’ve had this assumption that short sales never actually get completed and that it takes many months of hassle to even find out it didn’t go through. In the past, I’d seen a number of friends try to buy short sales and not one of them were ever successful.