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Five Cent Nickel

Written by a man who has been meticulously recording his finances since 1997 (stored in Quicken), Five Cent Nickel is one of the oldest and most respected blogs around. This blog often provides great commentary on—and summaries of—useful financial tips featured by other publications. If you’re too lazy to read every little money article out there, just stop by Five Cent Nickel and get the cream of the crop.

Latest Posts from Five Cent Nickel (page 5)

Should You Pay Your Children for Good Grades?

Published Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - 06:00 by Five Cent Nickel

This is a guest post from Suba Iyer. I grew up in India. We didn’t have a concept of weekly/monthly allowances. If we needed anything we would ask our parents. If they felt it was reasonable and affordable for them, they would buy us the stuff. We never handled cash on our own other than the occasional birthday or other holiday money. No one got allowances, so we didn’t miss it either. […]

Twelve Tips for Minimizing Your Tax Bill

Published Monday, March 25, 2013 - 10:31 by Five Cent Nickel

Want to reduce your taxes? Of course you do. We all do. Well, the latest issue of Money Magazine has a list of 12 ways to reduce your taxes. Here’s a quick rundown along with some thoughts on each. Deduct state sales taxes. You have a choice between deducting state income taxes or state sales taxes. Even if you didn’t save receipts, you can use a tabled value from the IRS. […]

Taxes Done, I-Bonds Requested

Published Sunday, March 24, 2013 - 11:10 by Five Cent Nickel

With Tax Day fast approaching – and a soul-crushing week in my rearview mirror – I’m pleased to report that our taxes are done. We once again ended up owing and we did the old overpay to get I-Bonds trick. So now… We wait. As a reminder, the Treasury (mostly) eliminated paper savings bonds a couple of years ago. […]

The Elusive Goal of Financial Independence

Published Thursday, March 21, 2013 - 15:55 by Five Cent Nickel

I was having the “how much does it take” conversation with someone the other day. That’s always a tough one, but perhaps tougher than ever these days. The “how much does it take” conversation concerns how much money one needs to be financially secure. It’s always a tough call because of all the variables involved, but it is so much harder today because low interest rates are a real game-changer. […]

Rating Your 401(k) Plan Administrator

Published Tuesday, March 19, 2013 - 22:09 by Five Cent Nickel

Two years ago, a survey asked a sampling of Americans whether, if they had a choice, they would prefer more money or a better boss. Since most of us are a bit cash-hungry, one might think the answer would be the former. But instead, the survey found a sizable majority (65%) would actually pick a better boss. […]

Figuring the Value of Our Benefits

Published Monday, March 18, 2013 - 19:21 by Five Cent Nickel

Last week, Suba Iyer wrote about factoring in the value of your benefits when evaluating compensation packages. That got me to thinking about the value of my benefits at the work, and so I did a bit of digging. As it turns out, my employer breaks everything down in terms of deductions from my pay alongside their contributions. […]

Ally Financial Failed the Fed’s Stress Test

Published Friday, March 15, 2013 - 09:03 by Five Cent Nickel

Not sure how I missed this, but the WSJ reported last week that Ally Financial recently failed one of the Fed’s stress tests. They tested the 18 biggest banks in the country and 17 passed. Apparently their “Tier 1 Common” ratio came in too low (1.5% vs. […]

Factoring in the Value of Benefits in Your Compensation

Published Thursday, March 14, 2013 - 13:15 by Five Cent Nickel

This is a guest post from Suba Iyer. When I graduated and started looking for my first job a few years ago, I ended up with 2 jobs – one in a very prestigious University and another in private sector. The decision was quite easy, the University offered me $52,000 after negotiation and the private company beat that by $15,000 and offered $67,000 without any negotiation. […]

Savings Rates Over Time

Published Wednesday, March 13, 2013 - 22:21 by Five Cent Nickel

In his post yesterday, Richard talked about the remarkable decline in savings rates over the years. Inspired by this, I visited the St. Louis Fed’s website where they have an excellent graphing tool that lets you visualize the savings rate over time. Below you can see a graph of savings rates in the US from 1959 to present. That’s the widest interval for which data were available. […]

Are Savings Habits Generational?

Published Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - 22:00 by Five Cent Nickel

One of the most disturbing long-term trends in personal finance is the steep decline in savings rates over the years. There is a distinct difference in how Americans save today and how they saved in past generations. This raises a couple key questions about the present and the future: Are savings habits a product of the different influences and experiences of each generation? […]