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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)

Small Business: Passion Matters

Published Thursday, March 7, 2013 - 06:00 by Five Cent Nickel

The board for the non-profit writing organization over which I preside had a meeting recently with a local legend, a board organization consultant. He was used to delivering the information he was giving us in several-hour workshops and he talked as fast as he could in the 90 minutes we had, while we scribbled furiously. […]

When Will the Bull Market End?

Published Wednesday, March 6, 2013 - 10:10 by Five Cent Nickel

Not quite four years ago — on March 9, 2009 — the stock market bottomed out. The Dow Jones Industrial average hit 6507.04, the S&P 500 hit 676.53, and the NASDAQ hit 1268.64. At that point, all three indices had fallen by more than 50% since their pre-bear peaks in October 2007. And yet, here we are. […]

Avoid This Ill.-Advised State of Monetary Madness

Published Tuesday, March 5, 2013 - 22:14 by Five Cent Nickel

What I’m about to reveal I don’t like to bandy about. In fact, I try to hide it when in polite company. So I’ve got to ask you to please not breathe a word of what I’m about to divulge. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I’m from Illinois. […]

Warren Buffett’s Tax Rate

Published Monday, March 4, 2013 - 19:33 by Five Cent Nickel

By now I’m sure you’ve heard about Warren Buffett paying a lower tax rate than his secretary. In fact, this was inspiration for the so-called Buffett Rule that was proposed back in 2011. Under the Buffett Rule, a 30% minimum tax rate would be imposed on individuals earning more than a million dollars per year. […]

You Can’t Avoid Risk

Published Friday, March 1, 2013 - 20:41 by Five Cent Nickel

Earlier this week, I ran across an interesting tool over on the Vanguard website. It’s embedded in an article called “The Truth About Risk” and it lets you tweak a model portfolio with sliders for stock, bonds, and cash. The upshot is that you can’t avoid risk. You can attempt to minimize your exposure to it, but there will always be some level of risk associated with your investing activities. […]

The Challenge of Defining Wealth

Published Thursday, February 28, 2013 - 21:10 by Five Cent Nickel

What do you consider wealth? The other day I was a guest panelist for a regional NPR call-in show dealing with personal finance problems. One topic for discussion was the different value people put on living within their means and saving money. It was interesting hearing how far apart different people’s views are on this topic. […]

Another US Credit Downgrade Looming?

Published Wednesday, February 27, 2013 - 23:01 by Five Cent Nickel

Remember back in August 2011 when Standard & Poor’s downgraded the US credit rating from Aaa to Aa+? Yeah, me too. S&P attributed it to: “The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed.” And guess what? The situation hasn’t improved. […]

Potluck: A Fiscal Attitude Worth Adopting

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

Though I live a fairly — ok, thoroughly — domestic life, I spend a lot of time as a guest or host. […]

Barclays Bank Online Savings and CDs

Published Monday, February 25, 2013 - 19:53 by Five Cent Nickel

Not quite a year ago, Barclays entered the online banking space. They launched an online savings account with a 1% APY as well as a series of CDs of varying terms with competitive rates. Since that time, they’ve held their savings rate steady and now find themselves near the top of the heap amongst the major online banks. Granted, it’s not a very tall heap. […]

What is Sequestration?

Published Monday, February 25, 2013 - 10:16 by Five Cent Nickel

Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand, you’ve likely heard the term “sequestration” bandied about over the past few months, with increasing urgency in recent weeks. If you check out the linked graph of Google search traffic for that word “sequestration” over the past 12 months you’ll see just what I mean. So what exactly is sequestration and why are people going so crazy about it? […]