Posted 2 weeks 4 days ago by Philip Brewer
Do you need a kick in the pants to get you saving for retirement? Do you need someone to wave their arms and run around screaming that your whole future is at risk, in order to motivate you to put some serious money aside and take the time to learn how your 401(k) works? If so, this is the book for you.
Posted 3 weeks 3 days ago by Philip Brewer
Early retirement is a topic I've always been interested in. The particular version of it that this book deals with--living well on less money, as a means to getting by without having to work at a regular job--is not only interesting, it's the life I'm living. Allowing for the fact that it's aimed right at my own personal sweet spot, I liked it even better than I expected. It reads like the author started following me around a year ago, figured out exactly what questions I needed answered, then carefully and thoughtfully wrote a book to answer them.
Posted 5 weeks 10 hours ago by Philip Brewer
When investing in things that pay an interest rate--things like CDs and bonds--it's tempting to try to get the maximum interest rate, and then to try to lock up that rate for as long as possible. There's an alternate strategy that provides good, stable returns with a lot less stress and a lot less need for predicting the future: Laddering.
Posted 11 weeks 14 hours ago by Philip Brewer
Talk about investments and most people think stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, plus maybe real estate and commodities like precious metals. Let's call those "financial investments." You buy them with money and you hope that they will eventually return money in the form of interest, dividends, or a profit when you sell it. Financial investments are great, and everybody should have a plan for building a portfolio of them, but there are also non-financial investments, and non-financial investments can often yield a higher return.
Posted 13 weeks 4 days ago by Jabulani Leffall
With the use of provocative phrases such as "hard sell," "sharp-rise," "capital injection," inflation," "surge" and "double-digit growth," is it any wonder that watching real-time business news on television seems more and more akin to watching skin flicks. And oh what an empty feeling when the television goes off.
Posted 14 weeks 2 days ago by Kate Luther
Having balanced your budget and analyzed your risk, you're now ready to start tackling that "investing" entry on your list of new year's resolutions. But where do you start? When should you buy? How can you get the best return on your investment?If you've never heard of dollar-cost averaging, you have now and if you're wondering how it all works, then you've come to the right place.
Posted 16 weeks 1 day ago by Xin Lu
The Federal Reserve just cut the interest rate by 0.75% between two official meetings! This is the largest cut since 1982 and it was like an adrenaline shot to the sagging stock markets. This move means different things for different people and for some consumers it is excellent news. How could these consumers take advantage of this event?
Posted 18 weeks 5 days ago by Philip Brewer
You don't hear much about the rentier class any more. Perhaps that's because we all expect to be members by retirement age. Perhaps it's because even the very wealthy now all seem to work at something, if only at being a celebrity for our entertainment. Whatever the reason, I recommend that you take advantage of its modern social acceptability, and join the rentier class sooner, rather than later.
Posted 20 weeks 5 days ago by Mark P. Cussen
There are ways to get a foothold in the markets without risking your principal. This blog will explain the strategy that banks and insurance companies use to produce indexed annuities and CDs. You can use this strategy to achieve higher returns for yourself than can be achieved with commercial products.
Posted 27 weeks 2 days ago by Philip Brewer
This is the first Wise Bread post that I've been afraid to write. I've thought about it many times, but haven't even gotten as far as making notes until today, when I finally figured out why it was so tough: It's going to be wrong. Five years from now, there's going to be one investment that did better than any other. Every asset allocation, besides 100% that investment, will turn out to have been wrong. In the face of that, how should we go ahead and allocate our investment dollars?
Posted 33 weeks 2 days ago by Nora Dunn
My introduction to David Bach was when I saw him speak at a financial conference a few years ago. He told an interesting story about a couple who came in for a consultation with him when he first worked in personal finance. They were in their mid 50s, had two children who were fully put through college, had two properties fully paid off, and were ready to retire with over $1 million in savings. The impressive factor was that they had managed to build and sustain this comfortable financial position with a relatively small family income.
Posted 36 weeks 7 hours ago by Philip Brewer
This is the perfect book for a Wise Bread reader. It covers just about everything we talk about here--life hacks, investing, frugality--and does it with insight and humor. (And not just a little humor. If you're at all interested in money, this book is hilarious.)
Posted 36 weeks 1 day ago by Julie Rains
You may have encountered some financial talk at cocktail parties or neighborhood cookouts. The discussions may have centered on low mortgage rates, debt consolidation deals, and skyrocketing stocks. Sorting through who really knows what they’re doing and who doesn’t can be tricky but, over time, if you watch the game enough, you’ll figure out who the experts are. Here's my take on the characteristics of the astute investor.
Posted 37 weeks 2 days ago by Philip Brewer
If you're one of the people whose investment goal is simply the maximum long-term investment return with the least effort on your part, then you're not going to find a better investment book than John C. Bogle's The Little Book of Common Sense Investing.
Posted 38 weeks 1 day ago by Nora Dunn
I don't care who you are. (Well, actually I do, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this).
What I mean, is I don't care about your background, education, financial prowess, or absolute lack thereof.
You need a Financial Planner!
Here are a few things to consider in your search for the perfect Financial Planner and why you even need one at all.
Posted 39 weeks 1 day ago by Philip Brewer
Along about the middle of the dot-com boom--when the market had already had two years of 20% annual gains--I read an article that suggested that individual investors had no need of a cash reserve, because they could use credit cards in an emergency. As I explained in my article about the credit squeeze , I think keeping a cash reserve is especially important right now, but I mention this article because I think it highlights a fundamental distinction in the way people think about investment returns.Posted 42 weeks 4 days ago by Philip Brewer
I read a lot of investment books. I read mainstream books, where the author assumes the future is going to be a lot like the recent past, but I also like the "economic disaster" books where the author warns that something (government debt, globalization, inflation, energy crisis, stock market crash, real estate debt, hedge funds, derivitives, etc.) will send the economy off the rails. Their portfolio recommendations are so different (stocks, bonds and money markets versus gold, silver, and stockpiled food) that it's hard to find the right path. There is one thing, though, that's always a good investment: Yourself.Posted 43 weeks 1 day ago by Julie Rains
Are you eager to get started in stock-market investing but want to take it slow and easy at first? A few of the simplest ways to get in are: open a DRIP (dividend reinvestment plan) account; open a ShareBuilder account; or open an account with an online discount brokerage firm.Note: I’ve intentionally left out mutual fund investing for now because I am focusing on investing in individual stocks for this post. Just to let you know, though, I moved from DRIPs to mutual-fund investing, and then to mutual fund/stock investing via a TD Waterhouse account (now TD Ameritrade). Later, I opened an account with ShareBuilder on behalf of my oldest son with the goal of teaching him about stock-market investing.Have more to say? Join the discussions at Wise Bread's Finance and Frugality Forums.
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| Posts | Cmts | |
|---|---|---|
| Carrie Kirby | 4 | 2 |
| Julie Rains | 3 | 12 |
| Linsey Knerl | 11 | 25 |
| Margaret Garcia-Couoh | 3 | 3 |
| Myscha Theriault | 6 | 23 |
| Nora Dunn | 3 | 5 |
| Paul Michael | 10 | 21 |
| Philip Brewer | 11 | 66 |
| Xin Lu | 10 | 31 |
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