Money Tips Network

Here's an email I recently received from a reader:

Some background info: My baseline gross salary is $74k, but with recent overtime it's looking like I'm on pace to make closer to $85k this year. I've been contributing 30% pre-tax dollars to my company 401k plan. They match 50% up to the first 8% I contribute, so basically I get a free 4%.

On my previous pay period, I hit my max $17,500 pre-tax contribution limit. In that same pay period, there was also a new line item for after-tax contribution spillover, so now I have $280 of after-tax money in my account.

My max employer match is 4% if I put in 8%. I just called my benefits office and they clarified this is applicable to both pre-tax AND after-tax contributions to the retirement account.

I'm 25 years old and don't have a Roth IRA setup yet.

I find that defaulting to pessimism about the economy is a great way to hedge your emotional bets. If things turn out well, then I can count it a pleasant surprise. If things turn out badly, at least I have the satisfaction of having been right.

Lately though, there have been some cracks in my gloomy facade. I look at economic data every day, and there is so much information that there is bound to be a mix of bad and good. (You can pretty much always spin the economy however you please.) Still, beyond the usual week-to-week gyration of data points, there are a number of trends that seem to have real significance for the economy — and many of these happen to be positive.

So, coming from a confirmed skeptic, it should mean something that I can find five reasons to be optimistic about the economy:

If you’ve got a busy family, or are constantly on the go, you’re probably looking for easy recipes to make high quality yet cheap meals your family will love. At The Simple Dollar, we’re not only looking out for your pocketbook, but also your other precious resource – time. That’s why we put together a list of cheap meals that are also easy to put together. Not only are these recipes easy, almost all of them can be prepared vegetarian or vegan. If you need a few quick tips to make your meal prep easier, look for the additional resources towards the bottom.

Easy Dinner Recipes

Dinner is often the most rushed time for a busy family. Family members get home at different times from work, school or social activities. So, dinner is especially difficult to get the whole family together. Next time you want the whole family at the dinner table, tempt them with one of these great meals. Just don’t let them know how easy it was to throw it all together!

There is no shortage of personal finance advice available. I’ve been known to produce a bit myself here and there.

There are recurring themes like “buy vs. rent,” “spend less than you earn,” “the magic of compounding,” and so forth which are the cornerstones of personal finance, saving, and retirement planning. They’re cornerstones because there’s a lot of wisdom behind them.

Checklists and more checklists

I ran across Richmond Savers today, which is run by a couple of CPAs in my part of the country.  The community is local to Virginia’s capital, but they have a list of financial guidelines that they try to live by every day.

If you’ve read lists like these before, the themes are very familiar.  They’re the important financial issues that most of us deal with at one point or another: credit and debt, big expenses like automobiles and houses, health and wellness, and investing.

The big financial goal that Sarah and I have in front of us is to reach a point where we can live off of the proceeds of our investments, allowing us to walk away from work.

In essence, that’s what retirement is. Between Social Security (which one can see as an investment built up over a lifetime of working) and additional retirement plans and pensions, people often live out their later years by using the proceeds of their earlier working years.

Our goal, however, is early retirement. We want to do it as quickly as possible. I thought it might be interesting to walk you through our game plan.

Why?

Why do we feel the need to do this?

Simply put, Sarah and I both feel called to do things with our life that don’t necessarily earn any sort of income. We both have some big dreams about volunteerism. I’d like to write novels (which is a pretty poor guarantee of income).

This post comes from Sean T. Johnston at our partner site Zing!

Being a renter has its advantages. For the most part, you don’t need to concern yourself with costly indoor or outdoor maintenance. When your lease is up, you can just leave. You don’t have to worry about selling the property.

But as convenient as renting is, you are, in essence, paying someone else’s mortgage. While the responsibilities of being a homeowner are greater, so are the rewards. You can make whatever modifications you’d like without having to worry about a landlord. In addition, there are lots of tax deduction options available to homeowners that aren’t there for renters.

Link for teaser title: 

http://www.wisebread.com/bestdeals/today

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It’s a weird connection on the surface.

The more time I spend reading, the fewer books I buy or even think about buying.

The more time I spend actually playing games, the fewer games I buy or even think about buying.

This phenomenon repeats itself over and over again. When I pay more attention to an activity that I care about in my life, I tend to spend less money on it (to a certain point, of course).

(I’m going to use board games and books as examples for this post because they’re straightforward, but all of this could be true of any hobby that I’m deeply passionate about – or any hobby that you’re passionate about.)

This article is by editor Linda Vergon.

This week, Phoenix, Arizona, had extreme flooding and, before that, Napa, California, experienced a 6.0-magnitude earthquake. Landslides, earthquakes, extreme heat, floods, hurricanes, severe weather, space weather, thunderstorms and lightning, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and wildfires are just some of the natural disasters that can plague us in a given year. Yet “nearly 70 percent of Americans have not participated in a preparedness drill or exercise outside of fire drills at their place of work, school or home in the last two years,” according to Gwen Camp, director of FEMA’s Individual and Community Preparedness Division.