Money Tips Network

…And What You Can Do About It

We live in a complex world where many things happen around us that we’re at a loss to understand or explain. High CEO compensation, soaring health care costs, a biased media and politicians being bribed are but a few of the things we see wrong with the world. Those (and other) problems have their root in a single trait of human nature. The study of that trait is called agency theory. In a nutshell, agency theory states that when a principal hires an agent, the agent is supposed to act in the best interests of the principal. However, despite being compensated in accordance with the principal’s interests, agents will pursue their own best interests, even at the expense of the principal compensating them. That may sound abstract and ivory-tower irrelevant to your daily life, but it isn’t. It affects your pocket book, directly and often.

Health Insurance

It’s a pretty common principle of time management. When you have a list of tasks to do, choose the one that’s hardest and do that first. That way, you tackle it with the most energy and the freshest mind.

What’s interesting is that many well-organized people use this principle quite well in the short term, but then completely discard it when looking at the long term. When they figure out today’s to-do list, they’ll choose the hard task, but when they look at plans that cover years, they avoid the hard task.

The easiest example I can think of for this phenomenon is retirement savings. Many, many people, when they’re first given the chance to save for retirement, choose not to save anything at all. They choose the easiest part first – not saving anything at all – and save the hardest part for later – socking away 10% or 15% for retirement.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to slowly adjust my daily routine to incorporate some new habits.

The biggest challenge I’ve found is that it’s really easy to slip back into old patterns without thinking about it.

My solution? I’ve set up “reminder” software on my computer – a mix of Fantastical and Breaktime – to yell at me about the new habits I’m establishing. It interrupts what I’m doing, but it grabs my attention.

Do You Really Need Self-Discipline? It depends on the angle you take on the challenges in your life. If you can find ways so that the path of least resistance leads you toward your goal in your day to day life, you don’t need much self-discipline. Doing that may not be as easy as it sounds, though. (@ dumb little man)

When we interact as humans, there's an implicit assumption that the other person is dealing with you in good faith. This is why liars are such insidious creatures; they prey upon the natural trust that must exist between people in a civilized society. However, you don't have to be at the mercy of the liar. There are a number of ways you can tell if someone is lying to you. If your natural suspicions are aroused, just look for these signs, and you'll become a human lie detector… or close enough. (See also: 16 Ways to Improve Your Body Language)

This article is by staff writer Kristin Wong.

A few months ago, I wrote about a job loss. It was a first for me. To recap, a high-paying client let go of the majority of their freelancers, which included me. I felt rejected, but I quickly came to terms with it: It’s business. However, since I’d been focusing 90 percent of my work life on this client for the past couple years, I consequently lost 90 percent of my income when I lost the job.

When employers first started looking up their potential new hires on social media sites, recent grads started deleting whole Facebook accounts. That was better than having a fully documented history of bad behavior, but in the near future people are going to have to do a lot better. A blank social media history is going to be a bad social media history. (See also: 9 LinkedIn Changes You Should Make)

Here's the latest in my series of six figure interviews, discussions with everyday people who have grown their incomes to at least $100,000 annually.

My questions are in bold italics and their responses follow in black.

Let's get started...

Tell us a bit about yourself (age, marital status, kids, where you live, etc.)
 
Age 39, married over 16 years, 3 kids (age 9, 6, and 3).  Live in suburban Seattle.
 
What do you do for a living?
 
The official title is "Group Finance Manager", essentially I am mid-level finance manager at a very large software company.  I am in a small but rapidly growing and highly strategic group, so I do report directly to the CFO of my organization.
 
How much do you earn annually?
 

Perhaps you’ve experienced this.  You’re going about a typical day at home.  You’re catching up on some homework (or housework), playing with the kids, or spending time with your roommates or significant other.

Then, you hear this banging in the next room that is enough to wake the dead.  Your clothes washer is in rebellion, it’s mad as all get-out, and it’s not going to take it anymore.  So you give it some attention:  You push on it a bunch of different ways during the spin cycle to try to calm it down.  But over time, this gets harder to do, and you’re getting a sinking feeling that it could fail any day now.

It would just have been a matter of time

This article first appeared on U.S. News and World Report Money.

Cell phone companies want you to sign up for expensive two-year contracts. Why wouldn’t they? It’s money directly in their pocket. They’ll use every sales technique they can to get you to sign on the dotted line for a new contract.

Sometimes, that contract winds up being a good deal, but there are several things you can do to make sure that you’re getting the best deal for the services that you need. Here are five tactics you can use to make sure that you’re getting the best deal.

Use multiple methods when shopping around. If you’re at the end of your cell phone contract, the ball’s in your court. You not only have the ability to choose the specifics of a new contract, you can also jump to a new carrier.