Money Tips Network

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.)

Single, no kids, late thirties, high-COL metro area.

What do you do for a living?

I'm a lawyer at a large corporate law firm.

How much do you earn annually?

It varies based on bonuses.  Last year I earned roughly $350,000 due to a special retention bonus; this year, it will probably be more like $310-$320,000.

How does this amount break down (salary, bonuses, etc.)?

In Naked With Cash, seven anonymous Consumerism Commentary readers publicly track and analyze their finances on a monthly basis. For almost a decade, I tracked my own finances on Consumerism Commentary; now I’m sharing the benefits of public accountability with the participants. I’ve partnered with financial planners who will offer some guidance along the way. Read this introduction to learn more about the series.

Alyson.Casey

I try to be frugal with my meager fellowship earnings while I finish grad school — I really do. But at the same time I want to eat healthy, and this is why I’m broke. It’s much easier to eat healthy at the grocery store than at the fast food places around campus. But guess [...]

This is why you’re broke, Whole Paycheck edition from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

This blog was posted by Alyson.Casey

SUPER BOWL!

Everyone knows the Super Bowl will be upon us in little more than a week. In many ways, the event has become the new Thanksgiving, hasn’t it? That’s because the people you invite to a Super Bowl party are chosen. You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends, and the annual, fast-becoming-traditional, Super Bowl gathering is a gathering of friends.

Just like Thanksgiving, a traditional menu is evolving as well, usually centered around things like chili, chips and dips. This spreads the work among all attendees, so the hostess isn’t the only one expiring in front of the oven. When we lived in California, Noel was our primo Super Bowl party host, because he makes a killer white chicken chili and encourages everyone to see if they can make anything better. Great food, great company — even those who don’t care for football have a great time.

CHANGE

Gallup’s annual “Mood of the Nation” poll sampled 1,018 adults from across the United States earlier this year, and the results show that more Americans say they are worse off financially right now than they were a year ago. 42 percent of the respondents consider themselves to be worse off, 35 percent say they are better off, and 22 percent claim to be in the same financial position.

This sentiment is surprising considering the economy has been continuing to improve and the stock market (measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average) was up 26.5 percent in 2013, the biggest annual increase in 18 years. Also, the official unemployment rate for December 2013 was 6.7 percent, the lowest rate of unemployment since October 2008, the last month before the economy began seeing the effects of the Great Recession.

Claes Bell

Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your brain is just not evolved to process big numbers. In our journey from hunter-gatherers to wage slaves, homo sapiens never quite evolved the mental machinery needed to efficiently process the high numbers we typically face when doing things like buying cars, taking out mortgages [...]

How big numbers short-circuit your brain and how to fight back from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

This blog was posted by Claes Bell

In Naked With Cash, seven anonymous Consumerism Commentary readers publicly track and analyze their finances on a monthly basis. For almost a decade, I tracked my own finances on Consumerism Commentary; now I’m sharing the benefits of public accountability with the participants. I’ve partnered with financial planners who will offer some guidance along the way. Read this introduction to learn more about the series.

J.W. is thirty-one years old and a father of two. He works in retail and is underemployed, and his wife and kids are on state medical plans. Their household income is supplemented by SNAP (food stamps). Read his bio for more information about his family’s situation.

Claes Bell

This week I got an electronic mail from Target containing some sad news. Addressed with maximum sincerity to “Dear Target Guest,” (I always get a warm fuzzy feeling when they call me that) the email notified me that in addition to the theft of 40 million customers’ payment information reported in December, thieves had also [...]

Target, other retailers sorry about data breaches but somehow they just keep happening from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

This blog was posted by Claes Bell

General Electric has been active in the financing business for a very long time, but not in a way that hits you in the face. Don’t let their obscurity fool you, though. In banking, size has its advantages and, in terms of assets, General Electric is a powerhouse. Its banking operations have survived a number of recessions, including the Great Recession, and even grown. It therefore answers the bell on the most important question you can have about a bank: How safe is it?

GE Capital Bank Savings Accounts

GE Capital Bank isn’t a traditional bank, in that it doesn’t have branches and offer consumer mortgages and personal loans. It lends primarily to businesses, and its retail operation focuses on deposit-taking (i.e., savings accounts and similar activities).