This Weekend in Personal Finance |
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I'm very busy this weekend figuring out how to use some of the gifts received from my wedding... Thus the biggest winners are the Bissell SpotBot and a George Foreman Grill with the removable plates for easy cleaning.
Ben at MoneySmartLife has a way to get a free $125. It requires signing up for a credit card. I've tried these things in the past, but I end up not keeping everything straight and executing. For instance, I have a Sharebuilder account that I started for the bonus and I never think about it. I probably have to make a trade to get the bonus and I haven't done that.
Golbguru wrote an article that drew some controversial comments - Think About Your Finances Before Having (More) Children. I think it's a wise plan for the child's sake. Like him, I'll avoid all issues (religious and otherwise) about when to have children. There are many other factors to consider, but I think finances is one that's often overlooked.
Silicon Valley Blogger has a ton of various historic market and commodity charts. The most interesting one to me is the Nikkei index. Those of us in the US have been conditioned to expecting 8-12% in the stock market over the "long term." What you consider long term may vary, but if you invested money about 20 years ago, you'd break even and that's after a run-up from since 2003. Once again, I would invest internationally to limit the risk of this happening in United States.
The Sun's Financial Diary talks about his Buy-and-Sell activities on Amazon. I've thought about doing this for a little while, but I'm just a little too lazy to keep up with it. I'd rather work on a business that grows than something that's probably forever going to be hit and miss taking my time.
While Generation X Finance was on vacation, Danny from MoneySocket.com wrote, "Don't Think About It, Just Start Saving Now". It's a good philosophy. I wrote some tips that will help with this earlier this week.
Henry at Binary Dollar writes about Geezo - a new financial website. I love text messaging - as long as it's free - and think it's a great way to get information on the go. I can definitely see how this would be useful for students.
Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity lists Five accounts you must have and four you don't. I usually get all set to find the exception or the missed account, but I found this to be dead-on. I'm working with about 4 checking accounts to different PayPal services for different reasons. I really need to take some time and consolidate them.
FreeMoneyFinance asks if coupons are a Waste of time. In a lot of cases, I believe this is the case. Why? Because I save money using store brands. I will use coupons in the rare case that there's no store brand, but that's the exception, not the rule.
Mighty Bargain Hunter writes that you can now get a Martha Stewart house. If you want to pay more for a house designed by a convicted felon, this sounds like a great idea. That might have been a little too harsh. There's a mention in this game about Atari and I'd say that Atari went out of business due to increased competition for a variety of sources while not improving their product. I don't think it was due to one E.T. game (which we did have when we were little - it was not that bad if memory serves).
Five Cent Nickel uses Yodlee to log into his TIAA-CREF account. I love his problem solving ability - it's a great workaround. Better yet it reminds me that I've had a Yodlee account since around 1999 and I haven't logged in. I wonder how many T.G.I. Friday's GoldPoints I have in there now. If they only earned interest...
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Next: Net Worth Update – July 2007
Lazy: I guess the 20 bucks I made from my little business failed to impress you :)
Depends.. Does it scale and how much did you make an hour with ordering and shipping…
Thanks for the mention, although I wasn’t on vacation. I could only wish!
Lazy Man Siad
“Once again, I would invest internationally to limit the risk of this happening in United States.”
2 quick points. Since the world is becoming one (in terms of trade), the stock market correlation between developed markets is stronger now that ever.
That being said, I still think you can play emerging markets safely through an exchange traded fund – specifically, EEM
Excellent points Dave, the correlation is stronger, but I’m not sure there’s still significant reason to diversify amongst them. I also like getting into a bunch of emerging markets through ETFs. I aim to make that up to 15% of my portfolio in the future (with probably another 25% in developed international countries).