I hope everyone is having a great weekend. I am as the Red Sox seem to be playing better as late. I can almost smell the start of football season. Preseason games will be here before you know it. Onto some articles that I liked this week…
I’m going to start with The Digerati’s Life Wheel of Wealth. I’m going to say more about this article, but you’ll have to wait until next week.
Ben at MoneySmartLife had one of the best stories I read in awhile. How money can change a life is a two hour conversation he had with a stranger making the transition from the wrong side of the tracks to the right side. I had a similiar experience once, but it was closer to 5 minutes than two hours.
Generation X finance talks about observations from an employers’ benefits fair. I particularly liked the conversation with The Outside Investor. It reminded me that people often say they are getting rich, not thinking that they could be getting richer.
Sun in his Financial Diary gives an awesome recap of many of his philosophies with money. I should write something like this… perhaps with a time line of when I started doing it and why.
Henry at Binary Dollar gives a run down on some mortgage lessons learned. Contrary to the advice that all mortgage companies are the same-ish, I found that you can get some pretty good rates if you look. A great place to start is Bankrate.com. You may be able to find that you can use one companies quote to get a better deal at another as I did.
Money, Matter, and More Musings gives some used
car buying tips. It’s very comprehensive – I’ll be bookmarking it for later use.
FreeMoneyFinance passes on some wedding savings tips. My wife found a great dress for $99 at David’s Bridal. Then she paid $500 for a dress on Ebay that retails new for $4400. It hadn’t been worn to a wedding before, but used in a modeling show. Long story short, everyone she consulted liked the $99 better (in a blind test). The designer dress will go back on Ebay soon where we can probably make a profit off it. Also think twice about the flower bud suggestion on this article. If the wedding was anything like ours, you won’t have several hours the day before to assemble bouquets.
Blueprint for Financial Prosperity says that debt isn’t a bad thing. I couldn’t agree more. It’s knowing what’s good debt and what’s bad debt that makes the difference. Having 10K of high interest credit card debt is bad… On the other hand, I’d gladly take a loan for a million dollars at 1% interest rate.
Mighty Bargain Hunter asks if stock picking contests are totally worthless. I have two minds on this one. There are no fundamental investing practices involved in stock picking contests, hence it’s largely worthless. However, if you become involved in such games, you are going to learn quite a bit about how the stock market works – and that is quite valuable.
Five Cent Nickel is reevaluating the value of including your home in your net worth. I’ve always said that your home should be in any net worth discussion. Otherwise what happens if you make a big extra payment on your mortgage? It would seem like that would be loss if you don’t account for it with increased home equity.
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