A few weeks ago, FMF at free money finance asked his readers who should pay for a date?  I meant to write about this a few weeks ago but got side-tracked.  In any event, I’d like to throw my hat in the ring now, because I think I have fairly unorthodox philosophy.  Of the five primary [...]

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As Hannah at The Penny Mine noted recently, most people are pretty bad at planning for intermediate-term goals.  Sure, these people will spend countless hours researching mutual funds for their IRA and call 15 banks in their area getting rate quotes on 6 month CDs, but when it comes to a new car fund for a purchase 7 [...]

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I got quite a bit of negative feedback to my post Calculate Your Personal Inflation Rate because in it I stated that inflation numbers are not, in fact, manipulated by the government.  Well, that statement really upset the tin-foil-hat conspiracy theorists.  I got a few emails telling me how wrong I am without any supporting evidence.  I got some [...]

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Carnival of Personal Finance
My post Invest In The Long Tail: An Amazon.com Case Study was featured in this weeks Carnival of Personal Finance #149 hosted by The Happy Rock.  Here are a few of my favorite posts from this week’s carnival.
Hannah at The Penny Mine writes On Intermediate Goals And Their Importance.  Hannah correctly notes that most [...]

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Earlier this month, Vanguard filed with the SEC to offer the Vanguard Global Stock Index Fund.  It will track the FTSE All-World Index, a market-cap-weighted index of large and mid-cap stocks all over the world.  It will be offered in both Investor and ETF share classes with expense ratios of 0.45% and 0.25%, respectively.
With approximately [...]

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Ever heard the phrase” if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is?”  I hope so because I wrote about it a few weeks ago.  But just in case you missed out on that, here’s another word of warning.  I was reading an informative article the other day at usatoday.com entitled 10 Myths About [...]

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Investing can be hard when you’re young and don’t have much money to invest.  Sure, companies like T Rowe Price will let you invest as little as $50 up front in an IRA if you promise to invest an additional $50 per month deducted automatically from your checking account, and if you can afford to do [...]

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It’s just not fair.  You studied hard in school, got a decent job, bought a used Honda when you really wanted that shiny new Panoz, paid off your credit card every month, and most importantly, bought a house you could actually afford with a regular mortgage.  You’re model of financial prudence and you pat yourself [...]

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Ok, so we all know variable annuities are usually better deals for the annuity salesman than the customer.  But let’s ignore all that for a moment.  Surely there must be certain circumstances when an annuity makes sense, right?  Indeed, I’ve already written about some of the few (very few) ways you can use a variable [...]

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I participated in three count’em three carnivals this week: the venerable carnival of personal finance, carnival of money stories, and festival of frugality.  
Carnival of Personal Finance
This weeks Carnival of Personal Finance #143 was hosted over at Gather Little By Little who did a great job with a North Carolina theme.  Thanks for including my article Does [...]

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