This post is in response to the personal finance confession project started by Are You Going To Be This Way The Rest Of The Time I Know You (long name).  I ran across it over on Mrs Micah’s blog earlier today and thought it might be fun to share.  Admitting you have a problem is [...]

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Often when speaking of relations with the Soviet Union, Ronald Reagan would toss out the phrase “trust, but verify“.  Reagan reportedly repeated this old Russian proverb (Russian:  Доверяй, но проверяй) at the signing of the INF treaty to which his counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev responded “you repeat this phrase every time we meet”.  Not to be outdone, Reagan replied, “I [...]

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My 8th grade sunday school teacher was a billionaire, the 380th richest man in America (and 799th richest man in the world), in fact, according to the Forbes 400 2007 list.  With a net worth of $1.3 billion, Truett Cathy knows what he’s talking about and one of the keys to success is learning from those [...]

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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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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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Morningstar recently laid out a few ways to tell if your fund company is putting you first.  Corporate culture is key when it comes to how you’re treated as a shareholder.  Are the fund boards independent enough of corporate management to really stand up for the rights of shareholders?  Are fund managers compensated in such a [...]

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I would probably already be a multi-millionaire if it weren’t for these huge money-wasters.  I estimate just in the past month, I’ve wasted approximately $152,502.42 on the following vices.  Not that I’m complaining: you only live once, right?  I have no intention of cutting back.  This is for informational purposes only.
 Let’s start from the top:

Women
It’s been said that women [...]

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Stuck in unusually bad traffic on the way home from the office Thursday afternoon, I heard a commercial that really pissed me off.  It was for a company called BlueHippo (hereafter referred to as Evil Greedy Corporation) that sells  laptop computers “no matter how bad your credit.”  I usually just sigh and change the station, [...]

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When will people learn if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is?  A Santa Ana insurance agent and Irvine securities lawyer allegedly took investors for more than $40 million.  Multitudes of small investors claim they
“…were promised returns of up to 40% through a sophisticated investment strategy usually reserved for hedge funds and [...]

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I often hear people ask “Which mutual fund company should I open my IRA with?” There are many choices, but I’m going to narrow it down to three. Some companies not on the list, like Schwab or American Funds are also respectable choices, but in my opinion these three are by far the best.

Fidelity Investments [...]

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