July 2008

Slamming the Brakes on Spending via Effective Budgeting

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Rising gas and food prices, higher mortgage repayments and lower investment returns have punched a hole in household budgets with much more money going out than coming in. The only way to manage the higher outflows is to either earn more or spend less. Winning a pay rise or working an extra job is not [...]

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2009 Minimum Wage Increases – Will $5 Extra Really Help or Hurt

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At the end of July the 2009 federal minimum wage jumps to $7.25 an hour from $6.55, according to the US department of Labor. However, many question if this will help or hurt low income workers and the small business that employ them. The minimum wage has increased from $5.85 (2007) to $6.55 (2008) to [...]

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>$482,000,000,000

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>That’s the amount – $482 Billion – that the white house budget office has estimated for next years deficit. It is equivalent to $1600 of debt for every single American. The forecast for economic growth this year and next, has also been lowered thanks to the nation’s housing, credit and financial woes. All this happened [...]

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Why you should be angry with the 2008 Housing Relief Bill

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Over the weekend, Congress gave final approval to the housing relief bill that is aimed at helping thousands of struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure and to temper falling home prices. It also includes provisions to assist institutions that operate in the mortgage market, namely the Government sponsored enterprises (GSE) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The cost [...]

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>Bloggers are inefficient employees

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>This was the premise of an email I recently received from a former colleague who now works at a small technology services firm. The email had the following key message, which I have adapted for anonymity: “Our company is proposing to block all blogging software platforms (Blogger, Word press) and related statistical services (like Google [...]

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Quirky Finance : Horse Power making a comeback

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With high gas prices, an emerging trend developing in rural areas is to go back to using the old fashioned ‘Horse and Cart’ as a mode of transport within farms and to nearby town centers. With gas prices set to trend upwards in the long term, horses, made redundant by the motor car a century [...]

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Losing those office perks in corporate cutbacks

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A less serious, but widespread fallout of tough economic times for American companies has been the cutting of employee perks and benefits to lower operating costs. Working in corporate America myself, I can attest to some of these cutbacks first hand and I know more are coming down the line as cutting costs is becoming [...]

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Did I buy Apple to late (2K loss to date)? A look at their upcoming earnings

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When I bought Apple (AAPL) stock a few weeks ago for $187 ($16K in total) before the launch of the 3G iPhone, I was pretty confident about the prospects for the stock. I expected some short term volatility as it is a growth stock, but since my purchase it has fallen steadily to close at [...]

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Single Step Personal Finance Challenge- Roth IRA. Plus a Trifecta of Hundreds!

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RC from Think Your Way to Wealth, tagged me with the Single Step Personal Finance Challenge” created by Mrs. Micah. The challenge is simple yet powerful – “Find one step you can take to make your financial system better or more organized.” My single step personal finance challenge is going to be to open up [...]

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Debit Cards linked to your 401(k)! Danger ahead.

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Reserve Management Corp (RMC) is offering a service to employees that allows debit cards to be linked to 401(k) plans, for easy withdrawal of funds. Their Chairman, Bruce R. Bent, justified this offering by saying that they encourage employees to sign up for retirement accounts and that they reduce the dollar amount of loans taken [...]

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