December 2008

How Stock Markets Performed in 2008

0 comments

[Update] See a review of 2009 stockmarkets in this post. Everyone knows that 2008 was a terrible year for most equity investors. The financial/credit crisis led to full blown recession which in turn caused a downturn in consumer and business spending. All this was reflected in equity markets which fell off a cliff over the [...]

Read the full article →

Setting a Good Online Password

2 comments

With Internet fraud on the rise, it is even important to protect your online identity and information. We all have user name and password protected accounts for various services ranging from email accounts to merchant services (Amazon, eBay) to online banking, and if you are like the majority of people you use the same password [...]

Read the full article →

2011 and 2012 Capital Gains and Losses : Tax Facts and Figures

11 comments

[Updated with 2011-2012 data] Here are some useful facts & figures to be aware of, from various IRS publications, when it comes to capital gains and losses. Also included are the latest CGT deduction and tax rates.  Almost everything you own and use for personal or investment purposes is a capital asset. Examples are your [...]

Read the full article →

Budgeting Pitfalls and Remedies

0 comments

Budgeting provides a way for people to track their income and expenses. However the hard part, once people are aware of their expenses, is to actually cut back on discretionary items. Budgeting fails for many people because they fail to address this key shortcoming. Budgeting will not reduce your expenses; it is how you react [...]

Read the full article →

>Scams, Schemes and Monkeys Everywhere

0 comments

> With news about Bernard Madoff’s widespread $50 billion Ponzi scheme reverberating throughout the world, I thought that this parable is a good reflection of financial scams and how they work. The simplest ones are often the most effective. A man offered to buy monkeys from a village. The villagers, seeing that there were many [...]

Read the full article →

The Carnival of Personal Finance #184: From the Land Down Under

5 comments

As I am in Australia over the Christmas holiday period, I am giving this carnival an “Aussie” theme for it’s 184th edition. The Carnival of Personal Finance highlights the most interesting and informative blogger-written articles within the broad spectrum of personal finance. Thanks to everyone who submitted articles. I was pleasantly surprised at the number [...]

Read the full article →

Am I a Cheapskate or Just Frugal?

4 comments

In an argument with my wife over our holiday spending on gifts, travel and entertainment, I got accused of being a cheapskate because I refused to put aside money/budget worries during the holiday season. “What’s the point of saving if we cannot spend the money on the ones we love?” she said, but the worst [...]

Read the full article →

5 Clear Signs your Job is in Danger (and 5 things to do)

5 comments

With millions of jobs already lost and economic conditions continuing to get worse, workers at companies small and large are getting ever more anxious about their jobs and livelihoods. Not a day goes by when news comes out that another large company has decided to cut its workforce by 5, 10 or 20 percent. This [...]

Read the full article →

How Long will the Current Recession Last? Not as Long as You Think.

4 comments

Many are calling this the worst recession since the great depression. Or, most succinctly the Great Depression 2. No doubt the news is bad and all the major economic indicators signal that growth is slowing at a quickening pace. But the question on most people’s minds is how long will this recession continue. It is [...]

Read the full article →

Virtual Administrative Assistants – Flexible Money Jobs

5 comments

At a recent dinner party I was talking to a good friend whose wife had recently had twins, but was getting back into the workforce after only 6 months of having the babies. What was more was that she was able to do all this while staying at home and still have a relatively flexible [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries