Credit Card Reform: Penalizing the Good for America’s Bad Personal Finance and Spending Habits

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Following on his somewhat controversial article on the negative relationship between Religion and Money, guest author Tony Parker takes a cynical look at the recently enacted credit card reforms and why they make him angry. __________ What a surprise, the government has imposed even more regulations on what’s left of our financial industry. Really, why [...]

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Free Money From The Government – More Stimulus Checks, Social Security Payments and Tax Credits in 2010, 2011 and Beyond

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[Updated] : Is a 2012 jobs and stimulus package on the cards? As discussed in this article, President Obama has indicated that his new economic recovery plan will be released soon; which will aim to provide benefits for a number of groups struggling under tough economic conditions. No New Taxes with Tax Extensions Approved. President Obama has now signed into law [...]

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Tips on Purchasing a Disability Insurance Policy – Forgo it at your own Peril

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If you are like most people, disability insurance is not very high on your list when it comes to coverage you should have. Most workers take the standard (free or subsidized) disability insurance offered by their employer and if none is available, they simply forgo it. This is strange because the risk of disability is [...]

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Forget buying a Laptop or Notebook – I am getting a Netbook

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Part of setting up my new small business home office, meant getting a new PC that I could use to write for this blog no matter where I was at home or on the road. Initially I started my search looking at standard laptops/notebooks from the usual makers Dell, HP and Apple but I soon [...]

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FHA vs Conventional Home Loan – Comparing the Difference and Which is Better

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One of the biggest hurdles in buying a home is getting the right financing at the price. This is especially the case in the current market where banks are placing strict criteria, and requiring large down payments to get a conventional home loan. Due to the deep recession, stock market plunge and other constraints many [...]

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Record Home Price Drops May Signal Housing Market Bottom

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Despite median home prices across the nation falling by 14 percent to $169,000, there are emerging signs that the housing market may be stabilizing and reaching a bottom. For new or would-be homeowners, mortgage rates below 5% and all the stimulus tax incentives have made buying a house much more affordable and attractive. And many [...]

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Leveraged Inverse ETFs – The Quickest Way to Double or Triple your Exposure from Financials (UYG) to Resources (DIG)

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What are the hottest investments currently on Wall Street? You’d be surprised, but the answer is leveraged exchange traded funds (ETF’s). In March alone, over 3.5 billion of new funds poured into these type of investments according to the WSJ. Leveraged ETFs offer double or even triple the daily return of a market index. Some [...]

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How to Succeed in Business

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The value added column in the Washington Post brings us the small business success story of Steve Fleishman, founder and president of Bethesda Bagel. He built the business from scratch to a franchise and manufacturing enterprise that delivers 15,000 bagels daily to 200 wholesale clients, that enables him and his partners to draw six figure [...]

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Green Energy Home and Auto Tax Credits in the 2009 Economic Stimulus Package

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As a soon to be home owner, I was surprised at the amount of “green” tax credits available in President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package (aka 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act). The $1500 energy efficiency credit has been well publicized, but there are a lot more goodies in there that you could save [...]

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Setting up My Small Business Home Office

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I recently incorporated my first company. It has one employee – me – and its only asset is this blog. But it was a great feeling to officially become a small business owner, thereby joining 15 million other Americans. The reason for incorporation was primarily driven by the taxation benefits as I detailed below, but [...]

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Blogging Becoming a Serious Money Business

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Apparently it takes 100,000 visitors a month to make $75,000 a year from blogging! Not so sure how realistic this is based on a piece I wrote about how much bloggers make, but I would put the number more at $40,000 for that number of visitors. Still not bad by any means and if you [...]

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Dealing with Financial Hardship and Overwhelming Work Stress

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Today’s sad news about the suicide of Freddie Mac CFO David Kellerman and the shooting/suicide deaths of Christopher Wood, who killed his wife and three young children first, really hit me hard. Both apparently related to job stress or financial and economic hardship. No doubt, there are many reasons why people take such extreme actions, [...]

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