Owner: Finance Gourmet URL:http://www.financegourmet.com/blog Join Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 07:52:07 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: A real live Certified Financial Planner provides real world financial advice including the inside tips and tricks used by financial planners and financial advisors. This information is NOT the same old life as a spreadsheet info you read elsewhere. This Site statistics:Click here
SEC Thinks Prospectuses Are Too Big! 2008-04-07 18:34:24 I laughed so hard I ended up crying. The SEC is concerned that the prospectuses that mutual fund companies send to their clients are too big and full of legal mumbo jumbo to be useful to the general public. How many of you think that mutual fund companies WILLINGLY CHOOSE to spend [...]
Psychology of Money - Paying off Your House 2008-04-11 12:40:26 By any measure, the math says that paying off your home is not a smart move financially. Then why is it that so many people see paying off their home as a great goal?
There are three reasons really. One is out of date thinking, the other is a financial myopia, the last one is No [...] Read more:Money
, House
Sell Your Own Home - Day 6 2008-04-04 02:51:28 Well, we’re officially on MLS. Whoo-hoo! Frankly, it’s been a bit of kluge, but I guess in the end it all works out. Our very first day we get a call from a realtor to setup a showing. My wife spoke with her and after setting a time for the showing my wife inquired [...]
Ah…the Fine Print 2008-04-14 22:01:35 A letter from a major mortgage lender suggests big savings by paying no closing costs.
Too bad they admit (in tiny print on the back) that you're just putting the closing costs in the loan which could cost you WAY more. Read more:Print
And, We’re Back 2008-04-14 12:42:33 So, a plugin took down the Finance Gourmet blog this morning. Needless to say it will be deleted never to return. I didn’t know that it could take down a whole site like that. I had a blank screen. No error, no nothing. I ended up doing the upgrade to [...]
Sell Your Own Home - Day 10 to 12 2008-04-10 18:39:00 Middle of the week. Three total showings. Nothing new to report from the selling your own home without a realtor battlefront.
Selling Your Own Home - Day 9 2008-04-07 08:08:00 If you are selling your own home, you'll need to come up with your own yard sign. There are a lot of options out there, but there is one that is better than the others.
Selling Your Own Home - Day 8 2008-04-06 19:07:00 Sunday and two showings. Not too shabby. Overall, 7 showings for our first weekend on the market. We’ll take it. So far, no one seems shocked at the price which is good. We had to set our price in a bit of a vaccum since no one has sold [...]
Selling Our Own Home - Day 7 2008-04-05 21:35:00 Day 7 of the series on Selling Your Own Home. Today we look at how to set showings for you house and what real estate agents will expect from you when you do.
Credit Counseling Scams 2008-04-16 15:05:18 Not too long ago, I wrote about monitoring your credit report on the non-blog Finance Gourmet site. In it I included a warning about the various services offering to “fix” your credit and lower you monthly payment. Now a much bigger site has an “insider” confession from just such an outfit. A little independent confirmation [...] Read more:Counseling
Top 10 Fine Print Gotchas 2008-04-16 09:01:20 Being a smart consumer, or smart investor, or smart anything really is all about knowledge. Understanding the world you are playing in just makes good sense. I can spot most finance scams by reading the title. The reason? I’ve spent plenty of time reading the fine print and [...] Read more:Print
Sell Your Own Home - Day 14 2008-04-17 12:01:01 You have to be kidding! My cell phone, which is the number we have put on all of our real estate marketing, was off yesterday all afternoon. I checked it this morning just to be sure and we have 2 showing requests on there from Friday. So, we scrambled to clean up [...]
Sell Your Own Home - Day 13 2008-04-17 11:52:51 So, it’s Friday and no calls for showings yet this weekend. This is bad news as far as I can see. Apparently after an initial burst of interest, it has dried up. It is still early April and we planned to have our house on the market for a while, but I’d still like to [...]
Budget Issues? It’s Your Car 2008-04-19 09:56:37 Many people wonder why their budget seems so tight. Too often they look in the wrong places. Usually the problem is car payments. Read more:Issues
Selling Your Own Home - Day 16, 17, 18, 19 2008-04-21 14:31:45 No showings. I’m starting to get a little bit worried. Truthfully we didn’t expect to sell before May, but I would still like to get a showing every day or two…
Selling Our Own Home - Day 15 2008-04-15 23:24:00 Day 15 of selling our home by ourselves without a realtor or real estate agent. Today, we discuss how to present the inside of your home so that it lives up to that fabled curb appeal.
Selling Your Own Home - Time Warp 2008-04-26 23:43:07 Ok, so nothing at all on the house for two weeks. It was very weird because we were having a few showings every weekend day and one or two the other days with an off day every now and then. Then, all of the sudden, nothing! I checked everything out to make [...]
Budget Issues? It Might Be Your Car 2008-04-19 09:56:37 Many people wonder why their budget seems so tight. Too often they look in the wrong places. Usually the problem is car payments. Read more:Issues
And, We’re Back 2008-04-14 12:42:33 So, a plugin took down the Finance Gourmet blog this morning. Needless to say it will be deleted never to return. I didn’t know that it could take down a whole site like that. I had a blank screen. No error, no nothing. I ended up doing the upgrade to [...]
Get Rich Not So Quick in Real Estate 2008-04-29 13:31:54 As you may have noticed, we are getting ready to sell our house. After living in our first house for about 7 years, we’ve been our last two for 2 and 3 years respectively. The interesting thing is that each time we have made a lot of money. The past two times we’ve used this [...] Read more:Quick
, Estate
, Real Estate
Wordpress Theme Hacking 2008-05-07 01:04:11 I’ve become obsessed with themes in Wordpress
. Nothing seems to be exactly what I want, although there are a lot of great themes out there. Currently I’m using this grid based theme (see credit in footer). I’ve been hacking at it for a while now, and I’m not sure it looks as [...] Read more:Theme
, Hacking
Control Spending with Cash-In-The-Wallet System 2008-05-08 08:27:04 Waiting 1 day for every $100 an item costs can help control big spending impulses. If you have more trouble with letting those "little things" pile up into a big thing, then this cash system might work for you. Read more:Control
, Spending
, System
Mutual Funds - Know What You Are Buying 2008-05-15 15:33:39 Recently, a client explained to me how he thought gold was a good investment and protection against inflation. I’m not going to talk today about if he is right or wrong. Instead, I’ll mention that his fabulous do it yourself investment solution was Fidelity’s Gold Fund. Good call? Well, it came [...] Read more:Mutual
, Funds
, Buying
, Mutual Funds
Sell Your Own Home - Update 2008-05-15 15:05:36 Ok, I’ve stopped daily updates about selling our own home. Truth is, there just isn’t that much action in real estate to justify daily postings. However, today we have 3 showings scheduled, so that is very good news. We haven’t got much in the way of feedback. One of the downsides [...] Read more:Update
Dodge & Cox Stock Fund 2008-05-23 11:25:15 Great Stock
Fund Re-Opened
One of my favorite mutual funds is the Dodge
& Cox Stock Fund (DODGX). It’s performance is virtually flawless for its purpose (large cap stock). This isn’t some flashy hey-look-at-me mutual fund. In fact, this is exactly the kind of fund that people started questioning during the Internet bubble, and that is [...]
Muni Taxes Stay the Same 2008-05-25 09:54:42 The U.S. Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision upheld the central tenant of most state’s municipal bond tax policy, specifically that a state can exempt it’s own muni bonds from taxes while taxing the interest on other state’s muni bonds. So, nothing changes from before. If you live in California, the only way [...] Read more:Taxes
Credit Card Lab at Captial One 2008-06-03 08:02:58 Use the new Credit Card
Lab on Capital One's website to make a great rewards card, or to compare other rewards cards.
Personal Finance and Prescriptions 2008-06-09 23:23:36 These days, medical expenses are a big burden to many family’s budgets. Unfortunately, it isn’t always easy to figure out just how and when you can save money without endangering your health. However, here are some tips that could save you plenty of money on your prescriptions.
Costco, Sam’s Club, and Other Warehouse Clubs
It [...] Read more:Personal
Is myFICO Worth It? 2008-06-22 18:09:35 Don't waste your money on services that allow you to constantly get your credit score. Use a little insder knowledge to get a free credit score and check it only when it makes sense. Read more:Worth
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