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
Now, you can panic 2008-03-07 18:18:03 Politicians hate to admit that anything is ever wrong with the economy. Even as they pass “critical” packages using the economy as an excuse, they continue to maintain that everything is just fine. Please go on with your life and please, please, please, keep spending your money. Every financial advisor who has been in [...]
Death and Taxes, but not Tax Breaks 2008-03-07 01:03:12 The phone is ringing off the hook now. Mid-March is the sweet spot for Americans to do their income taxes. It’s that time when everyone thinks they are “early” and yet, they are right in the middle of the pack, right with most other people plodding along with TurboTax or schlepping down to a [...] Read more:Taxes
Avoiding Bad Financial Products 2008-02-26 09:20:06 As a professional financial planner, I often come across finanical products that are such bad ideas that I don’t even know how (or why?) someone got them to market. Usually the answer is flat out greed. A company willing to make a buck at the expense of its customers is always out there.
A [...] Read more:Financial
, Products
Credit Card Rewards Catalog Update 2008-02-25 07:59:11 Instead of sending me your rewards catalog, I’m just going to collect a table of information. The reason is that from the catalogs I’ve seen, comparing the items you can get is kind of a worthless process. Most catalogs don’t show a specific model number or other details that would be necessary to actually do [...] Read more:Rewards
, Update
, Credit Card
The Truth About Stock 2008-02-21 13:00:38 One if the most frequent questions I get from people is what kind of insider tips and tricks do I know as a financial planner. Of course, most people don’t want to hear it, and sometimes it can take a while to explain. Today, one of those secrets is revealed over at What Is [...] Read more:Truth
, Stock
Inflation Jumps 2008-02-20 08:47:15 In news that will not be met with happiness on Wall Street, the inflation data for January was not good. A 0.3 jump in the core CPI index spells the end of rate cuts from the Fed.
Wondering what the big deal is? The CPI or Consumer Price Index is a widely watched measure of [...] Read more:Inflation
Wal-Mart Has Good Earnings 2008-02-19 09:18:12 Putting a little bit of a damper on all the recession talk, Wal-Mart reported good 4th quarter earnings after refocusing on low prices during the Christmas shopping season. Wal-Mart in particular is a well regarded barometer regarding the economy because of its ubiquitous nature and lowest common denominator demographic. The theory basically is that [...] Read more:Earnings
How to Get a Bonus On Your Tax Rebate! 2008-02-16 12:02:11 Ok, it’s official. Pretty much everyone in America is getting a tax rebate this summer. The IRS says they’ll start mailing checks in May. So how would you like to get a nice tax-free bonus on your tax rebate? Here’s how.
Your tax-rebate is part of the economic stimulus package recently [...] Read more:Bonus
, Rebate
Put Your Tax Rebate In an IRA or 529 Plan - GENIUS! 2008-02-16 09:59:04 A client asked me what they should do with their economic stimulus tax rebate they will get later this year. (So will you!). Usually I tell people to pay down debt if they have any. They don’t have any. They also have already maxed out their IRAs for 2008. But, they have kids! So I [...] Read more:Rebate
Credit Reports and Credit Scores 2008-02-14 15:14:15 Hey, a quick reminder that we are collecting rewards catalogs for any reward cards you might have. A lot of credit card companies make it very hard for people to find the reward information BEFORE they have the card. Help out your fellow savvy financiers by emailing us your catalog.
You can’t talk about [...]
Eliot Spitzer Sex Scandal 2008-03-12 09:16:05 Ah, memories. Not that I know EliotSpitzer
or anything really about sex scandals or about call girls. I do know that this is what staffers are for! Hello? Using your own phone and voice to call about illegal activities? I’m guessing most of our politicians are a little smarter than this. Read more:Scandal
, Eliot Spitzer
Privacy Policies — Did You Notice Them? Good, They Didn’t Want You To 2008-03-11 16:34:51 If, like me you file away all of your various tax statements and reports as they come in, you might just now be opening them. What you might not have noticed in your quest to pull out your 1099-DIV or what have you is that the company’s legally required once per year Privacy
Policy [...] Read more:Policies
401(k) Loans - The Great Gotcha 2008-03-10 14:11:00 Over on the Finance Gourmet information site, there is an article on the downside that most people forget when they take out a 401(k) loan. Most plans require you to repay the full amount within 90 days if you leave the company. If not, it is an early withdrawal for people under 59 1/2 — [...] Read more:Loans
, Great
Bear Stearns Goes Belly Up 2008-03-17 08:00:42 The official headline is J.P. Morgan buys Bear Stearns
for $2 a share. The real headline is that for the first time since the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s, a major US bank has gone belly up.
Money Psychology 2008-03-18 11:34:07 I’ve decided to do a new series here at Finance Gourmet on the psychology of money. Virtually all the emails I get and questions I’m being asked from both online and in person lately have to do more with psychology than they do with raw numbers and math. I already have about eleven topics [...] Read more:Money
Buy Real Estate? 2008-03-21 08:37:48 Whether or not now is a good time to buy real estate depends, as most things do in finance, on time and amount. For example, if you have been renting for the last year or two and have saved up 20% for a down payment and you just found the house of your dreams, [...] Read more:Estate
Windows Live Writer 2008-03-20 16:45:21 Maybe I’m a little late to the party, but I just got a hold of Windows
Live Writer
, and I have to tell you it makes posting to the blog way easier! I love it. Anyway it is part of Windows Live
which is apparently Microsoft’s attempt to compete with Google’s expanding repertoire of free [...] Read more:Windows Live Writer
Sell Home Yourself 2008-03-25 17:29:48 As a professional in a service industry, I know that often times it can seem as though a professional doesn’t do anything that you couldn’t do yourself. Usually, that means that your professional is just very good at their job. However, that isn’t always the case.
There are plenty of financial planners and financial advisors [...] Read more:Yourself
Free Tax Forms 2008-03-25 07:43:25 I’ve noticed that there are places out there selling tax forms. You can get all the free tax forms you want at the IRS official web site www.irs.gov. Just click the Forms
or Publication links and print anything you need.
If you have tax questions, believe it or not, I have had some great [...]
New 401(k) Primer Up 2008-03-24 09:04:51 The 401(k) Primer is up at www.financegourmet.com
Direct Link to 401(k) Primer
Selling Your Own Home - Day 1 2008-03-26 11:06:52 Day One. We will be listing our house tomorrow (Thursday) in the afternoon. Apparently this is a good time to go on MLS because real estate brokers will be looking to setup their weekend showings. But, it is not too early so that it doesn’t come up as "new" in the minds of some [...]
Selling Your Own Home - Day 2 2008-03-29 17:55:05 Friday, and the frustrations begin. We have decided to use Iggyshouse.com (more on that next post) to list our house. The main reason? A free MLS listing. Just because you are hip and cool and willing to do all the leg work to sell your home yourself doesn’t mean that everyone [...]
Other Information on Real Estate 2008-03-29 17:29:19 I’m personally selling my home right now, and blogging about the process here. So, I started wondering where I could find the same kind of thing elsewhere, particularly those who had sold their house without a real estate agent too. I am most definitely not talking about the barely disguised lies from the [...] Read more:Estate
, Real Estate
Capital One No Hassle Rewards Catalog 2008-04-02 08:26:21 In an effort to help people make good comparisons of credit card reward programs I am building the definitive rewards catalog matrix. If you have a rewards credit card that you think is particularly good or particularly bad please let me know so I can look into it.
The main Capital One Rewards
program is [...]
Financial Planners and Financial Advisors an Introduction 2008-03-31 13:29:14 Listen to the book authors, newspaper and magazine columnists and many web sites, and you will hear that financial advisors or financial planners are nothing more than glorified snake oil salesmen out to separate you from your hard earned money.
To listen to some in the finance industry and their champions, financial advisors and financial [...] Read more:Financial
, Introduction
Selling Your Own Home - Day 3 2008-03-31 13:03:31 Today, we got our first phone call. It was from someone who walked by our house and saw the sign. No idea of how serious they were or weren’t, but it is still nice to get our first call. Still no MLS listing. The guys at Iggyshouse are either dragging their [...]
Free Credit Score at My Credit Union 2008-04-03 08:57:13 Several years ago when I was a wild-eyed fresh out of college computer guy, I got my first “real” job with a local company. The company had around a 100 employees or so which meant that the HR person was the Office Manager. On my first day, the Office Manager went through [...] Read more:Score
, Union
Selling Your Own Home - Day 5 2008-04-02 12:23:04 Hello scammers. Well, our house isn’t even on MLS yet, and already the scam punks are coming out of the woodwork. So far, I’ve gotten two emails from two different people who actually already own homes in my city but they live in another city and the market there is bad, so they are [...]
Selling Your Own Home - Day 4 2008-04-01 21:15:59 We got our first showing today. It was someone who lives on our block as a renter and walked by the sign. The wife came without her husband because he has a travel job and won’t be back until next week. Seemed like she really liked it. The nice part is [...]
Top 10 Last Minute Tax Tips 2008-04-08 08:37:10 Ok, boys and girls, its April 8th. Just one week to go before April 15th, the dreaded Ides of April when the IRS wants your completed taxes in the mail. So, here are the Top 10 Last Minute
Tax Tips to save you money on your taxes and make them easier and [...]
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