50 Things to do with your $$
Buy running shoes, go back to school, buy quality stocks ....
These are all things you can do with your hard earned money. Do they make sense?
Money magazine has broken down 5 areas of personal finance into valuable tidbits of advice. Take time to read all the sections -- there's gold in there.
Money Magazine - 50 Smartest Things to do with your Money
You know what I like best about the list? ... a lot of common sense tips ... and it's FREE!
Thanks for reading!
• VirtualBank gives you up to 5.13% APY for your savings!
• Blue Cash from American Express: 5% Back on Gas, Up to 5% cash back on eligible purchases, No Annual Fee, 0% Introductory APR for 6 months, Pay over time
• Try Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express. Great rewards and first year fee free!
• Bad Credit Home Loans
• Life Insurance in 10 minutes if qualified. No medical exam.
Working in an enviroment that pays for performance can be challenging and rewarding. I'm in a situation where a portion of my pay is determined by the amount of software I sell on both a quarterly and annual basis. Commission-based selling is definitely challenging ... Read
Here's a Friday fun story that details what I had to deal with earlier this week. The lesson of the story is to not be afraid of asking for a discount, the worst they can say is no. Read
I'm making progress on my Personal Finance dashboard, which was discussed in my June pf Goals post. This process has been an eye-opener and many ways and I encourage everyone to build something to track your financial results. I'm working on ratios now -- what ... Read
Fidelity announced today that the typical working American household has $18,750 saved for retirement. Fidelity plans to measure this and other retirment investment figures and release their findings twice a year. Read
The 51st smartest thing is to send it to me...
--
http://www.fivecentnickel.com/
Some of the points are great. Others are horrible.
There's almost always a mutual fund flavor to this kind of generic, one-size-fits-all financial advice. Almost half of the first 12 tips dealt directly with mutual funds, and four of them recommended specific companies or funds. I suppose this probably isn't surprising -- I ran across three half-page T. Rowe Price ads, two Vanguard ads, one Fidelity. Guess what companies were mentioned in the 50 things?
Where's cash? Where's gold? Euros? Municipal bonds? A business? Commodities?
Aside from this obvious bias, part of point #2 really grates at me. Putting your bills on automatic payment -- OK, given that you look around once in a while for a better deal. Your investments? No way! On the contrary: I want to think very carefully about where my money is going! I don't want to "Stop Thinking" about where my money is being invested. Increasing or decreasing a position should be an active process, not an automatic pilot process. They (the mutual fund companies) will be more than happy to receive my ACH deposit every period -- more money to charge a fee on regardless of the performance of the fund. And what do I get? Maybe a gain, maybe a loss, but always I get the opportunity to not think about what I'm doing. That's a dangerous investment mindset to be in.
