Archive for November, 2006
In addition to the Home Energy Analysis tool previously posted, here are some more no-cost and low-cost tips for saving energy from the Alliance to Save Energy. I’ve highlighted the ones that I personally should follow up on before it gets really chilly.
Free Ideas
- Check the furnace filter each month, and clean or replace it as needed. Dirty filters block air flow through your heating and cooling systems, increasing your energy bill and shortening the equipment?s life.
- Only heat or cool the rooms you need?close vents and doors of unused rooms.
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Posted in Frugal Living | 8 Comments »
Okay, the old geezer that is I has finally opened up a Del.icio.us account. Here’s what I’ve been reading this week:
What?s the Difference Between ?Fee-Based? and ?Fee-Only”? at AllFinancialMatters - If you’re paying someone else to handle your money or are thinking about it, you should know this.
Remodelling a home AKA Contractors that stink at GetRichSlowly - It almost makes me happy I don’t have a house to fix up.
Dating and Coupons? at Make Love, Not Debt - Even though it may not be logical, please don’t use coupons on a first date. Unless you have a blind date with Borat or something…
Posted in General | 2 Comments »
Click for bigger pics. Skiers: How much do you think they cost?
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Posted in Frugal Living | 9 Comments »
Back in May, legislation was passed that allows Traditional IRAs to be converted to Roth IRAs without any income restrictions in 2010. Previously, this conversion was only available to taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of $100,000 or less, no matter if you’re married or single. You even get two years to pay the taxes on the conversion. One of the more detailed articles I’ve seen written about this change is this USA Today article.
Another side effect of this new law is that it opens up a gaping loophole so that allows anyone to contribute to an Roth IRA, albeit indirectly:
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Posted in Investing, Retirement | 15 Comments »
After reading my most recent net worth update, some of you must be wondering why I’m putting so much money into retirement accounts like 401k’s and IRAs, especially given my mid-term goal of buying a house in a year or so. I mean, I can’t touch this money until I’m almost 60 without penalty, right? And we’ll need some taxable funds to draw from if we want to retire earlier than that. What’s up?
My reasoning is that I’m looking ahead to the future where both my wife and I will most likely earn six-figure incomes. Because I want to keep our lifestyle simple and reach our long-term goal of an early retirement, we’ll easily be maxing out all the tax-advantaged accounts available to us then, so I want to stick as much into these accounts as possible now.
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Posted in Retirement | 37 Comments »
I hate it when I just plain forget to post things, which is I’m glad I did that survey 
One of the main reasons why I brought up the fact that anyone can apply for business credit cards is that you can take out 0% APR balance transfers (see my detailed posts on how I do this first) and because business accounts and balances don’t show up on your consumer credit report, it won’t dink your personal credit score. The only problem is that business credit card offers tend not to be as juicy as the best consumer card offers. Still, here are some of the better ones. Again, I’m looking for 0% APR for the longest time, applying to both purchases and balance transfers, no annual fees, and lowest balance transfer fees.
Advanta Platinum Rewards BusinessCard MasterCard - No annual fee, 0% APR fixed for 15 months on balance transfers, balance transfer fee of 3% (min $5, max $50). This probably the longest one I’ve seen. There is also a cashback program, but don’t use this when you have a balance transfer.
Chase Platinum Business Rebate Card - No annual fee, 0% APR fixed for 12 months on purchases and balance transfers, balance transfer fee of 3% (min $5, max $75). 3% Cash Back on for purchases at restaurants, gas stations, office supply stores, building supply stores, hardware and home improvement stores
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Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 24 Comments »
As predicted in October, the new inflation portion of I-Bonds is 3.12% and the new fixed rate is 1.4%, for a total of 4.52%. This is still lower than what is available via Treasury Bills and online savings accounts, so those of us with older Savings Bonds should really think about cashing them in. But when is the best time to do it? Here how I try to figure it out, and a quick calculator that does it for you.
Should you redeem?
But first, let’s make sure you want to redeem. I-Bonds have several tax-advantages:
- Interest is exempt from state and local income taxes (although so is T-Bill/T-Bond interest)
- Interest can be tax-free for certain educational expenses
- You can choose when to pay taxes on it with cash basis reporting (and thus possibly delay until when you are in a lower tax bracket)
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Posted in Savings Bonds, Tools & Calculators | 17 Comments »
Here are the money thoughts that are swirling around my head these days:
I need to find a job. My wife needs to find a job. We need to move. We need to find a house that we can afford.
No big deal, eh? It’s a very weird transitional place for us. A year from now, we both hopefully will have good-paying jobs and be making double what we’re earning now, and be living near one of our families. It’s the like the calm before the storm. I know that everything will work out in the end, but I still can’t stop worrying about it now and then.
Posted in General | 20 Comments »
It’s a time for giving thanks, and I am very grateful for all you awesome readers of this blog. Honestly, this blog has helped me keep on track and it was really fun along the way. I started blogging in December 2004, revealing our net worth of $55,750. As you can see on your top right of the screen, two years later we have doubled that! What better way to celebrate this success than to give away a bunch of stuff!
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Posted in General | 460 Comments »
Almost a perfect counterpoint to The Little Book That Beats The Market (review), this book could easily be titled The Big Book That Shows You Can’t Beat The Market. It weighs nearly 5 pounds, and is almost 400 pages long. This thing is a beast!
Instead, the title is Index Funds: The 12-Step Program for Active Investors. This is actually a pretty good title as well. Instead of starting at the pure beginner level, it assumes that you know a little bit about the market. Maybe you’ve dabbled in stocks, or have some hot mutual fund picks on your 401(k). The basic layout of the book is this:
1) Present an active-trading idea, and then
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Posted in Book Reviews | 6 Comments »
There’s been a lot of buzz about The Little Book That Beats the Market
, so I was excited when it finally came in from the library. Of course, at the time I was midway through Index Funds: The 12-Step Program for Active Investors
, which I’ll also be posting a review about shortly. Alternating between the two books was like a roller coaster - the Little Book fanning the (little) stock-picking flame inside me, and Index Fund book trying just as hard to stamp it out forever.
The Little Book is well, really little. It’s about the size of a 5″x7″ photograph and barely over 100 pages long. It could be easily finished in one afternoon. The writing style is simple and easy to read, although many of the jokes felt a bit forced to me.
It starts with a nice little story which explains what you are actually buying when you purchase a stock. In short, you’re not buying a physical object, but a stream of future earnings. This is why stock prices fluctuate so much - you’re trying to predict the often-hazy future.
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Posted in Book Reviews | 13 Comments »
We just bought a 1/3 cord of firewood for $50 off of Craigslist (only partially shown above), figuring we’d try out our new fireplace this winter. But then I ran across this article about how conventional fireplaces are useless:
As a fire burns in a conventional fireplace lot of warm house air is sucked past the leaky door and up the chimney. The air sucked up the chimney is replaced by cold outside air that has to be warmed up to a comfortable temperature by your oil, gas or electric furnace.
Now, this may be true, but does that counteract the radiative heat from the flame/hot fireplace surface area? Oh well, I’m not paying $2,000+ for a new fireplace insert. We set up our couch right in front of the fireplace so it is very toasty and romantic.
Posted in Frugal Living | 23 Comments »
Yep, Amazon is giving out a free trial of Amazon Prime for up to 3 months to lots of people, which includes free 2-day shipping on most items with no minimum purchase. Click here
to see if you qualify. Hopefully you'll be greeted with this image:
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Posted in Deals & Offers | 19 Comments »
