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Shareholder Yield: Better Stock Screening Metric Than Dividend Yield?

I've read a few books about dividend investing and remain interested in the idea, although I'm not confident enough (yet?) to allocate my portfolio that way. Portfolio manager and writer Mebane Faber has a short book called Shareholder Yield: A … [Read the rest]

State Farm Insurance Payment Plan (SFPP) Review

Ever since we started cutting back our work hours in order to share childcare duties, Mrs. MMB and I have kept a closer eye on our monthly spending patterns. One of the headaches for budgeters is dealing with large lump-sum payments like those for … [Read the rest]

Optimize Your Cell Phone Plan: The Wireless Efficient Frontier

The other day while I was trying to help someone find a cheaper cell phone plan, I realized two things: There are way too many different options these days. Most are MVNOs that buy bulk minutes and data from the major providers, and many of … [Read the rest]

Should I Still Contribute to a Bad 401(k) Plan?

Along with other factors, new fee disclosure requirements for 401(k) plans have brought a lot of attention recently on "bad" 401(k) plans. These are plans with little or no employer match, higher-than-average fees, and/or limited investment … [Read the rest]

Cooked: The Health Argument For Cooking At Home

I'm roughly halfway through Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan. Although the book covers a variety of topics ranging from chemistry to religion to anthropology, the overarching theme is examining the practice of cooking … [Read the rest]

Apple App Store: 5 Top Paid Apps & Games For Free

Apple is celebrating the 5th anniversary of Apple's App Store by making 5 top apps and 5 top games free for a limited time. Some other developers have also made their apps free as well. here is the official iTunes page, and below are some direct … [Read the rest]

Capital One 360 Financial Independence Day Promo 2013

Update - This promotion is now EXPIRED Capital One Consumer Bank has their annual Financial Independence Day promotion which boosts the usual bonus for their Consumer Bank Savings and 360 Checking accounts. (Artist formerly known as ING Direct.) … [Read the rest]

$30,000 Beat-the-Benchmark Experiment Update – July 2013

Here's the July 2013 update for my Beat the Market Experiment, a series of three portfolios started on November 1st, 2012: $10,000 Passive Benchmark Portfolio that would serve as both a performance benchmark and an real-world, low-cost portfolio … [Read the rest]

Investment Returns By Asset Class: Mid-2013 Update

We've reach the midway point of 2013, and here are the returns of the major asset classes as benchmarked by passive mutual funds and ETFs. Return data was taken after market close at the end of June 2013. I'm still tweaking the format, in the … [Read the rest]

1,000 Bonus Citi ThankYou Points for Linking to Amazon.com

If you have a Citi credit card that earns ThankYou points, you can get a 1,000 free ThankYou points for linking your Citi card with Amazon.com for future redemptions. Simply log into your account at ThankYou.com and go to Overview > My Account > … [Read the rest]

Fandango $6 Movie Tickets, $5 for $10 at Target

Quickly, here are some limited-time Groupon deals: $6 for Fandango Movie Ticket (up to $12 value) $5 for $10 Target gift card - must use Groupon mobile app $169.99 for Kindle Fire HD … [Read the rest]

Mint.com Budgeting Tips & Tricks

While I don't believe everyone necessarily needs a tracked-down-to-the-dollar budget, I do think a major problem is that many people simply don't know where their money goes. That makes it quite hard to know if your spending habits match up with … [Read the rest]