This is a guest post from Mike of CleverDude. If you like what you see here, please consider subscribing to his RSS feed.

Back in college, I had one W-2 each year, no investments or additional income, and I just took the standard deduction. I didn’t really need to think about taxes until tax time came around. But now that I’m older, things are a bit different.

We still don’t have the craziest tax situation, but I do have at least a dozen different pieces of paper that have important numbers, not counting receipts. I run two businesses, and both my wife and I have day jobs. I’m not the best organizer, and it’s beginning to show. And that’s why I want to share a little tip with all of you this tax season. Begin filing your tax-related documents NOW rather than waiting till next year. [more]

The following is a guest post from David of MyTwoDollars. If you like what you see here, please consider subscribing to his RSS feed.

It was September of 2006 when I finally gave notice at what was turning out to be a dead-end corporate gig. While it paid handsomely, it was so incredibly boring that it was sucking the life out of me. I am a curious learner by nature, and to have days go by with nothing but paperwork to push around was killing my spirit!

So after 4 years at this job, casually collecting my big paychecks, I quit cold turkey. I gave them a month’s notice so I could assist in any transition, but guess what? There wasn’t one, because they never got around to hiring anyone. Believe me, it was not a healthy environment. But back to how we survived. [more]

The following is a guest post by Lynnae of Being Frugal. If you like what you see here, please consider subscribing to her RSS feed.

I was watching the show Property Virgins for the first time the other night, and I was shocked at what I heard on that show. Let me give you a rundown…

The buyer was a single woman who wanted the best quality in a house, but didn’t want to spend a lot of money. She knew exactly what she wanted and how much she wanted to pay, and she wasn’t willing to budge much on either issue.

The property expert seemed nice enough, and she was a saint for dealing with the opinionated buyer, but halfway through the show, she said something that stopped me cold. She had just shown the buyer a home that was brand new and had everything the buyer wanted. The problem? It was $40,000 more than the buyer wanted to pay.

The ensuing conversation went something like this. These aren’t exact quotes, but you’ll get the idea.

Expert: The price on this property is $240,000.

Buyer: What? I definitely can’t afford that!

Expert: That’s about $1700 a month, not including insurance and HOA fees.

Buyer: The insurance and HOA fees are extra? I really can’t afford that. This is what I want, but I’m not paying that price.

Expert: Well, there is another option. We can do a 35 year loan and bring your payments down to $1500 a month.

Buyer: That’s just so much money! I can’t take on that much debt! (I was cheering for her at this point).

Expert, talking privately to the camera: She’s only thinking about the big number here. She can easily afford the monthly payment. That’s what she should be looking at… Whether or not she can afford the monthly payment.

That’s the point at which my jaw dropped open. She shouldn’t consider the total cost? Are you kidding me? I’m no expert, and I don’t own a home yet, but there are a few rules I’m going to stick to when I do buy.

Know What You Can Afford

When I finally take the plunge to buy a house, I’m going to figure out how much I can easily afford per month. If the bank tells me I can afford to put 30% of my income toward my mortgage payment, but I know I can only fit a payment of 25% into my budget, I’m going to figure out my target price based on what I think. I’ll figure out the approximate amount of insurance, taxes, and any other fees, and work that into the number as well. I’ll also decide what mortgage terms I want. A fixed rate, 15 year mortgage would be ideal. From there, I’ll come up with a target house price. And I won’t look at anything more expensive.

Human emotions are powerful, and when we see something we really want, we can often talk ourselves into buying it, even if we can’t really afford it. The amount of credit card debt in this country is indicative of that. I’m not going to put myself into a situation where I might be enticed into making a stupid decision that will cost me for the next 30 years.

Never Look at a House Before You Know the Price

I couldn’t believe the buyer even walked into that house without knowing how much it cost! She set herself up for disaster. As predicted, she fell in love with the house, and deeply desired to buy it, even though she couldn’t afford it. That made her vulnerable to taking on a less than ideal mortgage. I imagine that’s how many people got caught up in the mortgage crisis we have today.

Be Willing to Do Some Work

After looking at house #2 (the dream house), the buyer was shown a third house. It was a modern house, like she wanted, but it needed a little work. It was bargain priced at $174,000 and, for an additional $30k, the buyer could do enough work to bring the house up to her standards. But our naive buyer balked at the thought of doing the work.

Take Time to Think If You’re Unsure

A tactic that the property expert used on the buyer was to tell her that the properties were flying off the market like hotcakes. She kept stressing that the buyer needed to make a decision quickly, or avoid losing the property. While that may be true, if you’re hesitating about signing on the dotted line for any reason, take time to think it over. It’s better to lose out on a property than to make a $200,000 mistake. There will always be other properties, but once you buy a house, it’s difficult to undo your mistake.

So what did the buyer end up doing?

Much to my chagrin, our buyer went with expensive house #2. She negotiated the price down to $233,000, and she went with a 35 year loan. If it were me, I would have taken house #3 and gotten the same quality of home for $33,000 less. It just makes better financial sense.

The bottom line is, if you’re a new buyer, do your research. Don’t blindly trust the “experts”. Their job is to sell you a house, so they can make a commission. Though I’m sure there are many honest and helpful realtors out there, they do have a financial interest in making a sale. It’s always wise to figure out what’s best for your financial situation on your own, rather than trust someone else to do it for you.

The following is a guest post from Brian “The Money Guy” Preston, a certified financial planner and partner in Preston & Cleveland Wealth Management, LLC. Brian is also one of my favorite podcasters — if you like what you see here, please consider subscribing to The Money Guy Podcast.

Without a doubt, we are in an uncertain period for the financial markets. During uncertain periods in the past, you could shelter yourself from all of the bad news. But that’s just not possible in this modern era with 24 hour business news channels, financial talk radio (I am admittedly part of this noise with The Money Guy Show), daily and weekly financial newspapers and magazines, etc.

It should also be noted that even though reading, listening, and watching financial media can be entertaining, it can also be outright harmful to your long-term financial success. Indeed, it has become much easier to let your emotions rule financial decisions since you can now find an “Expert” point of view that matches just about any crazy scenario that you can imagine. With all of this distracting noise it is probably a great time to check-in with the most successful investor of our lifetime… Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha.

As many of you are aware Warren is a humble self-made billionaire that has been successful by being consistent and focused on what he is good at; finding good companies that have good management and healthy financial statements. Below I have compiled a list of the Oracle’s quotes concerning specific investment issues and principles to help guide you during this uncertain period. [more]

This is a guest post from NCN of NoCreditNeeded. NCN also does an excellent podcast, and runs a motivational network (for lack of a better term). If you like what you see here, please consider subscribing to his RSS feed.

I have been reading FiveCentNickel for almost three years. Over that time, I’ve learned a lot from Nickel, and I’m thankful for the opportunity to write a guest post.

Nickel and I agree on a lot of topics. We both believe in saving for retirement. We both work hard to save money. We believe in teaching our kids about money - Nickel and his wife have four boys. My wife and I have two kids — and a third on the way!

But there are also subjects about which we disagree. Big time! [more]

This is a guest post from Jaimie of Paid Twice. If you like what you see, please consider subscribing to her RSS feed.

In this age of electronic everything and increased compatibility across platforms, it’s easy to become detached from our actual spending patterns and behaviors. We download a credit card statement here, a checking account statement there, and zip zap we’ve made a pretty chart with all of our spending and saving broken into nice pie charts and graphs with sums and totals.

The high cost of automation

The more I read about different financial management software packages, the more I hear the same questions. Is this compatible with my banking and credit institutions? Can I automatically download all my transactions? But I submit to you that this automatic importing doesn’t give most people a complete understanding of how their financial behavior lines up with the values they hold.

Getting down and dirty with a spreadsheet and manually entering transactions yourself can do wonders for your financial behavior. Indeed, this forces you to consider each purchase you’ve made a second time, and to think about if the money you spent was really how much you wanted to spend for whatever you did.

Choosing instant convenience over manual entry can cloud the real utility of even the best spending plan in figuring out what we value most, and making sure our financial behavior matches our actual values. Open yourself to the idea that using a spending plan that involves manual entry of data could help you meet your goals and realize your dreams faster than you can without one. Having to reconsider each purchase you make and expense you have keeps you in touch with where your money is really going, not just where you think it is going by looking at the sum of all parts.

The value of tedium

The entering of receipts can be rather tedious, and it can be a pain to remember to collect them. But that manual reviewing of what you’ve spent and having to enter it gives you a second reflection on how it aligns with your overall values. Yes, 10% of your overall spending for eating out may be a good number as far as your overall values go. But it makes a difference if that 10% was comprised of two special date nights for you and your spouse vs. 18 runs through the drive through because you didn’t feel like cooking.

It’s easy for us in our busy lives to do something and then push it to the back of our mind and not think about it any further. How many times have you forgotten where you put your keys, your glasses, your socks, or anything else you’ve done absent-mindedly? Spending money can be the same way.

I can run out for diapers and somehow pick up four other things and end up spending twice as much without having thought a whole lot about it until I have to manually classify the receipt and what I spent. Then I start to think about if I really needed to spend my miscellaneous money on random grocery store temptations, and the next time I am shopping, I pick up fewer random items and more what I really need. I’ve personally seen my impulse spending while shopping drop from over 10% of my total grocery bill each week to less than 5%, and often 0%, since I began entering my transactions manually and tracking the impulse portion week to week.

My advice

I’m not advocating giving up the pretty tools and the flowcharts and the graphs by reverting back to pencil and paper. Technology definitely has its place, and can be a real asset of analyzing spending trends. What I am advocating is that you let go of automatic downloading of data, and do the work yourself. Even if you can’t want to be bothered to save receipts (though I recommend doing so), you can still do this by using a copy of your bank and credit card statements and entering the data into your preferred method of financial management manually.

Any cash will have to be accounted for, of course, so some receipt-saving is necessary. The important aspect here is reconsidering every dollar you spend, and making sure that it has been spent in a way that is consistent with your overall values and goals as far as your financial health and future. Those small amounts spent here and there, that with automatic downloading of transactions, you might not even notice, can add up to make a big difference if they were put to use thoughtfully and with purpose.

Give your finances a second look, and you’ll be surprised at what you might find. The resulting readjustment of future spending as you start to really consider where your money goes will bring your spending more in line with your actual values, and free up more of your resources for the things that matter most.

This is a guest post from Dylan Ross, a certified financial planner and owner of Swan Financial Planning, LLC, a registered investment adviser in New Jersey.

I often hear some variation of the question, “What’s the difference between the stock markets and casinos?” So, I’ll share my typical answer… [more]

This is a guest post from Pinyo of Moolanomy. If like what you see, please consider subscribing to his RSS feed.

I have been trying to help someone that I know improve her financial future. Unfortunately, she seems to be stuck in a self-inflicted financial ineptness that’s beyond rescue. Somehow, she always come up with some lame excuses when it comes to money. [more]

By the time you read this, we’ll be well on our way to a relaxing (and much needed) vacation. But fear not… I’ve lined up a number of great guest posts to fill the void while I’m away. Over the coming days you’ll have an opportunity to enjoy fresh content from the likes of:

» Being Frugal
» Clever Dude
» Dylan Ross
» Moolanomy
» My Two Dollars
» No Credit Needed
» Paid Twice
» The Money Guy

While I hope to pop in from time to time, don’t be surprised if I’m slow to respond to comments, and please don’t be offended if I don’t promptly answer your e-mails. Oh, and thanks to everyone that contributed a guest post — it’s much appreciated!

I’ve written in the past about the possibility of retiring overseas. While this can be a great way of stretching your retirement dollars, I recently ran across a blurb in Bottom Line/Personal that talked about some of the hidden costs of retiring outside of the United States.

For example, even if you move overseas, you’ll still have to pay income taxes on Social Security benefits as well as distributions from your pension, 401(k), traditional IRA, etc. You’ll even have to pay tax on income earned while abroad, though there are certain treaty provisions as well as the foreign earned-income exclusion that can reduce you liability. In addition, Medicare does not cover treatment outside of the United States. Thus, while many countries provide nationalized health care, you’ll need to check out how they handle foreign residents — you may or may not be covered.