While we were out of town this past weekend, we had an opportunity to play a bit of Guitar Hero III for the Wii. Having never played it before, all I can say is… Wow! It was a ton of fun. So much fun, in fact, that we just picked up a copy for ourselves this afternoon. Now we just need to master it before the Aerosmith version comes out in June.
And now here are some articles that caught my eye over the past week… [more]
Not long ago, I received a letter stating that my personal data, including at least one old address and my social security number, may have been compromised. Needless to say, this was a bit unnerving. While I have no way of knowing whether or not this information was truly stolen, I have to assume that it was. So, what’s a guy to do? [more]
Here are some of my favorite FiveCentNickel posts from a year ago this past week:
» Minimizing Our Taxes with a SEP-IRA, 403(b) and 457(b)
» Avoid Check Washing With Special Ink?
» Georgia Upholds Ban on Payday Loans
» Blockbuster Total Access vs. NetFlix
And here’s what was going on two years ago:
» Staging Your Home for Sale
» Reverse ABA Routing Number Lookup
» The Ins and Outs of Bridge Loans
» Thoughts on Frequent Flyer Credit Cards
FiveCentNickel participated in three carnivals this week. Here they are along with links to my articles that were included in each.
The Carnival of Personal Finance included “Reconsidering Our Asset Allocation.”
The Best of Me Symphony included “Saving for Retirement at the Last Minute.” Also included was “Are Credit Card Rewards Taxable?” from creditaddict.com.
The Festival of Frugality included “Save Money by Fixing Things Yourself.
As a followup to my collection of quotes on stock market timing, here’s another set of quote on the importance of developing an investing plan and staying the course. Once again these quotes are brought to you courtesy of The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing… [more]
As I noted the other day, we’ve been reconsidering our asset allocation. Setting aside the finer details of how much we want in which type of investment, we also need to get a handle on how to structure our holdings across accounts.
The problem
Our situation is perhaps more complex than that of the average family, in that we have seven different investment accounts of various flavors. This includes two Roth IRAs, a SEP-IRA, a 403(b), a 457(b), another work-related retirement account, and a taxable investment account.
Unfortunately, we can’t consolidate any of these accounts (at least not until I leave my current job) so we’re stuck with the complexity. Nonetheless, I’m committed to treating the whole ball of wax as a single pot of money for allocation purposes. After struggling with how best to manage things, I finally had an epiphany. [more]
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a new book called The Middle-Class Millionaire. That post generated a good bit of discussion and, not long after publishing it, I was contacted by Lewis Schiff, who is one of the authors of the book.
Lewis graciously offered to field questions from readers, and a good number of took him up on his offer. What follows is a series of burning questions (and answers!) about Middle-Class Millionaires (MCMs)… [more]
With all the stock market turmoil, I thought I’d share some investing quotes that I ran across when reading The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing. The general topic is “market timing” – i.e., the practice of jumping in and out of the market, trying to buy in at the low points and sell out at the high points. There are (in my opinion) some real pearls of wisdom in here. [more]
Having just finished preparing our taxes, my attention has now turned to minimizing our risk of being audited. While we haven’t done anything sketchy, and I also know that the odds of getting audited are quite low overall, I still don’t relish the idea of having to fight an audit. To that end, I thought I’d highlight some tips for avoiding an income tax audit that I recently ran across in Working for Yourself by Stephen Fishman. [more]
Finally, some positive news on the economic front… According to the National Association of Realtors, existing home sales rose in February for the first time in six months. The downside is that the 2.9% increase in sales was accompanied by a continued fall in prices. In fact, the median price tumbled by the largest amount on record during February. For what it’s worth, experts are still predicting that the real estate market won’t bottom out until later this year.
