Financial Reflections

I’ve written before about how we (at least in the US) are poorly educated when it comes to personal finance.  We lack some very fundamental knowledge when it comes to the day-to-day management of our money.  Ideas like budgeting, saving an emergency fund, or even writing a check is rarely taught, from what I’ve seen.  [...]

Now that I’m moving ahead financially, I’m looking to the future.  That means that I’m trying to figure out - for the first time - how to invest my money.  I do have a few investments in my retirement plans, which are in mutual funds.  But I also have thought about purchasing various individual stocks with one of those online [...]

I’ve heard this one several times before: everyone’s becoming a millionaire.  It goes right along with the idea that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.  These days, that certainly seems to be the case.  Some of us are watching the numbers on our quarterly statements getting bigger, while the rest [...]

Whenever Google does something, the world takes notice. So when they opened a finance site, I just had to take a look.

In a previous entry, I decided to purchase a stock pick that was sent to my fax machine at work.  I only did the purchase on paper, not laying any actual money on what I was pretty sure was a dubious stock to start with.  Here’s how things have gone now that over a month has [...]

For years I’ve seen faxes come in to work claiming to have the next big stock pick.  And for years, I’ve thrown them into the trash without a second thought - until yesterday.  That’s when I decided to buy one and see what happened.

I just saw an episode of Flip This House, (not to be confused with Flip That House) and it really sparked my interest in real estate.  Of course, anything that shows people making a half million dollars in a matter of days sparks my interest.
However, I’m worried that there were problems with the show that [...]

With the start of the new year, comes everybody’s (or at least every magazine’s) preview of the new year.  Finance magazines aren’t any different.  They all have their own Mutual Fund Guide, How to Make Money guide or, for those of us who are broke, a Best Places to Work guide.
But while looking through the [...]