All Entries in the "Personal Finance 101" Category
Prepay Mortgage or Beef Up Savings?
Source: Myrtle Beach Online If you’ve read this column for a while, you know I’ve often urged readers to think about making extra mortgage principal payments. This can dramatically cut the amount of interest you pay over the life of the loan and allow you to pay it off years early. But obviously this can’t [...]
Mortgage Disaster Ahead?
MD’s Commentary: In keeping with the RE doom and gloom theme, I thought that this would be an appropriate post. Even with all of the negativity surrounding the Real Estate market, housing related stocks were up 2-3% on yesterday. Be careful out there. Source: The Motley Fool August 25, 2006 So now that the tide seems [...]
Who’s afraid of paying for college?
NEW YORK (MONEY Magazine) – What scares parents most when it comes to the safety of their family? Terrorism? No. Crime? Negative. Violent video games? The environment? Not even close. A recent survey asked 300 parents of school-age children to rank a list of fears in order of which inspired the most horror. Ahead of [...]
Ten Tips to Turn School-Spending Outings into Money Lessons
Source: Market Watch You’re about to shell out hundreds of dollars on consumer goods: What better time to talk budgeting and personal finance with your children, whether they’re in third grade or heading off to college? More …
Debt Reduction: The Weed-Out Course on the Road to Financial Freedom
A few weeks ago I posted an article on debt reduction that generated an interesting conversation. It was a fairly standard article on what I thought was a commonly accepted principle. Here is the scenario: Joe has two credit card balances. Card A has a balance of $8000 at 19.8% and minimum payments of [...]
Personal Finance Software is Money Magic
I will admit that budgeting is no fun. However, if you are finding yourself deep in debt – it is a necessary evil. I have stumbled across a software program Mvelopes Personal that claims to be a breakthrough in personal finance software. I haven’t used it, but it seems interesting. More …
Pay Off High Interest First
By Scott Bilker Source: Debt Reduction 101 David Sheepsley has two credit cards with balances. Card A has a balance of $8,000 at 19.8% and minimum payments of $160 per month. Card B has a balance of $6,000 at 5.9% with minimum payments of $120 per month. David has a total of $400 per month [...]
Ten Essential Lessons for Funding a Child’s Education
Source: Smith and Barney Click Here
60-SECOND GUIDE TO … Getting out of Debt
Picture yourself debt-free — no more bouts of anxiety over mounting credit card balances, no more slavery to your debt, and no chance of threats from the dreaded collection agency. You can do it! Here’s the scoop — in one minute flat. More …
Will a Bigger Paycheck Solve Your Financial Problems?
Do any of the following thoughts ever cross your mind as you are preparing the monthly bills? How did your friend get a new job with a 20% pay raise? Wasn’t she almost fired last year? When is your manager going to move on? You are certainly more qualified. Whatever happened to the move up [...]
