|
|
Studies that explore what makes us happy generally reach the same conclusion – we get the most happiness and joy out of time with family and friends or activities that provide general enrichment, such as hobbies.
What the studies show is that it isn’t how much we spend but the quality of the overall experience. So
Continue reading How We Spend – Buying the Potential for Happiness
Retirement is great. Most of us who aren’t in it want it. But before you jump into retirement take time to reflect on a few risks. If you’ve been working for decades retirement is uncharted territory that you’re more apt to enjoy by looking at risk when you do your retirement planning.
Health care risk is the
Continue reading Mitigating Risk in Retirement
These themes can provide you with a good framework for your job search.
Be the Solution to an Employer’s Problem
Package yourself as a solution. Think of yourself as a consultant to the company. Be careful not to give out the “been there, done that” attitude. You need to appear excited about everything. And don’t assume that because
Continue reading A Framework for Your Job Search
Retirement is a new phase in your financial life that involves changes in lifestyle and spending. It can be an adjustment to generate your own retirement income, often from a fixed amount of assets. A good way to make it work is to plan for multiple income streams.
More income sources = greater financial security
With the
Continue reading Creating Your Retirement Income Stream – Withdrawal from Savings and a Lifetime Income Plan
There are many claims about the benefits of asset allocation. Not all of these claims can be supported by evidence. Here are some common myths about asset allocaton.
Asset allocation protects you from bear markets
Asset allocation is all about identifying fundamentally different asset classes (stocks, bonds, real estate investment trusts), deciding how much of each you want
Continue reading Asset Allocation Myths
When you need cash to help make ends meet here are a few risks to avoid.
Credit Report
Before you take on new debt, it’s a good idea to take a look at your credit report and make any corrections.
Balance Transfer to a New Credit Card
If you go for a credit card offer that promises a low
Continue reading Options for Getting Cash to Make Ends Meet
Investors’ attitudes today are characterized by ambiguity. Investors don’t know even what the possible outcomes may be, let alone the probability that they might occur. Without a familiar context for financial decision making, it’s easy to become emotionally paralyzed.
The difference between uncertainty and ambiguity may sound like little more than semantics. But neuroimaging studies have found that
Continue reading Investing Inertia – Overcoming Fear to Reach Your Financial Goals
Retirees looking for ways to stretch their income often budget carefully for large, obvious expenses such as food, housing, utilities, and health care costs.
They find ways to cut back on spending – they may dine out less, take cheaper vacations, and splurge only on special occasions and grandchildren. Some will even work in retirement to
Continue reading Stretch Your Retirement Dollars by Looking at Mutual Fund Fees
Having an allocation of stocks, bonds, and short-term investments appropriate for your goals and tolerance for risk is important, especially when the market is volatile and you may be tempted to make short-term moves.
Although unnerving at the time, history has shown that some of the worst short-term losses in the stock market were often followed
Continue reading Rebalance to Reduce Your Portfolio Risk
There are ways to increase your yield on cash and short-term investments – without taking on excessive risk.
It can be done without committing either to long-term bonds or to the volatility that can come from dropping down too far in credit quality.
First determine how much of your short-term investments are for immediate needs and has to be easily
Continue reading How You Can Increase Your Yield on Cash and Short-Term Investments
For most individual investors it pays to have a long-term perspective and not worry about volatility. You can focus on long-term goals and the current environment by using a ”risk budgeting” approach to investing. It isn’t the same as market timing and it keeps the long term in mind. It shares its philosophy with Warren Buffett, who advised us to
Continue reading Investing in Riskier Asset Classes Using the “Risk Budgeting” Approach
Your car gives you many opportunities to save money on your quest for cash.
Here’s one: the next time you pull up to the pump, think twice about paying for premium gas. In truth, most cars operate just fine with the less-expensive grade. Check your owner’s manual to see if premium is required or merely recommended. Then, look for
Continue reading Use Your Car to Save Money on Your Quest for Cash
We can create our personal inventory of skills and abilities that we’ve acquired from our experiences.
Why inventory our skills?
Perhaps we’re looking for a job or a new opportunity. We can look for a job that uses skills for which we are a close match.
We can also use our skill inventory to find our interests. Our abilities tend to
Continue reading Create your Personal Skills Inventory
For most of us, debt and borrowing money is a fact of life. However, debt can also be a financial tool to provide us with leverage that we can use to build net worth and wealth that we can, in turn, leverage to enjoy life and give back to others.
While cash can be used for
Continue reading Use Debt Wisely to Build Wealth for Enjoyment and Sharing
Here are some steps you can take to protect your cash flow during tough times. It may be a job loss, or large and unexpected medical bills. Whatever the cause, it threatens your income stream or raises your expenses. You’ll need to take drastic measures to restore your cash flow as much as possible.
Eliminate Nonessential Spending
One
Continue reading Steps to Protect Your Cash Flow
Annuities are insurance that protect against the possibility that you’ll live a long life. They promise regular payments as long as you (and your spouse) live, so that you won’t outlast your retirement savings. If things were accurately named, annuities would be called life insurance (and today’s life insurance would be called death insurance).
As compelling
Continue reading Annuities: Skip the Death Benefit Rider
Here are a few job search tips to help you create a resume that will help you be noticed and get you a job interview.
Don’t State an Objective
Your resume objective might actually hurt you. Your resume will be ignored if it lists an objective totally unrelated to the position that’s open. You’re better off getting rid of the objective altogether.
Continue reading Job Search: Tips for Writing a Good Resume
Here are the best and worst improvements to make when you are preparing to sell your house.
Best Improvement: Clean Up
Cost: Negligible
Give your home a top-to-bottom cleaning or, better yet, hire a pro to do a deep clean. Do it even before you hiring a real estate agent. If you don’t have a regular cleaner, hire
Continue reading How to Sell a House – Best and Worst Improvements to Make
A health savings account, or HSA, is exactly what the name implies: a financial account that can be used to save money for future medical expenses. These accounts, combined with a high-deductible health insurance plan, also offer certain income tax breaks that make them even more attractive.
But which health savings account offers the best deal?
The
Continue reading Health Savings Accounts – How to Compare
When deciding whether to rent or buy a home the most important criteria to consider is lifestyle.
If you’re traveling a lot, you may not want to be tied down to a house. Even if you tend to stay close to home it’s likely you’ll begin to tire of home maintenance chores within the next decade
Continue reading Your Lifestyle is the Most Important Consideration When Deciding Whether to Rent or Buy a Home
|
|
