Category: Financial & Investment Tips
How the Financial Media and Stock Market Analysts Manipulate You
Best Buy, the big box retailer that most shoppers have abandoned sometime in the last decade and a half in favor of Amazon.com, announced better-than-expected earnings for the last three months of 2014, which includes the all-important holiday season. The announcement sent the financial media into a frenzy, as many had all but dismissed Best Buy, even after positive results from the third quarter of 2014. To exemplify Best Buy’s performance and overall sentiment at that time, the Motley Fool presented this five-year chart, comparing Best Buy’s stock price changes over that particular time to the performance of the S&P 500, a popular benchmark for stocks. Here we have a stock that returned -10.9{7dabfd103aa443fce219eea47f0f346a11a54ce587a1a0cbb74f06b9f7a304ca} while the rest of the stock market returned
Which Money Script Do You Live By?
Your money script is a story you tell yourself about money. This story, the way you approach your finances, an outlook on a certain segment of your life, can have a significant effect on your behavior. In the growing field of financial psychology, the money script is a key element for clients and patients. Financial psychology is not quite a mainstream field of psychology yet, nor is it an approach that financial advisers normally consider. For clients who work with financial psychologists, however, there is a clear benefit. Addressing stress-related issues from a financial behavior angle has been shown to be effective. For those who undergo this type of counseling, psychological distress decreases. When the practitioner is trained, clients come away with a better psychological relationship
Three Overlooked Tools for Repairing Credit
This is a guest article by Neal Frankle. Neal is a Certified Financial Planner® in Los Angeles. He is also the senior editor for WealthPilgrim.com, MCMHA.org and CreditPilgrim.com. Your credit report is like a financial passport. If it’s clean you’ll find the doors to the financial world wide open. Your credit journey will be carefree and wonderful. But if you have blotches on your record, the credit border control is going to make it difficult and expensive for you to go anywhere. You probably already know this. But what you may not know is that your credit report may contain significant errors. According to the most recent Federal Trade Commission study [pdf], more than 20{7dabfd103aa443fce219eea47f0f346a11a54ce587a1a0cbb74f06b9f7a304ca} of all credit reports do. And if
When It Makes Sense to Work For Free
How much is your time worth? This is a terrible question, and it usually begets a terrible answer. It’s a question that motivational speakers use to encourage people to make sure they’re optimizing their ability to earn an income. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but it leads to some poor conclusions. For instance, if someone earns a salary that works out to $2,000 a week and works 40 hours a week, the immediate conclusion could be that this worker’s time is worth $50 an hour. It’s a simple way of looking at a financial equation and neglects to incorporate important aspects of compensation like benefits and job security, but it’s usually the baseline that employees use when trying to determine
Should All Financial Advisers Be Held to a Fiduciary Standard?
Over the last year, a friend of mine has been trying to convince me to move my financial assets. I currently have a taxable investment account at Vanguard, and my portfolio consists of a mix that includes a domestic stock index fund, an international stock index fund, and tax-advantaged municipal bond funds. This friend believes that I should be approaching my investments somewhat differently. He is a real estate broker, so he likes to think in terms of leverage. My asset level qualifies me for so-called “private banking” at most retail banks, and one of the things banks like to do for wealthier clients is hold onto their assets while offering special terms like reduced banking fees and great interest rates on a substantial
Burst Sprinkler Line, Property Damage, and Renter’s Insurance
A week ago today I was in Phoenix. I had been there for a few days, and I had been planning to spend a month with my girlfriend away from the cold New Jersey weather. It wasn’t a vacation. We each needed to continue working, but figured we might as well do so where the weather was nice. Early in the morning, I got a frantic call from my apartment complex’s superintendent. “Where are you?” Groggily, I stated I was out of town and asked what was going on. “We have a major problem.” The sprinkler line in my apartment building froze and burst, dumping cold water, ceiling debris, and insulation into my kitchen. The unit below me was in worse
Interview With Dorethia Conner of #MoneyChat
Interview With Dorethia Conner of #MoneyChat is a post from: Faithful With A Few. If you enjoy it, please subscribe to the Feed.A few days ago we posted a review of #MoneyChat The Book, by Dorethia Kelly Conner. This new personal finance book was born out of the popular ‘money chats’ that Dorethia hosts each week on Twitter.To coincide with the launch of the book, we are posting a Q&A with the author about the book and how you can take control of your finances.Why did you write #MoneyChat: THE BOOK?Before the book was the website and before that the online Twitter Chat – which is the catalyst for the #MoneyChat movement. It is a way to take a conversation that
#MoneyChat THE BOOK by Dorethia Conner Kelly – Book Review
#MoneyChat THE BOOK by Dorethia Conner Kelly – Book Review is a post from: Faithful With A Few. If you enjoy it, please subscribe to the Feed.I was excited to read and review my copy of #MoneyChat having been a part of the author’s twitter chats in the past, anonymously following the ‘money chat’ hashtag as the conversations rolled down my screen.#MoneyChat The Book, by Dorethia Conner Kelly, is the result of the recurring topics that have come up in the twitter chats and the other venues where Mrs. Kelly has engaged with and taught others on financial matters.The book is written in a very straightforward, no nonsense style, that I found easy to follow and I enjoyed the pacing of the
8 Tips for a Frugal Valentine’s Day
For several years, it was a February tradition on Consumerism Commentary to look for moderation on Valentine’s Day. Many young couples would like to use the day to express their love, but might not have the financial means to do what television commercials make you believe is normal. If you have additional ideas, feel free to share them below. I stopped the tradition of sharing frugal Valentine’s Day ideas by 2010, as I was all ready farther away from a frugality mindset myself. For me, I had a substantial income from my own business, and I was simply counting down the days before leaving my day job to pursue Consumerism Commentary full time. Frugality wasn’t the first thing on my mind, personally, but it was
How My Money Mindset Changed Four Times and Helped Me Succeed
Any self-help guru would agree that how you think about money shapes your behavior with money. If you want to improve your financial situation, whether to get out of debt or to reach financial independence, your relationship with money is the first thing that must change. If you believe you will never be able to climb out of poverty, it’s going to be much more difficult to achieve that goal. Of course, there is much more than goes into reaching your financial goals than just thinking about money differently. One can’t wish oneself out of debt, even by wishing intensely. The proper mindset is just the first step, but offers no guarantee of success. Additionally, changing a mindset that’s been around for decades
Apple is investing in Solar Energy!
This Post was Originally published at Apple is investing in Solar Energy! on Start Investing Money Tim Cook: New solar farm will be Apple’s ‘biggest and boldest project ever’ – ZDNet ReutersTim Cook: New solar farm will be Apple’s ‘biggest and boldest project ever’ZDNetCook touted this solar farm would be able to produce enough power for almost 60,000 California homes, or translated another way, enough energy to fuel Apple’s new … Read more … California Flats Solar Project agreements with Apple Computers buying 130MW to power its California operations. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has contracted for 150MW. Solar power in California Read more … <!–[CurationSoftTemplate TwoColumnsTable–> Apple’s $848M, 25-year solar agreement is the largest of its …
