My Money Blog

Does Living Longer Mean We Should Change Our Asset Allocation To Include More Stocks?

Posted on June 26, 2007 // 15 Comments

Recent articles by Bernstein Wealth Management [pdf] and Kiplinger's Personal Finance suggest that as we continue to live longer lives, this should increase the percentage of our portfolios that we devote to stocks. Living Longer... A 2000 study … [Read the rest]

Prosper Lending Revisited: Will Returns Drop As Defaults Increase Over Time?

Posted on June 24, 2007 // 33 Comments

Update: Prosper is currently offering a $25 sign-up bonus when joining! Months ago I did a review of Prosper, a website which allows you to earn interest by lending money directly to others (Prosper takes a small cut). After looking at the … [Read the rest]

Frugal Shopping: Which Vegetables Should You Buy Organic?

Posted on June 24, 2007 // 32 Comments

There are many reasons why people buy organics vegetables, and one of them is to avoid ingesting pesticides. While the benefits are not entirely proven, it is clear that buying organic can be pretty pricey - Whole Foods grocery is even dubbed "Whole … [Read the rest]

Emergency Room Summary Of Charges Arrived

Posted on June 23, 2007 // 37 Comments

Yesterday I received the list of charges for my emergency room visit earlier this month (for what was found to be a kidney stone). I added my best guess for what each of the charges were for: Summary of Charges Emergency Room (Doc + … [Read the rest]

OpenCourseWare: Fundamentals of Personal Financial Planning

Posted on June 21, 2007 // 28 Comments

While reading this month's issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, I found that UC Irvine offers a free online course on the Fundamentals of Personal Financial Planning: This course was produced by a generous grant from the Certified … [Read the rest]

Which Store Gift Cards Have The Highest Resale Value?

Posted on June 21, 2007 // 17 Comments

All this talk about converting free Membership Rewards points into cold hard cash got me to thinking - how much do you net after fees, and which stores have the gift cards or certificates with the highest resale value? My initial guess was that … [Read the rest]

Free 25,000 Rewards Points ($250 in Gift Cards or a Free Plane Ticket) For American Express Business Gold Card

Posted on June 19, 2007 // 43 Comments

Update: The below promotion is now expired. The New Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN now offers 3X points on airfare, 2X points on advertising, gas, and shipping and 1X point on everything else. The annual fee for this card is … [Read the rest]

Considering Changes To How I Calculate Our Net Worth

Posted on June 19, 2007 // 80 Comments

When tracking one's net worth, whether publicly or privately, I don't think there is any one "correct" way to do it. People should measure it however they like in order to achieve useful information out of it. Accordingly, as we get closer to … [Read the rest]

More Ways to Keep Your Bank Balances High, and Make More Money

Posted on June 17, 2007 // 32 Comments

Everybody has a high-yield savings or checking account paying 4% or more, right? Here are a few other ways to maximize your bank balances and therefore your interest earned. Stop withholding too much of your taxes Did you get your tax refund? … [Read the rest]

Father’s Day Thoughts: What Are You Working For?

Posted on June 17, 2007 // 22 Comments

I don't mean to be a downer on this holiday, but I still want to point out the results from CareerBuilder.com's 2007 annual Father's Day survey of full-time working fathers: 27% of working dads say they spend more than 50 hours a week on work … [Read the rest]

How To Keep Your Gift Cards and Certificates From Expiring

Posted on June 16, 2007 // 25 Comments

We ended up getting a huge Macy's gift card for our wedding three years ago, and were dismayed when we realized that after 2 years it had died with about $100 still on it. The problem was that for a long time the closest Macy's was an hour's drive … [Read the rest]

Beware: Lifestyle Inflation Ahead! Things You Get And Can’t Go Back

Posted on June 16, 2007 // 41 Comments

Even though we're still trying to avoid "lifestyle inflation", we find that there are certain things that once you achieve, they are very, very hard to give up. Here's just a few: Living in a house, as opposed to an apartment We started renting … [Read the rest]