“3 Personal Finance Terms You Should Know - Associated Content” plus 3 more |
- 3 Personal Finance Terms You Should Know - Associated Content
- Personal Finance Daily - Marketwatch
- Business, Personal Finance, Technology, Employment news ... - Austin American-Statesman
- Personal Finance: Matchmaker, Matchmaker - Washington Post
| 3 Personal Finance Terms You Should Know - Associated Content Posted: 22 Apr 2010 11:16 AM PDT April is Financial Literacy Month, a great time to consider your financial situation and to review some of the basics of personal finance. You probably understand the importance of having good credit, paying down debt and the necessity of spending less than you earn. However, it is important to understand some other financial concepts as well. Here are three personal finance terms that you should know to get an even better grip on your financial situation. 1. Net worth. If you want a measure of how your wealth is growing, you can use net worth. To figure out your net worth, you first need to add up all of your assets. This includes things of value that you have -- things you can sell for cash. Assets include property (including the market value of your home), cash, investments and other similar items. After you have added up your assets, you add up your total liabilities. These are obligations that you have, including credit card debt, medical bills and your mortgage balance. Now, subtract your liabilities from your assets. What remains is your net worth. You can use your net worth as a good way to measure the financial progress you are making. 2. Cash flow. Understanding the concept of cash flow is vital if you want financial freedom. Cash flow is a way of tracking your money as it moves through your own personal system of finances. It illustrates where your money comes from (your income) and where it is spent (your expenses). Cash flow also looks at the timing of expenses in relation to when you receive income. Knowing when bills are due and how much money you have to cover them is important, and part of understanding your cash flow. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Personal Finance Daily - Marketwatch Posted: 22 Apr 2010 09:43 AM PDT
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By MarketWatch Don't miss these top stories: Let's not quibble about economic data: This is still a Great Recession, and if you're out of work it feels more like a Depression. And if you're one of the millions of folks who have been jobless for 27 weeks or more -- what is considered long-term unemployed -- the depression can be more than economic. Being rejected for a job over and over, or simply being unable over and over to even get in the hiring door to be rejected, can weigh on a job hunter to the point of sabotaging future searches and even to such a degree that one's health can start to suffer. If you are starting to fall into either of those traps, it's imperative to reenergize. For you job hunt, that could mean seeking some extra schooling, networking more often and farther afield or juicing up a résumé to concentrate on skills and not dates. For your health, it could mean more time at the gym, extra attention to a hobby or less hitting the bottle or the smokes. Regardless of where we are in the cycle, even this recession will turn. And when it does, you don't want to be too debilitated to take advantage. -- Steve Kerch, assistant managing editor THE JOB MARKET How to reenergize your long-suffering job search
While the economy may be slowly recovering, it's still tough to find a job and millions of workers have been unemployed for far longer than they'd like.
8 ways the long-term unemployed can protect their well-being
It's been nearly a year since Kevin Brett lost his job as a public-relations executive, the longest stretch of unemployment he's ever faced.
Jobless claims fall 24,000 to 456,000
The number of people filing an initial claim for unemployment benefits declined by 24,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 456,000, the first drop in three weeks, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Although layoffs are down significantly from the peak a year ago, initial jobless claims have remained stubbornly high, a sign that labor markets are very weak. Initial claims are essentially unchanged from the first of the year, but are down 27% from a year ago.
Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Business, Personal Finance, Technology, Employment news ... - Austin American-Statesman Posted: 22 Apr 2010 08:46 AM PDT Home > The Ticker > Archives > 2010 > April > 22 > Entry Sallie Mae cutting 500 jobs in KilleenSLM Corp., the country's biggest student loan company, will cut 500 call center jobs in Killeen this year, and 2,000 more in other states, as it exits the federal student loan business. Congress earlier this year ended the role of private companies as middlemen in distributing federal student loans. The government expects to save $60 billion in fees it had been paying private companies to process federal student loans. Sallie Mae, as SLM is known, will continue to process private student loans. The company originated $840 million in private loans in the first quarter, compared with $1.5 billion in the year-ago quarter. SLM call center employees in Killeen and Panama City, Fla., will lose their jobs this year. Other call centers will close in 2011. U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock, criticized the legislation that ended the role of private companies in federal loans. "I have been saying for months now that this takeover of the student loan industry would devastate local economies, and would cost people their jobs," Carter said. "This is exactly the sort of thing we don't need at a time when unemployment is near 10 percent." While Sallie Mae will no longer originate federal loans, it is one of four companies that will continue to handle payments and collections on those loans. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Personal Finance: Matchmaker, Matchmaker - Washington Post Posted: 22 Apr 2010 06:59 AM PDT One expert with Fidelity Investments said that as the recovery gains momentum, many more companies will return to the practice of matching. Typically, large companies are among the first to reinstate the match, with small businesses following. I noticed this trend back in February and at the time commented that I was dismayed that without the match, some employees reduced or even stop contributing to their retirement plan. I said it then and I'm saying it again: even if your company hasn't restored its match or doesn't have a match at all, it's a shortsighted move to base your saving for retirement on the present or absence of a match. Celebrity Cash Well this is no laughing matter. Wonder Love Inc., a company for which the president is comedian and nationally syndicated radio host Steve Harvey, owes more than $2 million to the IRS, according to one of my favorite blogs, the Detroit News' Tax Watchdog. The blog uses public records, not rumors, and just tells it like the tax authorities file it. I enjoy listening to Harvey on the radio and watched his recent gig as a guest host filling in for Meredith Vieira on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." But I know this funny man can't be laughing when faced with a possible $2 million tax debt. Red Foxx, another comedian, had his belongings seized and sold to satisfy tax debts. Read more about the famous fighing tax authorities on the Walletpop blog. Why is it that people who appear to be doing well financially can't avoid tax troubles? Because they are just like so many regular Joes and Janes who don't pay enough attention to their financial lives or they procrastinate and think that ignoring a problem -- like not filing and paying their taxes -- will some how go away. Credit CARD Act Impact For the last several weeks, I've been highlighting various provisions of the Credit CARD Act. One area that has had many credit users steamed is how issuers allocated their payments. Often when people made payments above the minimum due, that money was applied to balances with the lowest interest rate. Well the new CARD Act attempts to help people dig out of debt a little sooner. Here are the rules, under the new reform, for credit card payment allocation: --Any monthly payment amounts that exceed the minimum payment amount due, must be applied to balances with the highest interest rate first, then balances with the next highest interest rate, and so on. --For deferred interest programs, the card issuer must allocate the entire amount in excess of minimum during the last two months before the deferred interest period ends. Learn more about the new Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009. Color of Money Question of the Week Last week, the Pew Research Center released a report stating that millenials have a less strong work ethic than generations before them. While the report was very insightful, I wondered if the generalization was fair. Here are some of your responses to the question," Are the millennials you meet working hard?" "As a baby boomer I have to completely agree with the perception painted about the difference in work ethic in the millennials," said Sue Scott of Exton, Pa. "I see it both in my workplace and in my own home. However, balance is key. I'm seeing a generation who will struggle with the exact opposite issues their parents had. We had to struggle sometimes to stop being so responsible to our jobs to go home to our families. They will be struggling with trying to give up 'their time' to be certain they give their jobs enough attention so that they can keep their jobs and be financially responsible for themselves." Harry Tran of San Francisco wrote: "Work ethic is not exactly age-oriented but embodied by the individual." Chad Balke of North Carolina doesn't believe the blame should be entirely placed on the millennials. "If older adults have a problem with millennials' work ethic, then doesn't that reflect on older adults parenting skills? I am a borderline millennial and Gen X-er and my parents taught me about work ethic. If this 'portrait' of millennials is accurate then I think the helicopter parenting is mostly to blame." Erica Williams of Silver Spring, Md. wanted to defend the young folks from her generation. "I'm a millennial who was so upset by the [Post] piece that I wrote my own response - which was picked up by the Harvard Business Review and Business Week last week," Williams wrote. "My experience both as a member of this generation and someone who has had the rare opportunity to manage an entire staff of millennials shows me that the findings of the [Pew] report, when taken out of context and without careful evaluation, lead to the wrong conclusion." In fact, Williams puts forth a convincing argument in Debunking the Millennials' Work Ethic "Problem". Williams certainly put a lot of work into making her case that millennials aren't lazy. She explains what she thinks the Pew and Post report missed. Tia Lewis contributed to this e-letter. You are welcome to e-mail comments and questions to singletarym@washpost.com. Please include your name and hometown; your comments may be used in a future column or newsletter unless otherwise requested. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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Comments
By Dan
April 22, 2010 2:38 PM | Link to this
Wow! Eliminating the middle man. How does that work? Sally Mae is performing a service that is still required. The difference is the government will hire people to do the job. I may be wrong, but given the history and current state of government operations it will cost more and the quality of service will go down. How do you like the IRS or Postal Service which has never turned a profit. Wake up - it is more spending and debt and control over our lives.
By CMills
April 22, 2010 2:24 PM | Link to this
I'm tired of this senseless talk about jobs, jobs, jobs. People are failing to understand why people have jobs and that's because they have meaningful work to do. By meaningful, I mean producing or creating some product and/or service that people either want or need. If the govt wanted to, it created all the "jobs" it wanted to. Unless the people who have that job have meaningful work to do, that "job" is just a drain on society.
By Will
April 22, 2010 2:01 PM | Link to this
Darn. I still have to pay the money I owe them
By DEB
April 22, 2010 1:51 PM | Link to this
It is darn if you do and darn if you don't.. the Republican's can't have it both ways.. You spend they complain.. you eliminate Fed monies going to middle companies.. and they complain.. Sorry.. if this is going to save the Fed govt from paying a middle man to do what the govt can do..maybe the govt will hire people to do the same.. Let's call it what it really is.. COST SAVINGS>> just like any private firm does.. Sorry.. that is life.!!! There must be something that comes to an end, after all it probably was a waste of taxpayers dollars..!! The loans will continue to be done.without the middle man.. let's not politicise the issue.. This was a cash cow.. only..