“Wednesday's Personal Finance stories - Marketwatch” plus 3 more |
- Wednesday's Personal Finance stories - Marketwatch
- Congressional candidates for 7th District seat share ... - MLive.com
- Six personal-finance tips for college graduates - Philadelphia Daily News
- personal finance books - MediaChannel.org
| Wednesday's Personal Finance stories - Marketwatch Posted: 02 Jun 2010 01:20 PM PDT Message from Five Filters: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it.
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By MarketWatch Don't miss these top stories: There are things I hate about health care, and mostly it's the part where I have to deal with the insurance company. For instance, why can't I go online and easily find what my policy covers? Why is it such a byzantine and incomprehensible system? But at least I have health insurance, and for that I am grateful. It almost seems like I'm tempting fate to complain at all. Under the new health-care law, of course, millions of uninsured Americans will join the ranks of the insured in coming years. But how that influx of new people will change the U.S. health-care system remains unclear, at least to me. Presumably, it will become harder to schedule a doctor's visit, though in my world that wouldn't be so bad, as it's not hard right now to get an appointment at the family practice I go to -- as long as I'm willing to see a nurse practitioner, which I am. Read Anya Martin's story for more on the rise of this segment of the nursing profession, and why NPs will likely be even more of a growing industry. Also, don't miss Kristen Gerencher's Vital Signs for a look at a health-care model that just might point the way forward as policy makers and health-industry experts grapple with the huge changes in store under the new law. To wit, the veterans' health-care system seems to be a doing a relatively good job monitoring what works and what doesn't when it comes to treating people. Who would have thought? -- Andrea Coombes, Personal Finance editor For quality, it's hard to top veterans' health care
Where can you find the highest-quality health care in the United States? There isn't one single answer, but believe it or not, many studies and independent experts point to the Veterans Health Administration as among the best.
Nurse practitioners' growing role in your health care
If you haven't had an appointment with a nurse practitioner yet, chances are you will within the next few years. Nurse practitioners, or NPs, rank as one of the fastest growing health-care professions, with about 140,000 qualified to practice in the United States, up from 125,000 in 2008, according to the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.
REAL ESTATEPending home sales rise ahead of subsidy's end
Buyers rushed to sign sales contracts on previously owned homes in the United States in April before a tax subsidy expired, according to a survey released Wednesday by an industry lobbying group.
CONSUMERHow to beat bank fees
On July 1, new federal rules will require banks to ask customers to opt in for overdraft coverage -- a line of credit that kicks in when account holders make purchases that exceed their available checking- and debit-account balances.
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| Congressional candidates for 7th District seat share ... - MLive.com Posted: 02 Jun 2010 12:15 PM PDT Message from Five Filters: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. By Chris Gautz | Jackson Citizen PatriotJune 02, 2010, 3:27PMGOP Congressional candidate Marvin Carlson may not lead in the polls or in the fundraising race, but when it comes to making money, he makes more than Schauer and former U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg combined. Carlson issued a challenge last month for his opponents in the 7th District to release their tax returns, because he wanted to show that he was the only candidate that has built businesses in the private sector and created jobs. Carlson previously reported a total family income of $343,644, the vast majority coming from his real estate portfolio and the lease payments it generates. Walberg reported a total family income of $64,939, which largely stems from his legislative pension from the state of Michigan. He reported giving $13,386 to charity and had a refund of $3,607. Schauer's reported family income was $148,543, which is less than his Congressional salary of $174,000, because he contributes to the Thrift Savings Plan, which is similar to a 401(k) but for federal employees, his campaign said. He reported giving $2,235 to charity and had a refund of $9,743. Two years ago, he and his wife opened their own small business, My Style … Your Style, a Battle Creek consignment shop and according to their tax return, they lost $1,072 on it last year. Schauer's campaign said they have hired three other employees at the shop and have always met their payroll. The Brian Rooney campaign declined to make his tax return public.
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| Six personal-finance tips for college graduates - Philadelphia Daily News Posted: 02 Jun 2010 06:53 AM PDT Message from Five Filters: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. CHICAGO - College graduates entering the job market will find there's much to learn about managing their personal finances but taking immediate steps to budget and save, and maintaining those good habits, will help protect them should a spate of bad luck come their way. "The foundations they lay now will serve them well for a stable financial future," said Gail Cunningham, spokeswoman for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. The average college student graduates with about $20,000 in debt and is looking at an average starting salary of $47,673. That average annual paycheck is down 1.7 percent for the Class of 2010 compared with last year's grads, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Listen to related radio report: These days community colleges are busy places. That makes it challenging for grads to save money as they pay off debt - the two most important factors in building financial security - but it's not impossible. "Carving out money to save is good and is a habit that once you start, you'll benefit from for as long as you keep it up," said Dan O'Malley, chief executive of PerkStreet, an online bank. The numbers tell the story, O'Malley said. If you invested $10,000 on your 21st birthday and didn't add anything to it except a constant rate of return of 7 percent, you'd have $196,000 in the bank b y the time you retired. Wait till your 35th birthday and that money pot is a measly $76,000 because of the 14 years of lost interest. Here's your first financial tip: Put 10 percent or more of your income into long-term savings. "Make sure you save," O'Malley said. "It just grows and grows and grows. And get into any kind of matching program with an employer." Here are five other must-do tips: Make a budget. You can't save for a car, a house or the future if you don't know how much you're making and spending. There are plenty of online sites like Mint.com or Kiplinger.com that offer budgeting tools. LearnVest.com has a 2010 college grad financial survival guide. Don't spend money you don't have. That is, live within your means. If you can take public transportation, for example, don't buy a car. If you can comfortably and peacefully live at home with your parents for a while, do it. Consolidate school loans. Many students will be graduating with a handful of them that should be rolled together with one interest rate attached to it. Build your credit history carefully. It is tough to get on in this world without a credit card but it doesn't mean you have to use it wildly. Use it only when you have to, like to rent a car or pay a hotel bill, and pay it off every month. Your payment history is the most important element of your credit score, accounting for 35 percent of your score. See story about the secrets to keeping your credit score high. Have a health-care plan. Figure out when your coverage ends and be sure you have another one lined up. A new law that goes into effect in September will allow you to stay on or return to your parents' health insurance plan until you turn 26. (c) 2010, MarketWatch.com Inc. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. Five Filters featured article: Into the Abyss. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| personal finance books - MediaChannel.org Posted: 02 Jun 2010 01:45 AM PDT Message from Five Filters: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. One of the problems I've always had with reading eBooks online is that it just doesn't have the same look and feel of a real book or magazine. When you hold a book in your hands, you can grip the corner of the page and curl it back just as your finishing the last few words on the page, and then quickly toss the page over to the next page so you can continue without pause. This is part of the experience of reading, and it's something that is very hard to give up as you transition to the digital medium of the Internet. Luckily, there are eBook reader devices that now incorporate an animated sort of "page turning." Those features are awesome, but they don't help you much when you're trying to read an eBook on your computer when you're not mobile. This is why I was very excited to discover an awesome desktop eBook reader called MartView.
MartView Makes Reading Digital Documents EnjoyableWhat I love about the free MartView eBook reader is the design that's very easy on the eyes, and the functionality that really does make you feel like you have ultimate control over the motion of the book and the flow of your reading. Once you download and install the application, it looks like this.
Normally, the top menu bar is hidden, but when you bring your mouse near the top of the screen, it drops down. There are a lot of cool options available for how you'd like to navigate through your eBook. You can simply flip through (my favorite), or you can opt for the standard horizontal or vertical slide formats of typical PDF readers.
In the image below, I've grabbed hold of the lower right corner of the page and I'm turning the page in the example eBook. This shows the page in mid-flip, but you can actually hold it there as you would with a normal book. You can put it back if you want, or continue on to the next page. It's a very cool feeling to have so much control over the motion of the page, and the shading and animation really makes it feel like you're looking at a real book.
Changing views is as easy as clicking on the drop-down menu bar. Here, I've instantly changed the navigation to the vertical slide option. In this format you can use the scroll-bar (or your mouse scroll) to scroll up and down the entire eBook.
Another very cool view is the "thumbnails" view. Rather than sifting through a table of contents to find the page that you're looking for, why not browse a thumbnail of all pages of the eBook? This makes it very easy to find diagrams or images that you want to refer back to but don't remember the exact page.
You can use the MartView reader as a standalone PDF or eBook reader, but it also has the ability to connect through your Internet connection and download from the huge library of free eBooks at the MartView website. You don't need an account, all you need to do is install the reader and you can start downloading free eBooks. You can also create and upload your own eBooks and store them on the MartView library.
You can create and upload an eBook to the MartView library from a PDF eBook, from a collection of your own personal images, or from an archived collection of images and share your eBook with the entire community.
The upload process is really simple and fast. Just select the file, give it a title that you'll remember easily (and a good category), and upload it to MartView.
The coolest part of MartView, in my opinion, is the library. I love free reading material, and the volumes of free content that you'll find at MartView is seemingly unlimited. There are entire collections of online magazines, sorted into categories like Business & Finance, Computers & Tech and a lot more. Of course, you aren't limited to downloading and reading MartView eBooks only. You can open up any PDF on your computer or that you download from any other PDF-based eBook site using your MartView reader. Here, I opened a free download of A Tale of Two Cities.
You'll notice that the shading and appearance gives your PDF document the look and feel of a real book. Just start paging through and enjoy your reading experience! As with many good things, there's a downside. I did notice that MartView is a dog when it comes to memory consumption. It's best used with all other applications shut down and devoting the entire screen to the reading experience. Unless you have some massive memory, I wouldn't advise trying to accomplish much else with your computer while running MartView. With that said, I really like the software and plan to use it whenever I have some free time to sit back and enjoy an e-magazine or a free eBook. J.D.Roth on DIY finance J.D. Roth is the founder of the personal finance blog Get Rich Slowly.
My name is J.D. Roth, and for the past four years, I've been writing a popular personal finance blog. I am not a trained financial professional; I don't have a degree in finance, and I'm not a certified financial planner. I have no formal training. I'm just an average guy who was deep in debt, and finally got fed up with his situation. After deciding to turn things around, I read dozens of financial books, and used what I learned to pay off my debt and begin to save. In four years of reading and writing about money nearly every day, I've learned some things. Sure, I've learned how to manage credit cards effectively and where to find good savings accounts. But I've also learned that in nearly every instance, the way to take control of your finances is to embrace the DIY ethic. Instead of trusting others to manage your money, you need to have the guts manage it yourself. DIY Personal Finance Last summer, O'Reilly media — the folks behind Make magazine (which Mark edits) and the computer books with the animals on the cover — asked me if I'd be willing to write a book about money. But not just any book about money. Your Money: The Missing Manual would let me share the tips I'd gleaned since starting to write Get Rich Slowly in 2006. I knew right away that I wanted to encourage readers to take control of their financial lives. One of my mantras is: "Nobody cares more about your money than you do." Other people, both pros and amateurs, are keen to offer advice, but their recommendations are often counter to your own interests. To really build a financial future that meets your needs, you have to learn how to save and invest, set financial goals, and master the art of conscious spending. My belief that you need to take charge of your own financial life has only been strengthened over the past two years. The housing crisis, the market meltdown, the controversy over credit card policies — while these things can't be avoided entirely even by smart money managers, their effects can be mitigated. If you call the shots when buying a house, the real estate agent can't talk you into spending more than you can afford. (My brother lost two houses to foreclosure because he listened to his real estate agent instead of making his own decisions.) If you invest based on your risk tolerance, you can avoid catastrophic losses during a market crash — or insure that you don't miss out on the subsequent boom. Why Bother? Why bother with DIY finance? There are many advantages to taking control of things yourself, including:
Now, it's important to understand that DIY finance is just like DIY anything else. You can't enter a woodshop and expect to be building Stickley furniture overnight. You need to read. You need to practice. You need to start small. If you try using the heavy powertools first — say, directing your own investments — you can get into a lot of trouble if you don't know what you're doing. And there will always be times you'll want to call in an expert. I've promised my wife that I won't mess with major plumbing or electrical work; for big jobs, I call in somebody who knows what they're doing. The same is true with money. Though I can handle most of the routine stuff myself, I have a team of trusted experts at my disposal for when strange stuff happens: if I sell a business, if a parent dies, if the IRS audits me. An important part of the DIY ethic is knowing when to pass things off to the pros. Action Steps If you've decided you want to take control of your financial life, there are a few essential steps to get you started. I can't give you the secret to wealth and happiness in a single blog post (I just wrote a 300-page book, and even that felt short!), but I can give you some basic guidelines to get started. 1. Take Control of Your Spending I'm not a big believer in detailed budgets. They work fine for some people (and if you're one of them, that's great), but for many others, a broader budget makes more sense. After trying (and failing) to use all sorts of detailed budgets, I finally settled on the Balanced Money Formula, as described by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi in their book, All Your Worth. Here's what it looks like: Whatever you decide to do, start tracking what you spend. Sign up with a service like Mint or Wesabe and start watching your pennies the same way you watch your calories. Some people think frugality is a bad thing. It's not. Frugality is an important part of personal finance. While it's true that you can save tons of money by being smart when you buy a car or a home, chances to save on these things don't come along very often. But there are tons of opportunities to save at the grocery store or when shopping for your kids' clothes. Make the most of them. Save on the big stuff and the small stuff. The bottom line? By practicing conscious spending, you can spend on the things that are important to you while pinching pennies on the things that don't matter. Note: If you have trouble with compulsive spending, you can try "hacks" like the 30-day rule, but you may need to seek outside help. 2. Take Control of Your Debt The only way you're going to get out of debt is to start spending less than you earn. I know that some people are in tight spots, trapped by medical problems or catastrophic accidents. But most Americans are in debt because they buy things they can't afford. In the past four years, I've talked with hundreds (thousands?) of people who have struggled with debt. Those who have managed to kick debt to curb have one thing in common: They've stopped waiting for help and decided to help themselves. If you're willing to put in the time and effort, you can get out of debt. I tend to favor the debt snowball method of debt reduction, which has been made popular by financial guru Dave Ramsey. Using this technique, you pay off your lowest balances first (instead of your highest interest rates). You pay a little more in the long run, but it works. This free debt snowball calculator lets you compare different debt-reduction strategies to find one that works for you. Once you've taken control of debt, you need to avoid it in the future. To do that, you need to learn how to use credit wisely. 3. Take Control of Your Credit Credit can be a convenience, or it can kill you. Establish some ground rules: Don't buy on credit if you wouldn't (or couldn't) pay cash, pay off your balance at the end of every month, and always read the fine print. Pick a card that works for you (from a site like CardRatings.com or Index Credit Cards) and use it responsibly. Don't just accept a card that is loaded with fees. At the same time, take control of your credit score. Take the time to educate yourself on how credit scores work. A great place to start is Credit Report Card, a free service that rates your credit and gives you advice on how to improve it. (If you want to really geek out on this, pick up a copy of Liz Weston's Your Credit Score, which is packed with information.) You can stay up-to-date with the world of credit and credit cards by reading CreditBloggers, where Mark is a regular contributor. 4. Take Control of Your Banking Why are you with your current bank? Because it's close to home? Because they gave you a free Frisbee when you signed up? Your bank won't make you rich, but it's the central hub for much of your financial life. You should choose a place with features and fees to match your needs. Rates are low right now, but they'll rise over the next couple of years. As they do, take the time to be sure your money is working hard for you. Like many readers at Get Rich Slowly, I use a local credit union for my checking account, and I use a high-yield online savings account for my savings. (I use ING Direct, but there are other great options.) Here's a tool to help you find a credit union near you. You may also want to look into reward checking accounts, which often give better returns than high-yield savings accounts! 5. Take Control of Your Investing If your employer offers a retirement plan, use it — especially if they offer any sort of matching contributions. While it's wrong to say that an employer's 401(k) is "free money," it's still a damn good deal. Whether or not you have a retirement plan at work, start a Roth IRA, which is an easy way for individuals to set money aside for the future. (Here's a free Roth IRA e-book that explains the basics.) What should you invest in? First off, don't make the mistake of believing that you need a broker or adviser to pick your investments for you. Studies show that paying others to make these decisions for you generally costs more than you gain from it — if you gain anything at all. If you want to learn about stocks and bonds, do some research at the American Association of Individual Investors website, or borrow a stack of books from the public library. But I'd encourage you to instead consider index funds, which are mutual funds designed to track the movement of the stock market (or a section of the stock market). For example, Vanguard's VFINX fund is designed to mirror the movement of the S&P 500 index. Some people argue that index funds don't make sense because they can never beat the market. While that's true, they still perform better than 80% of investors (professional or otherwise) over long periods of time. If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe Warren Buffett, the most successful investor the world has ever seen. He advocates index funds for most investors, having once said, "I believe that 98 or 99 percent — maybe more than 99 percent — of people who invest should extensively diversify and not trade. That leads them to an index fund with very low costs." 6. Nobody Cares More About Your Money Than You Do These tips just scratch the surface. In Your Money: The Missing Manual, I spend over 300 pages explaining how you can reclaim your financial life by taking back control from other people. I want you to learn how to negotiate, not just when buying a car, but when buying furniture and appliances. I also want you to know how to negotiate your salary. I want you to read contracts instead of blindly signing them. I want you to learn how to research big purchases. I want you to know how to buy a house you can actually afford. None of this is rocket science. But many of us never learned the basics. Our parents did their best to teach us, but they didn't know a lot of this stuff, either. And we live in a society that is hell-bent on encouraging us to spend, so it can be tough to master the mental side of money. My goal is to help as many people as possible realize they can be masters of their financial destiny. Taking charge of your own finances has a powerful side effect: When you encounter new financial situations — buying a home, starting a business — you feel less intimidated. You're able to grasp the basics quickly, and can have the confidence that you'll be able to figure out the rest. Plus, you put yourself in a position to parse the advice from the so-called experts. (You can even use your bullshit detector to process articles like this one.) So, don't wait for someone to give you permission to do this stuff. You're an adult. Nobody's going to give you the go-ahead. Take charge of your own financial life today.
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