This is what our Christmas tree looked like Christmas morning. It looked nice, but there was probably a little less underneath it than there was under yours. This was intentional.
Thank You (And What Do You Want To Read About?)
2 minute read
No personal finance information here today. I just want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has read my blog and social media posts throughout the year. I do appreciate the comments, likes, and shares on social media because I believe those are all a means to help get my information to a broader audience that can hopefully benefit from it, but what I appreciate even more is when people they tell me that they read my blog and they value the information I share. That’s the best form of motivation for me.
A Smarter Way To Give
3 minute read
As Christmas rapidly nears, I hear people continuing to talk about last minute shopping. Maybe they just hate shopping, maybe they’re terrible at coming up with gift ideas, or maybe they’re worried about how much it’s going to cost. I wonder how many people actually sat down and thought about how much they would (or could afford to) spend before the holiday season was upon us. It’s probably a little too late to setup a budget for 2018 holiday gifts, but it’s definitely not too late to make sure that you’ll be in a position to give all of the gifts that you’d like to in 2019.
An Anytime Tax Saving Strategy For Indiana
3 minute read
For some reason, a ton of people wait until the very last second to complete the tasks that will save them some money once tax time comes around. Do a quick search or check out your favorite personal finance website and you’re sure to see at least one list about year-end tax planning tips/strategies/savvy moves. I assume there’s a reason for that – because they know everyone is searching for it.
Selling At A Loss
3 minute read
Buy low, sell high. It’s probably the most famous investing adage that most people have heard. If you don’t know anything about finance, you at least know that, right? It’s the first thing you were ever told about investing in the stock market, so why would professional investment managers intentionally sell stocks at a loss? Inherently, selling securities at a loss seems counterintuitive. Just like we said above, “Buy low, sell high”, right? Yes, that is right…most of the time.
The Most Overlooked (And Cheapest) Form of Insurance
3 minute read
No one wants to pay for insurance, but everyone is glad it’s in place when it’s needed. If I didn’t think that having some forms of insurance was important, then I’d cancel all my policies and do something else with my money. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s a prudent decision for me (or probably most people) to do so at this time. A lot of people have multiple types of insurance including life, disability, health, dental, homeowner’s, auto, and so on. But is that enough?
Free Steak Dinner
3 minute read
A couple of days ago, The New York Times published a story about an insurance salesman who sent mailers to older people preying on fear of the stock market and advertising a free steak dinner if they attended his seminar. The insurance salesman made his pitch during the dinner using shady, outdated information that did not provide an accurate depiction of the product that he was selling to those in attendance. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time he’d done something sneaky and probably not the first time you’ve heard a story like this, but it may have been the first time a personal finance writer attended one of his dinners and called him out for it through a worldwide news outlet.
Is Saving Boring? Can It Be Exciting?
4 minute read
It’s that time of year where we’re thinking more about spending than we’re thinking about saving. Black Friday has come and gone, but retailers are still going to provide plenty of “deals” and advertisements to entice you to spend money during the holiday season. People are obsessed with getting a deal, even if it’s not really a deal but we think it is anyways. But, what if we were just as obsessed with saving our money?
Getting Back on Track
3 minute read
I’m going to go ahead and take a wild guess that you may have gone off the deep end over Thanksgiving. Let’s be real, Thanksgiving food is the best food and it’s so hard to resist, even when you feel like you can’t eat another bite. And, if you’re like me, then you went off the deep end multiple times at multiple Thanksgiving dinners. When things like this happen, we sometimes just feel like giving up on our diets completely. We feel like we’ve already blown it so we might as well just keep eating like crap, right? But that only makes the situation worse. What we actually need to do is realize that eating more than we should have over Thanksgiving is just a short-term mistake that likely doesn’t have a significant impact when we view our diets in the long term.
Thankful
2 minute read
I think Thanksgiving may be my favorite holiday. Does that make me wrong for not saying Christmas? I’m thankful every day, but today is dedicated to giving thanks so here’s a little different perspective than maybe what you usually hear.