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Welcome to the end of the week! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy this weeks roundup of interesting reads in another edition of Happy Hour.
We came one step closer to self driving cars when Google unveiled the first prototype this week. As someone who hasn’t driven in over a decade, I fully support this. The idea of being driven around as opposed to driving is refreshing, certainly less stressful, and more efficient than our current system. Continue Reading…
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A successful plan to save more money is very straight forward. Set aside a decent chunk of your income early and let the power of compounding grow it over time. This doesn’t always go as planned. Other obstacles get in the way, like paying off debt and instant gratification (buying things you really don’t need).
Those obstacles are why the personal savings rate sits below 5%. The guru’s say to save 15% of your income and live off the rest. That’s a big difference between reality and what’s recommended. That means most people will fall short of their retirement needs, unless they plan to save more money now. Continue Reading…
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Welcome to the end of the week! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy this weeks roundup of interesting reads in another edition of Happy Hour.
BrandZ released it’s top 100 brands of 2014 this week. With it, Apple was unseated by Google as the top brand this year.
Whether you’re aware of it or not, powerful branding breeds loyalty. With many of these brands, there’s a small fanatical base, like the Apple fanboys, that become walking billboards for the products. Continue Reading…
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The growth and popularity of index investing has provided investors with a great opportunity to move their money away from higher cost mutual funds. However, low costs aren’t the only thing you need to consider these days.
When you drop the fund manager, you become the full-time decision maker for your investments. Done wrong, it opens the door to bad habits, confusion, comprehension risk, and losses. That’s never a good trade-off when discussing the benefits of index based funds, but it’s true.
For each index fund you own, you need to know the underlying index, what it measures, the asset makeup, how the index is weighted, the risks, and finally the costs. It’s a lot to cover, but it all impacts your performance. What once was a simple comparison tool has evolved into a complex investing strategy. Continue Reading…
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Welcome to the end of the week and another edition of Happy Hour! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy your end of the week roundup of interesting reads in the land of money.
If you thought 2014 would be the year of higher rates, so far you’d be wrong. Treasury rates are falling. More worrying, high yield/junk bond rates are down near 5%. Continue Reading…
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Saving for retirement is a goal with a limited number of ways to meet it. Did you know that your IRA investment options extend beyond stocks, bonds, and mutual funds? You have more choices than think.
An IRA (Individual Retirement Account) is just a tax shelter. You use it to store money for retirement, so it can grow tax-free. You see, when you open an IRA and fund it, the money just sits there in the form of cash. Some banks or brokers may offer an interest rate on that money, some don’t. But with rates at all time lows, that money won’t grow very fast. In order to boost that growth, you need to invest it in other assets. Thankfully, the IRS gives you some leeway with all the IRA investment options available.
That doesn’t mean you need to invest in each one. There is nothing wrong with taking a nontraditional approach when investing your retirement money. Just make sure you understand the costs and risks associated with any investment before you begin. And do your homework before jumping into something new. Continue Reading…