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| | The Smart Startup Guide. | | | Startup Secrets Of The Inc 500 Fastest Growing Companies. Learn How To Finance Your Startup The Way Serial Entrepreneurs Do.
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| | Banking Secrets - Revealed. | | | Gain Total Control Of Your Finances And Stop Wasting Money. Eliminate Unnecessary Bank Fees And Get Better Rates On Loans And Savings By Following These Simple Steps.
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| [12/01/2008, 06:02] | Carnival of Personal Finance, Cyber Monday 2008 Edition |  | 
Welcome to the Carnival of Personal Finance! It’s officially Cyber Monday 2008, the online doppelgaenger to Black Friday. This term was coined by the American Retail Federation three years ago after a majority of online retailers saw their sales go up the Monday after Thanksgiving. Snopes found that the busiest online shopping day is not Cyber Monday but a couple of weeks after. Regardless of whether online shoppers are only lukewarm about today, one thing’s for sure: there’s way less danger of getting injured by an online shopping cart. So enjoy the Carnival, and head over to Amazon or eBay with full assurance that the Internet will completely protect you from e-bruising by other online shoppers! Posts on Budgeting Posts on Career - Economic Crunch runs through a checklist for taking advantage of benefits on a new job. (These things can be a nice supplement to your salary.)
- Monagomoney offers parallel advice with five things to do if you get laid off. (Hopefully you’re not needing both this advice and the previous advice in the same day.)
- Dog Ate My Finances (ha!) will take Common Sense for $200, Alex. (Note: Careful punctuation is crucial in this blog’s tagline. Imagine, if you will, a misplaced colon: “Mid twenties. Big salary. Paying for some mistakes: a wedding, and life.” The name would then have to be changed to Alimony Ate My Finances.)
- Beating Broke asks: “What is freedom worth?“
Posts on Credit and Debt Posts on The Economy Posts on Finance Posts on Frugality Posts on Investing Posts on Money Management Posts on Real Estate Posts on Saving and Taxes Other Posts 
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| [11/20/2008, 22:38] | When Is It The Right Time To Start A Business? | | Nowadays, the marketplace is rife with risk, so you may wonder whether it’s a good idea to launch a business during a downturn, especially with layoff numbers mounting daily. When is it ever the right time to start a business? Starting a business during an economic crisis sounds absolutely crazy but let’s put aside our concerns of risk for the moment, and think about some of the advantages. If you are afraid of losing your job due to the economic meltdown, starting a new business may be the perfect antidote. No more bosses, no more pink slips, and no more backstabbing by your fellow workers  ! Why Start A Business Today? There are more than 27 million businesses in the U.S. with less than 500 employees, of which 20 million have no employees, according to the Small Business Administration as mentioned in this page. With millions of businesses having less than 500 employees, a good chunk of the American population depend on these small businesses for their livelihood. That’s why the SBA (Small Business Administration) is offering funds to help those who have a good plan for starting a business now. They may be worth checking out; they may have some solutions for the budding entrepreneur. Opening a business is an exhilarating and frightening experience. But think of the rewards; when everybody is hunkering down, you will be very well positioned to take advantage of the inevitable recovery. These ‘no-employee’ businesses are usually family affairs where everybody has a share of the pie, but a sizable portion is owned by independent professionals who work alone. Again, if you were contemplating opening your own business, now may be a good time to do it, especially if you’ve got the resources. Could you be rewarded for bucking the crowd (and the trends)? Some Advantages To Starting A Business During A Downturn Let’s consider some of the advantages of starting a business during slow economic conditions: - Space is cheaper. Finding an office, a warehouse or even store space is much easier and much cheaper. If I were a commercial real estate owner, I’d rather rent out my space for less than have no tenants at all.
- Great deals available. Businesses going under have to get what they can for their furniture and electronics. Auctions may offer ridiculously low prices for items that you’ll need.
- Cheaper employees. A well trained professional will gladly accept a cut in salary rather than face unemployment. Same with clerical workers.
- Cheaper services. There are all kinds of service providers who have to lower their prices due to the lack of demand. Think of advertising specialists who can prepare your marketing campaign for much less than normal.
- Less competition. While your competition is waiting out the storm, why not make yourself available, ready to offer people what they need? Even now, though they may be a little harder to find, there are always people in need of a service or product who are willing to pay (albeit possibly for less). Go and find them, don’t wait for them to find you.
Are You Ready For Entrepreneurship? Everyone can become an entrepreneur, but not everyone can be successful at it. It’s great to envision such possibilities, but before I reel you in on this idea, let it be known that opening a business is not for everyone. The reality is this: not everybody may be qualified or prepared to start and run a business — and just like with the stock market, if you make big mistakes and are not sure about what you’re doing on your own, you can get hurt….badly. And in a downturn, financial wipeout scenarios are all the more common, and dramatic. So if you’re doing this, you MUST have a good plan, you MUST have done your homework, and in many cases, you’ll NEED access to cash. Depending on the type of business you’re interested in launching, you could potentially face an enormous amount of risk. Plus, in today’s tight credit era, banks are reluctant to loan money, even to the well-qualified clients. So if you’re serious about your business idea, where can you turn? Well, you can approach people you know; start with your network. Or you could use some of your savings (gasp) or show your solid business plan to some of your wealthy friends (if you’ve got any). Some people I know have started their businesses with credit cards, but going down this path is not the most prudent way to go. In today’s era, it may very well be that you’ll have to bootstrap yourself using your own savings or you’ll need to consider the type of business that won’t require money upfront, such as a service-oriented venture. Despite all the challenges, you may still find this to be your calling. If so, get creative. People still have to eat, buy clothes, and have fun. You can negotiate lower prices from your providers — they are anxious to sell their surplus. Drum up business by visiting churches (why not, the pastor may become your best salesman), schools, hospitals, clubs, and make them an offer they can’t resist. Note however, that this may not be the best way to promote your business . Most of all, plan your business very carefully by analyzing the trends in your neck of the woods. Creating a niche has never been easier. But certainly, look before you leap and read our tips for small businesses. This article is about contrarian thinking, and contrarians are often vastly rewarded for their guts (no guts, no glory), patience and shrewdness. Whenever we contemplate a particular endeavor, we need to weigh risks vs rewards — the only sane way to really make a financial decision. This is a post from The Digerati Life. 
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| [10/03/2008, 04:50] | Zen And The Art Of Personal Finance | | It’s one of those “deep-thought” days when I switch myself into a philosophical mode. Sometimes, this results in some extreme contemplation about the things I have been generally doing in my life. This time it was all about financial contemplation. The choice of the title is obviously inspired by the book “Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Pirsig. Before I start my rant, let me give you a very brief summary of what is the concept of Zen. It essentially means going back to the basic fundamentals, starting from zero, and building your way up (Robert Pirsig’s Zen, not the original Zen). This much knowledge is sufficient for the purpose of this article. If you want to read more about this concept click here and here. Your financial life is a big machine with a lot of odds and ends thrown into it. To maintain this beast, you require some kind of financial prudence. Now, if there is a problem with this machine, the *Zen* way is to start looking at some fundamental issues. To do that, you have to take it apart and try to put it back together. In doing so, you will realize the significance of each component. This is exactly what I will attempt to do in the following. I have listed some potential fundamental roadblocks that defeat financial prudence. Along each factor, there is a short line of description that sort of adds financial relevance (it’s deep…you could apply this to many other issues in life). Please note that these are from my personal experiences. I will encourage readers to find some peaceful time and do this exercise for themselves at least once. - Greed: This is foremost cause of most financial troubles. We want more, and we just don’t want to stop. Our greed not only puts us in the holes but also makes other people’s life miserable.
- Lack of self-control: Sometimes we acknowledge our greed, but we just can’t stop spending any how. Credit cards don’t swipe themselves, we swipe them.
- Lack of foresight: Greed also blinds our foresight. We buy stuff, but we simply fail to estimate how much it is going to cost us in the long run. Don’t buy an elephant just because it’s being offered for zero down and no payments for 12 months.
- Underestimation of consequences: Sometimes, we have all of the above, but we grossly underestimate the financial repercussions of our decisions. You can also term this as too much optimism or lack of proper judgement.
- Ignorance: Ok, people don’t like to acknowledge this, but this is true. How many of us really know how credit card payments are calculated? Whether your card is a charge card or a credit card? Whether not paying telephone bills affect your credit score? What is the grace period on your credit cards?
- Inability to recognize a problem: Sometimes we don’t realize that we have a problem. At times we don’t recognize the *right* problem. If you earn $120K a year and still live paycheck-to-paycheck, low income is not your problem, it is something else.
- Inability to learn from previous mistakes: Ok we made that late payment once and paid for it with heavy fines and increased APR. What did we do about it? did we make changes to the way we do things to avoid making the same mistake again?
- Lack of organization: Oh ! I forgot to make the minimum payment. Oh ! forgot to mail in the rebate. Oh! I thought this due date was for the other card that I have. Oh ! I thought I had more money in my bank when I wrote that huge check for that expensive television.
- Sheer laziness/carelessness: Ah!..what’s the hurry, I will do it later.
 I have seen countless people not willing to check out more than one store for some of their large purchases…the reason: “I am bored already”. Here is another one I have heard recently, “I don’t know anything about what kind of 401K plan our company offers. I have been planning to talk to HR about it, but I find it very boring to discuss this financial stuff”. What?! - Overconfidence: This is really dangerous when coupled with ignorance. Leads to situations like “I can make this mess and then I will easily bluff my way out of it”
- Circumstances: This one is tricky. There are two types of circumstances. Type 1: self-inflicted; these are due to some or all of the above reasons. Type 2: sheer bad luck; these are just out of your control: medical expenses, car trouble, job loss, failure to garner enough votes for the economic bail-out package, etc.,
Except “Type 2″ circumstances, there is a scope for improvement in all of the above. We just need to look into ourselves before point fingers for our financial mess. Once you do that, you will be an expert in the art of financial prudence, and hopefully stay out of trouble for a long time to come. This is more philosophy than practicality, but you can give it a try..it may work for some of you. In all humility, I am guilty of some (almost all) of them at some point or other, but I am learning. | | | |
| [09/01/2008, 09:32] | How Our Financial Attitude Is Changing With Increasing Income | | Since a little more than seven months ago, I made some adjustments to the path in which my career was taking me and took up a job instead of pursuing PhD. One of the main reasons for going that route was that I was so narrowly focused for so long that I forgot why I was doing PhD in the first place (of course, there is more to that story that just that, but I won’t go into that with this post). Anyways, our household income increased by about four times after I took up the job. Initially, things were taking a deflating turn for the first couple of months - I guess this was in part because I was a relatively “newly employed” and was undergoing training without any major responsibilities (plus, I apparently hadn’t discovered new ways of spending the increased income). However, our spending took a turn for the worse right after I published this post in early February. Additionally, I have now started paying a lot less attention to our financial details (”details” is the key word here). There are only two fundamental concepts that I have been keeping in front of me: 1. to not spend more than what we earn (look at #7 in the linked post), and 2. to not time the market. Everything else is just falling in its place automatically. The rest of our life is now governed primarily by convenience. Here are just a few changes in our spending habits and financial attitudes that occurred over the last few months. 1. Paradigm shift in the way I manage credit cards: I no longer have the time or the patience to follow those balance transfer offers and research/keep track of how our income would be increased by juggling such offers. I don’t care about optimizing the rewards anymore, and just use credit cards for the simple reason that I get an itemized list of where we spend our money at the end of the month. As such, I am not using all my credit cards anymore. The fact that I have so many of them seems a bit ridiculous to me at present (this is an interesting development). Plus, I have discovered other practical problems in having too many credit cards (more on this later), so I am down to using just two credit cards at present. 2. Preferences for schedules rather than prices. We have flown thrice since February and every time, we went for flights that were more “convenient” instead of flights that were cheaper. On one of those three occasions, we had the option to drive (which would have been a whole lot cheaper), but again, the time spent in driving didn’t seem worth money saved. Interestingly, in the past, we have driven to that very location twice and at that time, the money saved seemed a lot more worth than amount the time spent in driving. 3. Buying what we “like” rather than buying what is “cheap”. Affordability is still in our minds but we don’t kill ourselves trying to save a few cents (or even a few dollars at times). For example, earlier, for cereals, it was usually “Great Value” from Walmart - now, it’s Kellogg’s or whatever brand that seems better - from a store that is closest to home. 4. Outsourcing clothes for ironing. Ironing is one activity I hate - it may be because I never ironed my clothes (over several years) when I was a student. It either took 10 minutes of my time every morning, or about an hour every weekend. Now that’s replaced by 5 minutes of detour every other week and $25. 5. Eating out more. This is again a product of optimizing convenience rather than costs. If we are too tired or not in a mood to cook, we just eat out without worrying too much about it. And, when we eat out, the choice of restaurant is usually dictated by time (and sometimes by what we feel like eating) rather than by how cheap or expensive it is. 6. Using toll roads instead of regular roads. I tried using regular roads (read as traffic-light-infested-roads) for the first couple of months. However, as the stress at work started growing, I started using toll roads more frequently. The toll costs me a lot more than I would like, but using toll roads has reduced a lot of stress in my life. I am now happy when I reach my workplace in the morning, and I am happy when I reach home in the evening, and I don’t have to bitch about how horrible my luck is to catch all the red lights on the way. Also, the drive that used to take me 30 minutes via regular road now takes about 10 minutes via toll road. That much time saved everyday is just priceless. 7. If the market bothers me, I just don’t look at it. Out of sight, out of mind is what probably works with me in this case. I have some set investing goals this year (in terms of how much I should invest and where) and I just stick with that without really worrying too much about what the market is doing at any given time. Come to think of it, the increased income is working towards making our lives a bit easier. Call it lifestyle inflation or improvement in the quality of life, or call it just sheer laziness (I am sure there will be different perspectives), or whatever. All we care about is that there is a lot less stress in our lives by spending a little more money. As long as we avoid these problems with lifestyle inflation, I think we are okay. | | | |
| [07/12/2008, 01:30] | BREAKING: IndyMac Bank is Shut Down and Taken Over by Feds | | INDYMAC IS OFFICALLY CLOSED!!! In the past minutes newswires around the country and world are now reporting that the Federal Government has shut down IndyMac Bank and has handed it to the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.) as conservator. Couple the shut down with the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac troubles, and we’re in for some really rocky waters next week. I’m willing to bet a lot of money that the announcement was held back from being made prior to the close of the stock market because of fears of a massive crash. Well . . . I think we’ll be seeing that happen this coming Monday! Fasten your seat belts, people . . . we’re in for a ROCKY RIDE!  IndyMac Bank’s assets were seized by federal regulators on Friday after the mortgage lender succumbed to the pressures of tighter credit, tumbling home prices and rising foreclosures. The bank is the largest regulated thrift to fail and the second largest financial institution to close in U.S. history, regulators said.
Yahoo Finance In the biggest bank failure of the housing downturn to date, federal banking regulators today closed IndyMac Bank FSB, naming the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as conservator. The FDIC said it will transfer insured deposits and “substantially all the assets” of IndyMac Bank, to a newly created successor, IndyMac Federal Bank, which will be operated by the FDIC. Insured depositors and borrowers will automatically become customers of IndyMac Federal, FSB and will continue to have uninterrupted customer service and access to their funds by ATM, debit cards and writing checks. Depositors of IndyMac Federal Bank FSB will have no access to online and phone banking services this weekend, but will regain access to them on Monday.
Inman News IndyMac Bancorp Inc. became the second-biggest federally insured financial company to fail today after a run by depositors left the California mortgage lender short on cash. The Pasadena, California-based bank specialized in so-called Alt-A mortgages, which didn’t require borrowers to provide documentation on their incomes. Its home state has been among the hardest hit by foreclosures.
Bloomberg What’s next? Anyone? Advertisement: Payday Loans Online from the leader in online cash advances since 2003. This Post is from the BiggerPockets Real Estate Blog. Copyright © 2008 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved. BREAKING: IndyMac Bank is Shut Down and Taken Over by Feds 
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| [06/12/2008, 21:21] | I went and got married! | |  Well folks, we finally did it! Just a few short months after I started this little blog in early 2006, I bought an engagement ring, popped the question, and got engaged. Months and months of planning, picking photographers, florists, and fighting over the guest list, we finally did it!
I am now Mr. LA MoneyGuy. Oh, wait a minute. Well, nothing I hate more than, "sorry I haven't posted much lately" posts. They're just so arrogant. It presumes that everyone is sitting in front of their computers waiting for your next words of inspiration. So, I'm not going to apologize, but just say that the wedding was awesome, and our honeymoon absolutely incredible. We returned a couple of weeks ago from a two week trip to the Mediterranean, and moved in to a new apartment last week. Busy times, indeed. I may write more about both later, as there is definitely a personal finance angle to both. I know, I know... you all want to know where to send the gifts. Tell you what, in lieu of gifts, please pay off your credit cards! And if you don't have any credit card debt, take an old friend out to dinner. | | | |
| [05/29/2008, 13:23] | Save Money on Gas By Learning How to Ride the Bus | | If you could save a lot of money on gas by trying something new would the hassle of learning a new system be worth the cost savings to you? I imagine several years ago most people would have answered no but with the high price of fuel everyone is looking for tips on how to save money on gas. Save Money with Public Transportation
I spent many years riding the bus as part of my daily commute during which time I saved thousands of dollars not just on gas but also on parking and wear and tear on my car. Having lived in Europe for several years, where everyone rides the bus or the train, I was very comfortable taking public transportation. In major urban areas in the US people are using to hopping on a bus but throughout suburbia many people are clueless about the ins and outs of public transport. They’ve never had to use it and can be a bit intimidated by learning the system. Sure it sounds simple, just catch the bus, but it’s a whole new experience and people tend to shy away from things they’re no familiar with. I’m always amazed at how many questions people have about riding the bus. I’ll try and address some of those here and give some tips for the best experience riding the bus. Learn How to Read a Bus Schedule
Here’s an example of a bus schedule from Oklahoma City. Let’s say you lived there and wanted to commute from your home at 22nd. & Vine into work at 10th & Walnut every day. First off you’d notice that the schedule doesn’t list 10th & Walnut as a stop, not too worry. Most schedules don’t list every stop, there simply wouldn’t be enough room, so they only publish the major stops. The bus may go right by 10th & Walnut and even if it doesn’t, it will probably get you to within a few blocks of there. Many bus schedules, such as this one, will include a map of the route on the back or at the bottom so can get a feel for where the bus travels. If you don’t understand the map you can just call the local metro office and they’ll help you out. So in this example, lets say you need to be at work by 8 AM. You could catch the bus at NE 20th & Vine at 7:32 and get off at NE 8th & Lincoln at 7:52. Notice you’d want the Inbound schedule, the Outbound schedule will list the times you can catch the bus in the evening on the way home. Also note that you want to look at the Weekday section of the schedule. Most weekend routes are different, which can mean different pickup times and fewer trips. Take a Trial Run
The best way to get comfortable with a bus route is to ride it on a day when you’re not in a hurry and there is no schedule breathing down your neck. Most of us make a few mistakes the first time we try something, making a mistake is a big deal if you’re in a hurry but if you have time to spare a mistake isn’t such a big deal so take a trial run of the bus. Get to the bus stop 10 minutes early the first time to get a feel whether the bus runs early, on time, or late. Drivers try and meet the schedule but my experience has been that buses can come up to 5 minutes before or 5 minutes after the listed time due to traffic and other variables. You can also ask the people waiting for the bus whether it runs early, late, or right on time. Get on the Right Bus
Most buses will have the route number and the final destination displayed in the window. Make sure you check it before you get on, don’t assume because a bus is stopping for you that it’s the one you want. Different routes can share the same stops, just check with the driver the first time you get on. Tell them where you’re headed and ask if it’s the right bus. It might sound silly but don’t be afraid to ask. I’ve seen people who are obviously riding the bus for the first time, too intimidated by the new environment to ask questions. They end up getting on the wrong bus and going to the wrong place simply because they didn’t take 30 seconds to ask before getting on. Paying Your Bus Fare
If you’re going to commute regularly I’d recommend buying a buss pass. You almost always save money with a pass as opposed to paying for each trip individually. You might also be able to get cheaper fares through your job. It’s also easier, you just get on and swipe your buss pass rather than having to fumble around with putting in money every time. If you are going to pay with cash be aware many buses have automated ticket booths that only accept exact change. Getting Off the Bus
Obviously you’ll want to take a schedule along with you the first time you ride the bus. As you get closer to your destination start to pay attention to where you’re stopping and how close you are to where you want to get off. One way to do it is tell another rider where you want to get off and ask them to let you know when its coming up. The bus will either have a button to push or a cord to pull to let the driver know you want to get off at the next stop. Make sure you signal before you get to your stop or the driver might just drive on by. If you have to switch busses as part of your commute, make sure to ask the bus driver for a transfer. Most metro systems allow you to travel across multiple bus routes for one fare if they’re all part of one trip. If you forget to ask for a transfer the driver of the next bus you get on will ask you to pay again. If the whole reason you’re riding the bus is to save money you don’t want to have to pay twice for the ride. Combining Driving and Riding
Of course riding the bus won’t eliminate the need for spending money on gas. Some days you’ll have to drive in because you need to get there early, leave late, or maybe run errands after work. Depending on where you live you may also have to drive partway into town to a park and ride, parking your car in a lot designed for commuters then catching the bus from there. Even though you won’t eliminate your gas bill completely, riding public transportation can drastically cut the amount you spend on gas. Combine that with strategies such as getting cashback with one of the best gas credit cards and gas rebates from grocery stores and the prices at the pump won’t take quite the same bite out of your paycheck. 
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| [05/28/2008, 14:01] | Financial Secrets in Marriage Could Lead to a Divorce of Debt | | When you get engaged, you’re not just promising to marry a person; you’re also marrying their money habits, their debt, and credit history. If you’re not careful, unknown money issues can not only ruin a marriage but sink you deep into debt. Hiding Credit Card Debt
Here’s a sad story of a former co-worker whose life was turned upside down by his spouse’s debt. I met up with him for lunch yesterday to catch up and couldn’t believe the story he had to tell. His wife had 50K of credit card debt coming into their marriage that she didn’t tell him about until several years after they were married. She was only making minimum payments so over the years the interest mounted and the debt continued to grow. He had owned a home prior to the marriage and they finally they decided to tap into it’s equity and take out a loan to pay off most of her debt. A few days later he comes home to find her packing her bags and on her way out the door. Of course he didn’t share this story with anyone for quite a while since it was so painful and embarrassing but now happily he’s met someone new and is moving on. What’s the morale of the story? Find out about your future spouse’s finances before you get married. To help you do that, here are some questions to ask, courtesy of Real Simple: Ten Romantic Debt Questions for Your Fiancé - Do you use credit cards for everyday expenses?
- Do you pay your credit-card balance in full each month?
- Have you ever maxed out your credit cards?
- How many credit cards do you have?
- What are your debts?
- Have you looked at your credit reports in the last year?
- Did you ever require a cosigner for a loan?
- Have you ever been put into collection by a creditor?
- Are you a cosigner on anyone else’s loan?
- Do you have any tax or other liens pending?
These questions are obviously not very romantic but they’re definitely necessary things to ask. Depending on your fiancé’s personality you might handle them in different ways. It might be easiest to just sit down and go through them all straight up or you might have to slip in a carefully worded question here and there during the course of conversation. Here are some other finance questions the article suggests asking: - Do you have a savings or checking account?
- Do you balance your checking account each month?
- Do you do research before making major purchases?
- Do you have a budget or a spending plan?
- Do you track your finances? How often?
- Are you aware of all your benefits at work?
- Do you have life insurance?
- Do you have health insurance?
Of course some of these things you might find out over the course of time as you get to know someone. However you do it, make sure you get these questions answered, I know my friend sure wishes he had. Checking Their Credit History
If you’re worried that your fiancé is holding back information you could dig a little deeper. Not telling you everything is probably a bad sign for future marital communications but if you’re determined they might be the one you could always do some more research. If you know their full name, social security number, date of birth, current address, and previous address you can probably pull your future spouse’s credit report to do some double checking. Be aware checking their credit report without their permission can potentially get you into some trouble: “Anyone who obtains a copy of someone else’s credit report under false pretenses can be fined substantially and jailed for up to a year. Only businesses or individuals with a “permissible purpose” can access your credit report. “Permissible purpose” is defined in Section 604 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).“ Then again, if your fiancé is willing to throw you into jail for checking their credit history, probably a sign you don’t want to marry them. How to Build Credit History
What if your future husband or wife doesn’t have any debt but they don’t have any credit history at all? This happened to us, when we went to get a loan for our home my wife’s lack of credit history affected the interest rates we were eligible for. We ended up putting both our names on the title but only mine on the loan so that we could get a better interest rate but we wanted a way to help build her credit profile. Our financial planner showed us a pretty slick way that worked wonders for my wife’s credit. She put $1000 into a 12 month certificate of deposit at our local bank and then used the CD to get a secured loan from the same bank. We setup our checking account to make automatic payments on the loan so she had a year’s worth of on time loan payments on her credit report. Then after 12 months we took the money out of the CD and paid off the loan. The interest we had earned on the CD helped pay for most of the interest we had paid on the money we borrowed. Marriage Money Summary
Get to know your fiancé’s money baggage and habits or they may come back to make you miserable, divorced, and in debt in the future. 
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| [05/27/2008, 13:07] | If You Don?t Know Where You?re Going, How Will You Know Once You?re There? | | Do you ever sit down and think about how your life is progressing and where you’re headed? Laying out a roadmap for yourself can be a valuable experience. As the post title alludes to, if you haven’t defined your goals, how will you measure your progress towards them? Having a plan not only makes your efforts more measurable it can give the things you do more meaning and help filter out time wasters. You may have noticed I was silent on this site over the weekend, I was using the time for some strategic planning in my own life. My planning process is iterative in nature. I come up with some goals and plans to meet those goals. Then I sleep on it and re-evaluate those the next day. Looking at it with a fresh perspective, I may change around the milestones and tasks a bit. Needless to say, my planning isn’t complete but it was nice to get a start on it. Typically I would have provided a list of articles I enjoyed for the week but due to my planning I didn’t publish those. Instead, I’ll point out a few articles everyday this week, here’s the first few. – The Digerati Life lists 8 simple ways you can save a lot of money, try $1000. – The Mighty Bargain Hunter and All Financial Matters take a look at whether it’s worth your time to wait for free stuff. – Summer is here and My Dollar Plan offers some tips for saving money on weddings. – Million Dollar Journey gives us a strategy for asking for discounts. – Brip Blap loves working so much that he’s started the carnival of careers. – CNN covers how people aren’t canceling their vacation plans this summer, just changing them to be cheaper, reminds me of my series on saving money on vacations. – eHow article on how to earn extra money seems appropriate for tough economic times: - Get a part-time job
- Turn a hobby into money
- Get paid for focus groups
- Sell your stuff on eBay
I also took a look at ways to make extra money during a recession. Thanks to Money & Values and Canadian Dream for hosting the last two personal finance carnivals and including the articles Best Credit Cards for New College Graduates and Three Ways Your Boss Can Save You Money on Gas. 
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