Do you continue to procrastinate on putting a budget together because it just seems too daunting or boring? Or is it just taking up too much time? You know if you want to accumulate more wealth you need to pull the bills and bank statements out and start crunching numbers. Or you can use personal [...]

Commissions, fees and taxes eat away your investment profits, and before now the only way to avoid them was to not buy or sell any stocks. In October, Zecco.com was launched, which is a commission-free online brokerage program.
What’s The Catch?
There’s no catch. There is no charge for your first 10 stock trades a month, and [...]

A reader posted the following comment on Maximum Allowable 401k Contribution:

“Curious what your thoughts are on Roth 401k’s? Thanks!”

Good question, Marjory. Let me see if I can answer your question as clearly as possible. First, let’s define what a Roth 401k, or Roth-K for short, really is.
If you are familiar with a [...]

So you’ve Interviewed Financial Advisers and you thought you found a winner, but after some a few months you are starting to become suspicious of your financial planner’s ability or intentions. Don’t be afraid to fire your financial planer, especially if he or she is engaging in any of the following activities:
Lack of Communication: Financial [...]

 
In Paying for Financial Advice we discussed how it is important to find out how your financial advisor is paid in order to understand exactly what their best interests are. While asking how they are paid is an important question to ask, it is not the only one. So how do you find a good [...]

Before making investment decisions, it is always recommended to consult a certified financial planner. But be advised that these conversations with your financial adviser can be costing you a lot of money, and you may not even realize it.
Financial advisers do not work for free. They make money off you, the client, in one form [...]

Creating and sticking to a budget is one of the key ingredients to building wealth. In order to set aside enough money each month to invest and reach your financial goals, you need to understand your cash flow – or your income and expenses.
By creating and analyzing a personal income statement you can find inefficiencies [...]

There’s nothing exhilarating about a retirement plan. You simply pick a few mutual funds when you open the account and deposit some money to be spread across your picks every month. Every six months or so you may review your statements, see how you are doing, maybe rebalance a few things, but mostly just keep [...]

Well, the theory that Cash is No Longer King seems to be holding up. Here’s an email I received yesterday from HSBC:

Dear RYAN,
We are writing to inform you that based on the recent drop by the Federal Reserve, HSBC Direct has adjusted your Online Savings Account rate to 4.25% APY. At 9x the national savings [...]