Want a chance to win $1,000 in cash? Keep reading and check out the free contest at the bottom of the post. So if you’re a bank, how do you reward someone who has had a bank account with you for the past 30 years or so? How about by sticking them with $11 per month account fees! Sounds like a solid business plan, right? Well, that’s exactly what my bank did! How to Lose a Life Long Customer: You read it right. The bank that I’ve used since I was a little boy called me up this week to tell me that they were involuntary switching over all their accounts in the new year, and that my new checking account would have a $11 a month fee unless I met certain minimums. Forget that! I flat out told them that this was disappointing … [Read more...] about So Long Current Bank Account and Your New Fees – I Found a Chase Bonus Coupon!
Welcome Back to Work – Did You Notice Your Paycheck is Lower?
If you haven’t already, it’s back to work! It was such a great and enjoyable break. Sometimes I think having a week off is worse than having one day off because you get far too comfortable waking up at your leisure, reading a book, drinking coffee, etc. If that wasn’t bad enough, it gets worse: Your paycheck is lower! That’s right - the take-home from your paycheck is going to be lower because as part of the Fiscal Cliff, the payroll-tax cut didn’t get extended. That means the Social Security deduction for your Federal taxes went back to 6.2% from 4.2%. It was a nice two years at the lower rate, but it was always just a temporary band-aid as part of the Stimulus. Now it’s back to reality! … [Read more...] about Welcome Back to Work – Did You Notice Your Paycheck is Lower?
Our Long Term Financial Goals and How We’ll Meet Them in the New Year
Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone is safe and having a smooth transition into this new start. It seems this event is always marked with a great deal of optimism because people feel like they have a symbolic marker from which they can wipe the slate clean and start out fresh. It might be eating habits; it might be quitting your bad vices. For me, it always marks a time to re-evaluate our long term financial goals and see if our actions will get us to where we want to be. … [Read more...] about Our Long Term Financial Goals and How We’ll Meet Them in the New Year
The Future of the U.S. Economy and Why We’ve Still Got a Long Ways to Go
As I write this commentary, there is still no solution to the Fiscal Cliff situation. In all my assumptions about our budget for next year, I have decided to be realistic and assumed that our taxes will go up. Thank you Washington for dropping the ball. Despite whatever efforts have been made, I question if any solution would really fix the problems that revealed themselves in 2008. In a sense, I wonder if we’re simply putting duck-tape on a leaky pipe. Are we actually addressing the real problem? Consider the facts: … [Read more...] about The Future of the U.S. Economy and Why We’ve Still Got a Long Ways to Go
The Christmas Break and My Blog Updates
I hope everyone had an outstanding Christmas! We’re really digging having the week off. I couldn’t believe how quickly the holiday flew by. Didn’t we just buy all those presents? This was the year of the Lego sets for my kids. They got just a ridiculous amount of them. Does anyone else’s kids have those Monster Fighter sets? They’re kind of cool … My Blog Updates: You would NEVER guess it, but I’ve been really busy behind the scenes working on My Money Design. Here’s a few of the things that have been going on: … [Read more...] about The Christmas Break and My Blog Updates
My Stocks with High Dividends Income Report – December 2012
What a great time of the year to receive the next installment of my “truly” passive income. By luck, it just so happens that my next series of payments from my dividend paying stocks was scheduled to be paid in December. Couldn’t we all use a little extra cash right before Christmas as the bills start rolling in? Over on the left are the results of my third batch of quarterly dividend payments received for Quarter 4 (Q4). … [Read more...] about My Stocks with High Dividends Income Report – December 2012
What I Want for Christmas
Now that my wife and I have been married for more than 10 years, picking out Christmas presents has become somewhat of a challenge for each other. She’ll ask me what I want for Christmas, and I’ll do the same. But neither of us can really think of many things in particular. It’s not that we’re fussy or don’t know what to get each other. We’re both got a lot of things that we really want to do, but they’re not really your classic “under $50 and under the tree” variety. Part of the problem (if you can really call it that) is that we’re both pretty realistic about what we want. We don’t get too carried away. Plus we’re both working professionals, and so we’re accustomed to buying the things we need when we want them. But then there’s the … [Read more...] about What I Want for Christmas
What Do You Think is the Worst and Best Christmas Song?
What would the Christmas season be without the huge variety of Christmas songs out there. You’ve got your classics, your modern ones, funny ones, religious ones – there’s a little something for everyone. So which one do you think is the best Christmas song? Which one do you like the least? … [Read more...] about What Do You Think is the Worst and Best Christmas Song?
