As my husband and I shopped for a home a few years ago, the real estate agent kept talking about our new home as an investment. My husband was nodding along with him. I, on the other hand, found myself screaming on the inside: “But a home isn’t an investment!” When many of us make… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Planning
The balance between work and play
I just read an interesting article by Joe at Retire by 40 on work hard, play hard. In the article Joe gives his personal definition of what it means to work hard, play hard and what the phrase means to him. Although I may have different illusions of what the term means to me, Joe… Continue Reading
Is Financial Planning an Art or a Science?
Art is the triumph over chaos. ~John Cheever For many people, finance = math. It’s all about numbers and science and proven identities and historical performance. For others, it’s about psychology, emotion, and the endless possibilities that life has to offer. Who’s right? Before we come to the inevitable conclusion that both are right –… Continue Reading
Quicken Home and Business Review
I’ve been using Quicken for over a decade to manage our personal finances, so when the folks at Intuit asked me to review Quicken Home and Business 2012, I was happy to do so. I’ll have a chance for one lucky Canadian to download a free copy of Quicken Home and Business 2012 (for Canadians)… Continue Reading
Financial Outlook for 2012
We are rapidly coming to the point where we can no longer stuff the dirty clothes and toys under the bed. There is no more room. We are going to be forced to actually deal with the mess. ~ John Mauldin, 2012: A Year of Choices Just a few weeks into 2012, markets have been… Continue Reading
You’re Young. The Economy is Bad. Time to Invest in the Stock Market?
The following is a guest post. Please go ahead and share your own thoughts in the comments section. The current recession and bear market has created difficulties and decisions for private investors across the board, but reactions are slightly different depending on one’s age. Older investors have been switching over to safer investments, such as… Continue Reading
Personal Finance in a Secular Bear Market
No one knows what they’ll do in a moment of crisis and hypothetical questions get hypothetical answers. ~Joan Baez When I wrote Another Bear Market: Is It Time to Buy? earlier this week, I tried to summarize the current bull and bear points of view. I also promised to write about how we’re approaching the… Continue Reading
What’s More Important Than the Debt Ceiling?
Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man’s starving. ~O. Henry, Heart of the West, 1907 Are you tired of the debt crisis in Europe and the inane arguments over the U.S. debt ceiling? Have you had it with watching wealthy politicians and… Continue Reading