A two-earner family with the same income as a one-earner family receives lower Social Security benefits. The difference gets much larger when one spouse dies.
Latest Blog Posts
Financial Advisors Support Peer Who Lost His Home
Although the public comments on the financial planner who found the best way to lose his home are mostly negative, it’s the opposite in the financial advisors circle. Michael Kitces asked his financial advisors audience Which Is More Important In Your Trust Equation: Credibility, Or Authenticity? He alluded to the worry that by admitting mistakes […]
Retail Banking Oligopoly
During the brouhaha over the $5-a-month debit card usage fee, this article came to my attention: Banking Has Become an Oligopoly Instead of a Competitive Business. It said banking is now an oligopoly, and therefore switching banks will not work because banks are not in a competitive market. “Banking is not really a competitive industry. […]
The Best Way to Lose Your Home
If you read finance related discussion boards and blogs, you must have read discussion on a confession in New York Times by a financial planner about how he lost his home in the real estate bubble in Las Vegas. How a Financial Pro Lost His House – New York Times Long story short, the financial […]
Bonds Bubble vs Gold Bubble
PIMCO’s founder and star manager Bill Gross called the bonds bubble too soon. He got a lot of flak for getting out of Treasuries before Treasuries had a good run. Many people point to this as a case-in-point for the failure of active management. He had to issue a mea culpa saying he was wrong. […]
Student Loan vs Mortgage
News came that outstanding student loans will top $1 trillion this year. The Obama administration recently announced some tinkering on the edges to help lower the interest on student loans. Some say student loans have become a burden that could place a drag on the economy. How did student loans become such a large problem? […]
Don’t Save Money on Groceries With Coupons
Do I need to tell you coupons are hot? Groupon is often in the news. You hear about how many billions it’s worth, its anticipated IPO and its controversial accounting metric ACSOI (now dropped). Of the top 10 personal finance blogs compiled by Wisebread, at least 6 are in the coupon and bargain shopping category, […]
Pre-Tax Spending Accounts Are No Cure for Tax Increases
New York Times Your Money columnist Ron Lieber got into some hot waters with readers after he wrote his column A Tax Plan That Might Not Be So Painful. I guess that’s because he used Dodging the Proposed 2013 Tax Increase as the headline for his blog post. I feel really sorry for him. Ron […]
Irrational Sensitivity to Service Price Increases
I wrote about people’s irrational sensitivity to gas prices some time ago. This time I’m writing about people’s irrational sensitivity to service price increases. In each case, we are not talking about a lot of money. There are values behind each service. Still, people complain vehemently about the price increases. Debit Card Fees News came […]
Market Timing: Transaction Costs and Taxes
I continue to look for criticisms of market timing and see how the market timing proponents would answer them. Last time I looked at some criticisms from Vanguard founder John Bogle. I think those criticisms were answered reasonably well. Another major area of criticisms centers around frequent trading, transaction costs and taxes. Critics say market […]