Perhaps inspired by home makeover reality shows, Trading Places, Extreme Home Makeover, etc., newspapers and magazines often run portfolio makeover articles. They typically feature a real family, tell us about their finances, their goals and their struggles. Then the newspaper or magazine brings in a financial planner who offers advice for them. I think people […]
Latest Blog Posts
Estimate Your Personal Rate of Return for Multiple Years
Since I wrote about a simple formula for estimating your personal rate of return, someone asked whether the same formula works for multiple years as well. The answer is yes and no. It works well, provided that the net investments during the period are roughly even; and the beginning balance is large relative to the […]
Estimate Your Overall Personal Rate of Return With 3 Numbers
It’s easy to estimate the overall rate of return on all your savings and investments to keep you ontrack toward your goals. You only need these 3 numbers.
The Best Brokerage Firm for Bonds
The best broker for bonds depends on whether you buy bond funds, bond ETFs, or individual bonds.
Did Sunk Cost Fallacy Kill James Kim?
In the book Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes And How To Correct Them the authors Gary Belsky and Thomas Gilovich had an example for illustrating the Sunk Cost Fallacy which goes like this: There is a basketball game tonight. It’s snowing and the roads are dangerous. You already bought ticket to the game […]
Giving Gift Cards as Holiday Gifts
Many people are buying gift cards as holiday gifts. I read somewhere that gift cards will account for something like 30% of the gift spending this holiday season. Apparently financial services companies and retailers are catching on and trying to make some money on this trend. American Express, Discover, and some banks sell gift cards […]
Selling a Used Car, Part 4: Closing the Deal
This is the fourth and final installment of a 4-part series about my recent experience in selling my used car. The other posts in the series are: Selling a Used Car, Part 1: Preparation Selling a Used Car, Part 2: Placing an Ad Selling a Used Car, Part 3: Test Drive and Negotiation I now have a willing […]
Selling a Used Car, Part 3: Test Drive and Negotiation
This is the third installment of a 4-part series about my recent experience in selling my used car. The other posts in the series are: Selling a Used Car, Part 1: Preparation Selling a Used Car, Part 2: Placing an Ad Selling a Used Car, Part 4: Closing the Deal The car was ready. An ad was placed on Craigslist. Just […]
Selling a Used Car, Part 2: Placing an Ad
This is the second installment of a 4-part series about my recent experience in selling my used car. The other posts in the series are: Selling a Used Car, Part 1: Preparation Selling a Used Car, Part 3: Test Drive and Negotiation Selling a Used Car, Part 4: Closing the Deal The car is ready […]
Selling a Used Car, Part 1: Preparation
This is the first installment of a 4-part series about my recent experience in selling my used, ahem, pre-owned car. The other posts in the series are: Selling a Used Car, Part 2: Placing an Ad Selling a Used Car, Part 3: Test Drive and Negotiation Selling a Used Car, Part 4: Closing the Deal […]