An Often Overlooked Company Benefit

If you’re employer has a 401(k) plan and you’re not contributing, it’s time to take a serious look at the financial benefits these plans offer. Company sponsored 401(k) plans allow us to deposit a limited amount of pretax income (taken from our gross pay before taxes are withheld) to an account that grows tax-deferred. This […]

Personal Finance Software

Our financial goals are often very general such as “be out of debt” or “get a better handle on our money”. If we don’t have a clear picture of where we are and where we’re headed, the chances that we’re making progress in the right direction are pretty slim. In fact, we could be slipping […]

Personal Finance Simply Understood

One of the rules-of-thumb for blog writing is brevity which is understandable, but it limits the amount of information that can be provided in a single post. This often segregates related information that is better applied in concert. For instance, I have posted individual blogs about debt elimination, compound interest, and saving. Each post contains […]

Big Payoff for Indexing with a Buy-and-Hold Strategy

I’m a fan of investing in low cost index mutual funds with a buy-and-hold strategy, and not chasing hot stocks or trying to time the stock market. And for those who follow this approach, 2013 paid off handsomely. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 29% (including dividends), the S&P 500 index 32%, and about 37% for the Russell […]