A recent article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal shows that most teenagers are financially illiterate. On average, most high school seniors “could correctly answer barely half of the questions on a test about personal finance and economics.” They were also oblivious to the dangers of government spending and the concept of having to pay for the retirement of others through Social Security.
It wasn’t a matter of demographics. “From the richest families to the poorest, most parents aren’t talking to their children about money.”
The RJ suggests taking time at family dinner to discuss personal finance principles. Children aren’t likely to learn these principles if not from their parents.
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal
April 21st, 2006
I really liked how Mary Hunt, author of a book by the same title, defined “debt-proof living”. This concept touches on so many virtues:
Debt-proof living is a lifestyle where you spend less than you earn; you give, save, and invest confidently and consistently; your financial decisions are purposeful; you turn away from compulsive behavior; you shun unsecured debt; you borrow cautiously; you anticipate the unexpected; you scrutinize your purchases; and you reach for your goals by following a specific plan.
Debt-proof living is about generosity, gratitude, and obedience. It is about sound choices and effective decisions. To debt-proof your life means to know exactly what to do with your money and have the freedom to earn and spend it when and how you choose. Debt-proof living is a way of life — a financially disciplined lifestyle that produces peace and joy.
Via: Debtspiration
April 19th, 2006
This week’s Festival of Frugality is up and being hosted by the Canadian Capitalist. Check it out.
April 11th, 2006
There is an excellent new site called Debtspiration.com. It posts motivational quotes each day from various authors about reducing your debt and increasing your savings.
“We hope our collection of ideas and quotes motivates and educates others, nudging them to reduce debt and grow savings. We hope it encourages you to seek out more information and knowledge regarding all aspects of personal finance.”
April 8th, 2006
I’m fascinated by a new company called Prosper that recently sprung up. It is an online market for lending and borrowing money — sort of an eBay for financing. For instance, a borrower could post a request for $8,000 at 8% to purchase a new car. A lender might find and accept that offer, in which case the lender’s money goes directly to the borrower. Prosper takes care of running credit checks on the borrowers, intermediating the transfer of money, and skims off 1% as a fee.
As you might expect, the potential for good here is enormous. Since banks charge high interest rates to borrowers and offer very low interest rates to savers, Prosper’s smaller margins could mean real savings (and earnings) for borrowers and lenders.
Of course there is some sense of security in dealing with a bank, but I’ll be interested to see how Prosper does over time and whether or not this becomes more mainstream.
P.S. There is another company like this in the U.K. called Zopa.
April 5th, 2006
Does using financial management software make you wealthier? Does budgeting eliminate debt? The answer is no, of course not. These are just tools that help you track where your money comes from and where it goes. Software and budgets only help you become wealthier as they change your behavior. Using those tools alone will do nothing if they don’t provide an incentive for you to improve your financial habits.
In 37signals‘ new book, Getting Real, they hit the nail on the head when they said:
“If it doesn’t change your behavior, then it just doesn’t matter.”
The financial tools we use should enhance our lives, not drain our time and create more clutter. Finance software should be really good at one thing - providing an incentive to increase wealth. (Is there really any other reason we’d spend so much time scrutinizing our finances?) In regards to the time we devote to our finances, we should waste less time trying to understand all the “bells and whistles” of our finance software and more time thinking about how to spend less and invest more of our money.
Sources: Getting Real book
March 30th, 2006
Scott Berkun, a project management and product design consultant, writes about the importance of being frugal; not with money, but with our attention. He explains in his essay, Attention and Sex, that we determine the value of something by deciding how much attention we devote to it.
Law of lost attention: The value of something you spend attention on is dependent on how much attention you spend on it.
I feel this if very applicable to personal finance, entrepreneurship, or anything we wish to improve or succeed at. If financial independence is a high priority, are we devoting enough of our attention to our finances so that goal becomes a reality? We can ask that question about any ambition we have to determine if it is really valuable to us.
This is an excellent lesson for me because the time I spend on the important things in my life is often at the mercy of several less important things I try jamming into my day. Learning to focus my attention on the worthwhile will bring me the success I seek. In our day and age of mult-tasking, we divide our attention over many trivial things, and focus less on the things that will bring satisfaction and meaning.
“There isn’t a single great work in the history of civilization, no novel, symphony, film, or song that was completed as a 1/5th time-slice between e-mail, IM, cellphones and television.”
Sources: Attention and Sex
March 24th, 2006
Google just released a tool for tracking stock quotes, financial news, and market data: Google Finance. I’ve always known Yahoo Finance to be the leading site for market information, but Google Finance might give it a run for its money (pun intended). For example, Google Finance has slick dynamic graphs for checking stock prices over time. Definitely worth a look if you follow the financial markets.
Google Finance
March 21st, 2006
This year marks the 300th birthday of United States Founding Father Ben Franklin, who was born on January 17, 1706. A printer, statesman, and inventor, he was famous among other things for sayings such as “Time is money” and “A penny saved is twopence clear” (”A penny saved is a penny earned”).
He loved Boston, where he was born, and Philadelphia, where he worked and lived, so when he died in 1790 he left each city a sum of $4,400 (£1000) with the condition it remain invested for 200 years. When the cities cashed out the investment in 1990, each sum was worth more than $7 million, a testament to the power of compound interest. (These investments weathered the Great Depression!)
Get out of debt as soon as possible, so compound interest isn’t working against you, then start getting compound interest on your side. The sooner you save, the more you’ll have in the end.
Sources: Vanguard, Wikipedia
March 20th, 2006
I read a post recently at MyMoneyBlog entitled “How do YOU budget?” I wasn’t sure how to answer that question. What does the word “budget” mean? I think for most people it means pre-determining how much money can be spent on each expense category per month; for example, $100 for food, $30 for entertainment, $75 for gas, etc. This type of budgeting is often compared to losing weight by dieting because, like dieting, it’s tedious and requires a lot of motivation to stick to it. It seems to focus too much on the “means” rather than the “end”, and that’s not satisfying. This is not the way I budget.
Another way to budget – the way I prefer – is to compare all your monthly expenses (out-goes) to your monthly income (in-goes) with the goal of being cash flow positive each month. This type of budgeting seems to be more effective because it eliminates the tedium of budgeting for each specific category. To stay consistent with the “losing-weight” comparison earlier, I would compare this second type of budgeting to playing sports as a way to lose weight and become healthier. Unlike dieting, playing a sport is enjoyable to most people, but can still achieve the same result (weight loss). The out-goes vs. in-goes method of budgeting, like sports, focuses mostly on the end result – win or lose. To simply see each month if I’ve won (out-goes < in-goes) or lost (out-goes > in-goes) is much more motivating and easier to stick to than the first method. Budgeting for each individual expense category becomes unnecessary because the motivation to “win” encourages me to manage all my finances responsibly.
Which type of budgeting do you prefer?
March 14th, 2006
Next Posts
Previous Posts