Money Crashers » Random

Out In California For The Week

Erik Folgate — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:00:29 +0000

I am in California right now visiting some family and friends for the holiday weekend. The posting has been sparse lately, but I am coordinating with a friend of mine to do some guest posts tomorrow and friday. California is a crazy state, and Los Angeles is even more crazy. I have tons of topics to discuss including saving money by using public transportation and how to save money in a big city.

I hope everyone has a great 4th of July. Take a minute to think about the freedoms that we take for granted every day. The United States is a great country, and we owe it to our ancestors for their hard work and sacrifice. God Bless America!Related Posts:

Out In California For The Week is a post from: Money Crashers

Back From Memorial Day Weekend

Erik Folgate — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:02:55 +0000

I just wanted to let you all know that I took an extended memorial weekend vacation, so that is the reason for the lack of posting the past few days. It wasn’t really a vacation, because I got very little sleep. My best friends from childhood all met up in North Carolina where one of our friends has a big house. It was great to have some “guy time”, but that always ends up translating into staying up late, doing a lot of physical activities, and drinking way too much.

Are there any of you out there that live in North Carolina? If so, I’d like to hear from you about what areas you think are the best to live. We’ve considered moving up there, then stopped considering it, and now I think it’s back on the table.

Also, do you have any money related memorial day weekend stories? I heard that this was one of the least traveled memorial day weekends in quite a while. It’s obvious that the gas prices are starting to take their toll. How many of you stayed home this weekend because of the gas prices? Related Posts:

Back From Memorial Day Weekend is a post from: Money Crashers

Weekend Update: Some Great Articles to Read Over the Weekend

Erik Folgate — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 15:28:05 +0000

My colleague over at Lifespy wrote these two articles:

How To Make Money. A comprehensive tutorial about the most common ways to make money. My favorite parts were his insights about saving money with other monthly bills rather than cutting out life’s little luxuries and knowing when taking a second job is financially worth the extra income.

Protect Your Money After a Break-Up. Everyone needs to know how to protect themselves from the bitter ex-girlfriend or boyfriend!

Consumerist gives hope to those facing foreclosure

Lazy Man gives us Financial lessons from the NFL Related Posts:

Weekend Update: Some Great Articles to Read Over the Weekend is a post from: Money Crashers

Your Feedback About the 11 Money Crasher Principles Series

Erik Folgate — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 03:58:53 +0000

The Money Crasher’s 11 Principle’s series has come to an end, and I want your feedback. Did you enjoy the series? Was it monotonous or did you find the content fresh? Would you like to see Money Crashers put together more articles series in the future?

My hope is that you enjoyed reading about the 11 principles that I believe will help you succeed with finances. I put them together when I first had the vision for this blog, and I thought that it would only be fitting to explain them further in a series. If you’re not a regular commenter, I would really like your feedback about the series and the site in general. Tell me what I can do to improve the site, my writing, and the content. I want your honest opinions, praises, and criticisms. I am a strong believer that constructive criticism can be extremely useful when trying to improve something. Anyway, shoot me a comment, but don’t shoot me down too bad. My wife hates to see me cry. Related Posts:

Your Feedback About the 11 Money Crasher Principles Series is a post from: Money Crashers

Carnival of Personal Finance #103, the 24 Edition

Erik Folgate — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 12:42:15 +0000

Go check out The #103 Carnival of Personal Finance over at Clever Dude.

This is by far the most creative Carnival of Personal Finance edition I’ve ever seen. Clever Dude has gone over the top to create a very “clever” way of presenting the links for the carnival by incorporating them into brief summaries of each hour of the episode “24″ on Fox.

Good Job Clever Dude, make sure you check out the carnival!Related Posts:

Carnival of Personal Finance #103, the 24 Edition is a post from: Money Crashers

Looking Back In The Archives of June 2006

Erik Folgate — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 17:08:28 +0000

Here are some articles I wrote one year ago that may be useful to you for the coming summer:

Some Link Love For Good Articles In the Past Week

Erik Folgate — Mon, 21 May 2007 02:53:18 +0000

JLP from All Financial Matters asks the question if dipping into your 401(k) early makes sense?

Free Money Finance has a great post about giving and receiving. Developing a generous and giving heart is one of my 11 principles that I live by when it comes to managing money. I believe that when you put yourself in a place to win with money and you begin attaining wealth, giving to others in need is an essential part of building wealth in a healthy way. We should all give back to others that were in the same place as us at one point in our lives.

Get Rich Slowly has a nice article about resources for aspiring entrepreneurs.

If you’ve read any other good articles lately that you think I should know about, email them to me at erik(dot)folgate(at)gmail(dot)com.

Festival of Under 30 Finance – March 23rd Edition

Erik Folgate — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 11:40:37 +0000

We had some great submissions over the past two weeks. I categorized them as best that I could so that you can check out the topics that interest you most! Hope you enjoy!

Saving and Investing

The Skilled Investor presents Own investment funds and not individual securities posted at THE SKILLED INVESTOR Blog. Owning individual securities is just a big waste of your time and money. Individual investors tend to be terrible investment portfolio managers. Almost everyone can hire an index fund manager to do a much better job for far less time, money, risk, and consternation.

The Skilled Investor presents Factors that tend to favor Roth tax-advantaged plan contributions (Part 1 of 2) posted at THE SKILLED INVESTOR Blog. The average taxpayer would tend to benefit more by contributing to traditional rather than to Roth tax-advantaged IRA and 401k retirement plans. This two-part article discusses eight personal financial planning factors, which could flip one’s preference toward making current contributions into Roth tax-advantaged plans instead.

Tweakie presents Handleman (HDL) is Still a Bargain posted at The Picky Investor.

Bryan presents 6 Percent Online Savings Accounts posted at Bryan C. Fleming.

Super Saver presents Make A Retirement Contribution – Get A Tax Credit posted at My Wealth Builder.

Credit and Debt

Steve presents Credit Card Companies – Where Their Revenue Comes From & Why It Shouldn’t Be Yours posted at Debt Free.

Michael presents Debt – The New American Slavery posted at Debt is Slavery.

Priya presents Live without Credit Cards: 77 Tips posted at Credit Card Lowdown.

Cars and Money

Mr Credit Card presents Getting a Second Hand Car – The Best Financial Decision in my 20s? posted at Ask Mr Credit Card’s Blog.

Real Estate

Michael presents 8 Steps to Getting Your Finances in Order For a Mortgage posted at Michael Emilio.

Steve presents A Requiem for the Loosest Mortgage Terms posted at Silicon Valley Real Estate Blog at 1SiliconValley.com. “No.” It’s a simple word but one that hasn’t been heard from a lot of mortgage lenders over the past few years. Bad credit, no credit, no money, no problem, right? The tide is turning and it’s going to keep a lot of folks under 30 from getting pulled underwater…

Silicon Valley Blogger presents How To Furnish Your House On Any Budget, Even For Free posted at The Digerati Life. The hardest financial decision I had to make when young was when I should marry my fiance and start a family. The reason was that he was launching a startup and did not want any additional responsibilities to worry about while he focused on that. We had to defer getting married until after he successfully got his business up and running. That was 6 years later. And we only started having kids another 6 years after that (a 12 year wait). Looking back, I should have just had kids earlier because being an older parent is tough! But yeah we don’t have the same money issues we would have had as younger parents.

Insurance

Wanda presents Disability insurance for the twentysomething set, Part 1 posted at Well-Heeled: twentysomething life & money.

Entrepreneurship

Matthew presents Great Ways to Earn Money During Spring Break posted at Getting To Graduation.

Praveen presents Internet Marketing Lesson – I’ll Pay You $2 posted at My Simple Trading System.

David presents Becoming a Millionaire with Agloco posted at Worldwide Success.

ispf presents Ideas for Generating (Side) Income with Limited Start-up Investment posted at Grad Money Matters.

Life And Money

Quang presents Thoughts of the last couple weeks posted at poor Wealth.

almomento presents How to Change Your Money Fate posted at BurstCreativity.

Saga presents Starting Early: The Young AdultÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Guide To Personal Finance posted at Debt Consolidation Lowdown.

Pushpa presents Talking Dollars: The 100 Most Famous Quotes about Finance posted at Debt Consolidation Lowdown.

Andrea presents Is There Such Thing as a Messy Millionaire? | Wise Bread posted at Wise Bread – Living large on a small budget.Related Posts:

Festival of Under 30 Finance – March 23rd Edition is a post from: Money Crashers

Check Out These Articles by Some of the Finest Bloggers In the Personal Finance Community

Erik Folgate — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 02:13:40 +0000

Flexo at Consumerism Commentary reviews the Electric Orange Checking Account by ING Direct

I haven’t looked into this checking account yet, but I like the fact that you can earn 4% interest on it! My only question is, how do you deposit money?

Mighty Bargain Hunter discusses the book Debt is Slavery and he talks about how stuff will consume us.

Free Money Finance ponders when we should drop our collision car insurance. I don’t have collision on my car, because it’s worth less than $2000. If you’re carrying collision insurance on a beater car, drop it now and invest the rest of that money!

Finding The Right 529 College Savings Plan

Erik Folgate — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 17:34:06 +0000

Part of a sound personal financial plan for couples with children is planning for your child’s college tuition. This is the single best thing you can do for your child financially speaking. If an 18 year old goes to college and pays tuition and lives off of student loans, he or she will face an enormous debt load when they leave for the real world. And as we all know, the real world is harsh enough without $50,000 in debt. Planning for your child’s college expenses can be relatively painless if you start early. The 529 College Savings Plan is a viable option and a smart financial choice for savings for a child’s college expenses. The contributions are tax deductible, and the child can use the money saved up for college related expense tax free!

This is a great article from Smartmoney.com about five of their best picks for a 529 savings plan. If you live in a state that has state income tax, then you may want to choose your own state’s 529 plan. However, if your state doesn’t have state income tax, then you may want to seek a plan outside of your state such as one of the plans suggested in the article I just referenced.

If there’s one thing that you do for your child, do this! They won’t thank you when they are ten years old for planning for their college, but they will when they are 22 and they can have a fresh start in life without such a heavy burden of debt. Related Posts:

Finding The Right 529 College Savings Plan is a post from: Money Crashers