A while back, I got an e-mail asking me what my favorite books for investors and real estate folks were. My response? Unless you’re going to practice professionally and undertake the study necessary to do a good job of it, personal financial advice books are largely a waste of money. The only reason I read …
Category Archives: Financial Accounts
Volatility: A Regular Investor’s Best Friend
Wall Street loves fear and greed. Every time some bad news hits, a lot of benighted investors sell investments that were basically solid. Causing the price they can get for their investments to drop (higher supply, lower demand). Every time a piece of unexpected good news hits, you can expect stock price to take a …
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Practical Applications: Credit Cards versus Home Equity Line Of Credit
You raise a lot of issues. Some I’m going to deal with very quickly, others I’m going to spend some effort on, but nothing as in depth as a full article would have. I’m going to keep referring to material found in Credit Reports: What They Are and How They Work I’m going to take …
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Debt Consolidation Services
In my experience, these are death to your credit rating. Why? Because of how they work. The short story is they get your creditors to agree to accept some lesser number of dollars for your debts. The creditors, for their part, aren’t happy about this. They often mark you as not having paid in full. …
The Fallacies of Index Fund Investing
It seems I can’t hardly turn around in the investment world without a paean to Jack Bogle, who preaches the advantage of the index fund. Mr. Bogle’s reasoning goes something like this: Looking at the world of mutual funds, relatively few funds beat the S&P 500 Index, so why not just buy the whole S&P …
Tax Treatment of Annuity Withdrawals
Asymmetrical Information has a good article about the political and budget problems faced by pensions everywhere. It touches upon the treatment of annuities, one of the most popular investment vehicles there is. Most defined contribution pensions (e.g. 401k, among others) in the United States are actually funded by variable annuities. Annuities currently have in interesting …
Probate Without Money
legal information on going through probate without money That was a search hit I got. The problem with this question is that you can’t go through probate without money. The deceased’s creditors want cash. The probate court wants cash. Attorneys and anybody else your executor has to hire want cash. Federal Estate tax may be …
Probate and Foreclosure and Planning Ahead
This question brought someone to my site: If my house is going into foreclosure but the house is also in probate, can the lender actually go forward with the foreclosure sale while the house is in probate? The short answer is yes. The Trust Deed (or Mortgage Note) that was signed by the now deceased …
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Company Stock in Retirement Accounts
Most of what you read on financial planning in the media is garbage, but here is one of those occasionally useful pieces: IRA Rollovers Could Have Tax Implications. Here’s the idea: You keep company stock in your qualified plan aside from any rollover you may do. Leave it with the company. Convert it to non-qualified …
Passive Asset Allocation
A while ago I talked about Passive Asset Allocation as a way to beat market return as a strategy. So I’m going to write a bit about what it is, why it works, and how to do it. Passive Asset Allocation is very simple at its heart. What you are doing is keeping the balance …