Month: June 2008

2020 Update I posted the update below 12 years ago. President was just sworn in and America was in the middle of the great financial crisis. With the release of 2020 world wealth report, I thought it would be interesting to look at how the rich have got richer and…

As a consumer I am constantly feeling the pain of rising oil prices whenever I fill gas in my car. As an investor though, I regret missing out on the run up in companies that benefited from higher oil prices. It seems that apart from energy related stocks all other…

The cost of daycare for preschool age children can be one of the most significant expenses parents face. According to the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, a family with a 4 year old child could pay upwards of $10,000 a year for center-based child care. I…

In tough economic times many people turn to their credit cards when they need money. But racking up extra debt to deal with financial difficulties is a strategy that's almost sure to backfire. Even when you have less money in your wallet, you should remember that the most important thing…

Financial markets are disintegrating around the world. Professionals and regular investors are seeing red all over the screens and portfolio values are dropping faster than during the dot.com bubble burst or after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Central banks (which includes the federal and reserve banks) around the world, along…

I have seen a number of articles recently on ways for people to combat rising gas prices. One of the more practical ways coming to the fore is employers subsidizing driving costs to work or to allow employee telecommuting - i.e. working from home. The average U.S. commute is now…

I recently bought $16,000 worth of Apple stock, which I covered in a post two days ago. The way the post was written, and based on some of the comments I got on it, may have led to the impression that it was a speculative or uninformed buy. It definitely…

2021 Post Script Update This old article recently came up in my feed and reinforced that for great companies one needs to hold for the longer term and not worry about day to day trades. Based on Apple's investor relations page, since I bought APPL stock it has split on…

Get in Shape Frugally For most people getting or staying in shape brings about connotations of joining a gym, getting a trainer or going on some new fad diet. This can all be quite expensive and act as a deterrent to people who are on a tight budget and don't…

Smart Money brings us some novel new coupon delivery methods. These are quite interesting and innovative and shows that as times get tough companies are continually finding new ways to lure shoppers to their stores via coupons. Here are some of the methods highlighted leveraging technology to its fullest (and…

When calculating your net worth, do you include your car as an asset? What value do you assign to it and what about all the running and insurance costs? According to accounting definitions, a car can only be classified as an asset if its current value is greater than what…

Do You Like Shopping at Walmart? Occasionally my wife will drag me along to go shop at our local Walmart. Normally this is in response to a big sale event they are having, where she has identified something that is a great deal and can't be found elsewhere. However every…