December 2007

2007 Financial Ups & Downs

December 31, 2007

As we did last year, we’ll be taking a look at our financial ups and downs for 2007. (Looking back on this post feels like a lifetime ago!) Miel opened her first ROTH IRA and maxed it out for the 2006 tax year. Miel maxed out her ROTH IRAs in 2007. Miel survives the DRCongo [...]

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Burden of Student Debt

December 30, 2007

I’ve been an advocate of paying off highest interest first. For us this has meant aggressively paying off our second mortgage and paying close to the minimum for student loans. This in principle seems like a very sound proposition – pay off highest interest debt for the fastest possible pay down overall. I’ve also advocated [...]

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49% Raise

December 29, 2007

Though my most recent raise was a mere 1% (due to my promotion in the second half of the year), I can’t complain about this year’s salary hike. Looking back from a year ago I’m now earning 49% more than I was then. I can’t say that I saw it coming, but it feels good [...]

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Badly Behaved Chief Executives

December 29, 2007

Interested in hearing about the lying, cheating and all around bad behavior of some of America’s business elite? Check out the AP story here.

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Getting Ready for Baby

December 28, 2007

Hi All, Today’s posting will be brief because I’ve got a hot date at the library with a stack of reading. Today we’re featuring a quick video on the topic of getting your finances ready for childbirth. Since most of us will have kids, the video says two things. First, that you’ll want to reduce [...]

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Prosper: A Cause for Concern?

December 27, 2007

Hi All, If you frequent personal finance websites, you’ve probably heard about prosper.com. Prosper is a person to person lending platform that allows you to make loans directly to borrowers without going through a bank. We DINKs have a little under three thousand invested in the service. We were optimistic about prosper at first, but [...]

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Why Married People Are Richer

December 26, 2007

Married people are richer. If you read much personal finance literature, you’ll have learned this by now. While it’s an interesting observation, what’s more interesting is why this is: Speculation has involved a variety of topics: 1) Economies of Scale: In married households, there are economies of scale. Basically, its more efficient for two people [...]

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

December 25, 2007

Happy Holidays and Wonderful New Year From the DINKs!

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Wealth Building Strategies

December 24, 2007

Hello All, This posting is on the topic of long term wealth building strategies. While I’m certainly not an expert, if you read enough in the personal finance literature, you’ll start to get a sense of the long term wealth building strategies that are available to you. This posting briefly addresses three strategies and some [...]

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More Credit Card Deadbeats

December 23, 2007

Hi All, This story is hot off the AP news wire. Evidently the number of Americans who are hard core delinquent on their credit cards is increasing by over 50%. Check it out here. Best, James

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