Steadfast Finances

 Banking, Business Trends, Peer to Peer Lending         10 comments

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I ran across this clever, or ghastly if you work in the banking industry, idea from Thomas Power from Ecademy.com.
What if Facebook became a bank?

If you’re a banker, I’d bet the Bank of Walmart idea is looking pretty good about now since the Internet is steadily putting the …

 Administration         1 comment

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One of the reasons why I loved the recession is the creativity of small business owners to get customers coming through the door and filling the empty seats.
This clever idea, from a sports bar owner in Boston, is actually selling season tickets to watch the Red Sox… on television in …

 Bargain Hunting, Frugal Living, Saving Money         4 comments

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Who uses Groupons?
Rich people. That’s who!
Okay, maybe not just rich people, but you may be surprised to learn that people who make major bank ($100k+ annual salary) are the heaviest users of daily groupon email alerts.
Then again, it should be no surprise at all that young people who make a …

 Advertising         5 comments

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I consider myself fairly immune to the persuasioneering techniques of modern day advertising.
The buy me, but wait there’s more, buy one get the second at half price hard sale SOPs are outdated and they work about as well (at least on me) as penicillin works as well on a superbug …

 Buy on the Dips, Index Funds, Investing 101         11 comments

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On March 9, 2009, the stock market closed at it’s lowest level in over a decade. The doom and gloom news factories were pumping out negativity as loudly as it could because that was what “people wanted to hear.”
You couldn’t pick up a newspaper, click to highly trafficked website, or …

 Banking, Debt Reduction, Lessons Learned         4 comments

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As a self confessed quotes junkie, few things in life can change my thought process or motivate me to change my opinion more than a hard to forget quote.
Not only are they fairly easy to remember and somewhat sexy to interject into everyday conversation, but in a small number of …

 Career         2 comments

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As if you needed more ammo in the “education matters” debate, take a look at your chances of becoming a disposable worker (a less than flattering way of saying unemployed) if you only have a high school diploma or you’re a high school dropout.

Graphic via Chart of the Day.
Granted, a …

 Real Estate         6 comments

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For some time now, I’ve been considering becoming a real estate investor (>1 property) once again. Even though real estate prices haven’t found their absolute bottom yet (my non-professional opinion only), I’m thinking that 2010 might be a decent time to test the waters, do some bottom fishing, and see …

 Investing 101, Investor Psychology         14 comments

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I ran across an interesting bit of research today suggesting that one of the leading ways investors get suckered into investment bubbles, and subsequently decimate our annual performance, is that we are far too concerned with being left out of the money making process, rather than losing our original investment.
As …

 Administration         6 comments

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Being a student of social anthropology, I always find generational studies particularly interesting because they ask wide array of behavioral, economic, and big picture questions that have a fairly good chance of impacting the future path of a country.
This demographic profile, from the Pew Center on the American Millennial generation …

 Frugal Living, Good Eats, Saving Money         2 comments

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Around this time every year, I’m usually suffering from sporting event purgatory. Meaning, I’ve got a nasty case of football withdrawal and with March Madness still several weeks away, I’m looking for something to fill the hours.
So now that my normal repertoire of buffalo wings and homemade chicken fingers isn’t …

 Debt Reduction, Mortgages, Personal Finance Tips         1 comment

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If you’re a believer in The Stuff You Own Ends Up Owning You philosophy, it’s only natural that you should spend a few minutes of every month actually calculating how much, if any, that you’re leveraged and how much of income goes solely to repay your debts.
Yes, I know that …