Steadfast Finances

 Buy on the Dips, Index Funds, Investing 101         No comments

Share
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 negative  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         No comments

Share
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

Share
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         4 comments

Share

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         13 comments

Share
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

Share
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

Share
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

Share
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 …

 Investing 101, Investor Psychology         6 comments

Share
If you’re curious why I take most investment advice and the majority of news/analysis from mainstream financial media with a grain of salt, this chart might answer your doubts.

(Note: Y axis is percent increase or decrease.)
At their peak, the mania driven belief in the bubble that these investments were ironclad, …

 Investor Psychology, Personal Finance Tips, Strategic Planning         8 comments

Share

With so much financial information readily available telling us how to make more money or the nonstop investment advice telling us how to get rich quick, it’s quite obvious that many of us invest too much time and brainpower trying to get our money to make more money instead of …

 Dividend Investing, Investing 101         3 comments

Share
Whether you believe that dividend investing is one of best forms of passive income or not, it’s certainly one of the most reliable ways to boost your ROI over the long haul and in a sideways market.
So not surprisingly, one of the questions I’ve been getting on a regular basis …

 Debt Reduction, Politics         3 comments

Share
One of the most jaw dropping, and completely depressing, animations of U.S. National Debt I’ve ever seen.

Perhaps I’m overly melancholy after seeing that it would take 12 plus football fields of 100 dollar bills stacked 8 feet high to pay our national debt, but isn’t it just a little ironic …