Steadfast Finances

 Banking,Investing 101,Personal Finance         3 comments

How long has it been since you earned any money by saving? You definitely can’t include the 1 percent interest you earned last year, which was taxed at 15 or 25 percent by the federal government and 5 to 10 percent by your state. No, the interest that you think you made lost ground to the over 2 percent inflation that boosted prices last year. Honestly, it’s been years since you’ve actually saved any money. What your savings accounts have been doing over the last few years is losing money.

 Personal Finance,Saving Money         No comments

For those who like to get their financial media the old fashioned way — in print via snail mail — here’s some good news for ya… It’s hard to beat a $1 per issue offer in this day and age, especially if you’re the type that likes to hold a physical magazine or newspaper, but [...]

 Business Trends,Consumer Education,Personal Finance         2 comments

Being that I loath shopping, I’m among a growing trend of lazy busy Americans who are buying a majority of their Christmas gifts online. As a personal first for me, nearly all of my gifts will be purchased online from Amazon.com this Christmas, but without free shipping, this probably wouldn’t have happened. Here’s why. While [...]

 Infographics & Chartology,Saving Money         1 comment

Excellent chartporn from the Wall Street Journal in how the Great Recession altered American’s spending habits broken down in income quintiles (five 20% groupings). [click to enlarge image] Notice the change in elastic commodities (alcohol, retail apparel, etc.) versus inelastic commodities like food for a healthy home cooked meal. Not to delve too deeply into [...]

 Frugal Living,Personal Finance,Saving Money         3 comments

What sounds like a better deal? Unlimited minutes of video chatting over Cisco’s new home based telepresence system called the “Umi” for $25 per month? or… Unlimited minutes of free video chatting on Google video chat or Skype video chat on your home personal computer, laptop, and/or an array of mobile devices of your choosing. [...]

 Economy,Frugal Living,Infographics & Chartology,Saving Money         2 comments

It would appear that an increased savings rate, and the debatable longevity of the “new frugality” meme, are more sticky, time wise, with American consumers than many business leaders and economists had hoped. Not surprisingly, negatively toned headlines like one in seven Americans living in poverty and much of the financial mainstream media constantly discussing [...]

 Business Trends,Personal Finance,Saving Money         1 comment

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the Internet is the greatest disintermediation force the business world has ever seen and middlemen the world over are being eliminated. Yesterday, Google announced it has added a “you can call any phone right from Gmail” feature into it’s extremely popular free email service. Google has [...]

 Behavioral Economics,Investor Psychology,Personal Finance         1 comment

There is a Greek proverb that says: A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. As the proverb so eloquently suggests, it’s this type of time based philosophy that can make or break a society, as well as an individual’s or family’s personal finances. A [...]

 Business Trends,Real Estate         3 comments

For anyone concerned about younger generations — Gen Y/Millenials — having a sincere lack of trust in Wall Street and investing in America’s future, your fears are now warranted. Based upon Allstate’s Heartland Monitor poll, the spending/saving/investing priorities for Millenials are: Given a hypothetical $100 to invest, Millennials preferred saving in a bank or paying [...]

 Bargain Hunting,Frugal Living,Saving Money         4 comments

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 lot of [...]

 Frugal Living,Good Eats,Saving Money         2 comments

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 needed until summertime, I [...]

 Budgeting,Cutting Expenses,Saving Money         5 comments

Have you ever stopped to consider how much money you’re paying to keep in touch? I’m betting that a good percentage of you haven’t. Not yet anyway! If you actually take the time to add up the amount of money you dish out every month to pay for the Holy Trinity of telecom cash cows [...]