It’s amazing to me how quickly we’ve changed our habits to leverage new technologies that make our financial lives so much easier. Yet even as we speed along in this great new direction, there are other habits we need to rethink in order to be safe on our journey. Specifically, we need to unlearn certain old behaviors and adopt some new ones in order to protect ourselves from technology’s biggest unintended consequence—identity theft.
Mar
19
Along with death and taxes, you can count on inflation to lie in waiting for you.
What is inflation? It’s a $40.00 fill-up. It’s the $4.00 loaf of bread, the $1,200.00 rent payment, the $150,00 electric bill, and the $12.00 movie ticket. And it never stops.
Mar
14
The first three online calculators have helped wipe out your credit card debt, plan an early loan payoff, and buy a car within your budget
Once you’ve gotten that far (and maybe you’re there already), you’ll want to sharpen your savings plan.
Mar
12
The online calculator in this installment is very similar to the loan reduction calculator featured last time. Bankrate.com calls it an Auto Calculator and gives you more options for narrowing your price range and terms.
In all good conscience, I can’t talk about this tool without first mentioning that Real World Finance is strongly opposed to taking out a loan to buy a car. As detailed in an earlier article, the advantages of saving for your next car purchase are many and the dollar savings are significant.
Mar
7
The first article in this five-part series featured the online credit card calculator, designed to give you the hard numbers on what it will take to pay off the credit card company. It was first because getting rid of credit card debt is the number one priority on the road to financial freedom.
The next calculator represents the second big step, and that is paying off an existing loan as quickly as possible. For most people this could mean an auto loan, or a home equity line of credit loan. Your motivation for paying off the loan early is a big savings in interest charges.
Mar
5
Regular readers of Real World Finance know I’m an advocate of seeing the big picture, financially and otherwise. If we don’t understand where we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re headed, then chances are pretty good we’ll continue repeating mistakes and getting nowhere.
