Category: Personal Finances
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Opportunity cost sounds like a dry topic, but it is a concept that can be applied to many aspects of daily life. I recently found a quote from a famous author and realized that it applies to life, business, economics, opportunity cost, and just about every other aspect of our waking moments. “For every opportunity…
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Finances at Work: The Time Value of Money Whenever we are looking to understand the true value of money, it is absolutely critical factor time into the equation. This is ultimately because $1 Dollar received today is more valuable than $1 Dollar received tomorrow. There are a few different reasons to explain why this is…
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Here is a brief example that explain the impact of interest rates. We’ll assume two periods for simplicity sake. Period 1 (Year 1) will be the CURRENT period, and Period 2 (Year 2) will be the FUTURE period. Other notes for this example: A consumer who earns $30,000/year; an interest rate of 5% for savings…
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How many of you would purposely spill ten dollars worth of quarters down the grate of a sidewalk? Would you leave your five-dollar bill on a windy open windowsill? Wallet Woes: The Rule of 72 in reverse. Which would you prefer, paying a parking or speeding ticket or having strangers (*cough* the banks *cough*) help…
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It’s tough, rising tuition costs will never cease, books will always be new every year, and rent in your city is poised to increase. The opportunity cost of going to school is more than these costs, but the loss of your income for the year as well. So why bother with the all the hassle,…
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DON’T say the B-word. What caused this stigma I have no idea, but one thing is for certain, people who don’t know how to handle their money in the most basic ways know one thing for sure, don’t tell me to ‘budget’. The fact of the matter is this, the basics of budgeting, simply taking…
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Not long ago a bank teller and I got into a conversation about hair. She asked me: What can I do to have nice hair? Mine is falling out and it’s thin. I told her make sure to eat enough protein and vitamins, giving her examples of some foods she could eat. Then she asked…
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**Edit: Has anything changed? We originally posted this article in 2007 and wonder if much has changed? One thing has, more people are in the ‘old’ demographic. Are caregivers (boomer parents) learning to deal with the increase?** I always find it funny, somewhat comical, when banks state the brutally obvious. The latest, according to a…
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The credit crunch in 2008 hit consumers and businesses alike hard. We can’t really say we weren’t expecting some form of downturn in the economy, but the magnitude and scale we’ve seen thus far, many would admit it’s worse than expected. Despite all the negativity and doom and gloom surrounding us, are there things we…
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A young married client had done some mental math and decided that the total of his life insurance premiums if he held the policy for the full term was a princely sum. He felt reluctant to part with that money and told me so. For the moment we can leave aside the truism that you…