Leningrad or Berkeley? Unclear
Капиталисты всех стран, соединяйтесь!
And a Happy May Day to all y’all. Today we at Control Your Cash celebrate the real starters of the world’s economic engine: the risk takers; the calculated gamblers; the capitalists. You folks. The people who realize that you can labor all you want, but it won’t make you rich without employing some capital along the way. Let’s get the parade under way:
We’ll start with something intermediate-to-advanced. This post by MikeAhi at After Hours Investing got our attention and with good reason. It’s tangible information about a particular mutual fund and why he’s investing in it. It’s got a little jargon, but go slowly and you can probably figure it out. Mike is conscientious, informative, and most importantly, he actually knows how to write. Check out his archives – his site deserves more attention.
Got to admit, when we got a post from something called Kathryn’s Conversations we figured she’d be just another dippy broad with nothing to say and no opinions to defend. (e.g. “Here are some yummy ways to save money for Easter!!!! So fun!!!!!”)
Boy, were we wrong. If you’re still defending your decision to rent rather than buy a place to live, Kathryn will skewer any financial arguments you might have and leave you hanging on with your useless emotional arguments in one hand (and your shriveled gonads in the other.)
How to get some cash flow for the doddering old person in your life? You could send her out on the street corner with a tin cup – Control Your Cash’s own Betty does that, and it pays some nice tax-free dividends – but Kyle Berks at Integrated Loans has his own method. It’s called a reverse mortgage, and it’s coming soon to a retirement community near you.
Jacob at My Personal Finance Journey features a guest post from some chick about online investing. The post itself is garbage (she thinks running ads on a website counts as a form of investing), but Jacob’s commentary on her post is useful and educational.
Do you know who Erin Pavlina is? Maybe you know who Steve Pavlina is. Her ex-husband, personal development guru, he’s pretty famous in that realm. She, on the other hand, is a…ahem…psychic. And a habitual submitter to personal finance blog carnivals. We linked to her post for pure comedic value last time, and she still didn’t get the hint. So here’s her latest, and we’ll let her set it up:
My twin sister and I started playing basketball when we were 10 years old. My father was elated as basketball was his favorite sport. He taught us all the basic skills and worked with us every weekend at the gym to improve our game, then he signed us up for a local community basketball league…
The ellipsis is hers, by the way.
Neal Frankle is the Mark Steyn of personal finance blogging; insightful and occasionally funny, even when his subject matter is depressing. Visit Wealth Pilgrim and hear what Neal has to say about incipient inflation.
As for Dr. Dean at The Millionaire Nurse Blog, about freaking time! We’ve been pimping Amazon’s almighty Kindle at Control Your Cash since before it was cool. (Did we mention you can buy our book on Kindle? Yes we did, several thousand times.) Dr. Dean is toying with getting one right now. Or maybe he’ll decide that having his entire library at his fingertips wherever he goes is grossly inconvenient.
You can’t ignore Miranda Marquit, you can only hope to contain her. This week she guest posts at Free From Broke with information on how to check the status of your tax refund. Which brings us to the Miranda Marquit Quote of the Month:
it can take as long as two months or more to see your tax rebate
So that means it can take 0 to 60 days (“as long as two months”), or 60 to infinity days (“or more”).
Which means it can take 0 to infinity days, which means it can take any amount of time whatsoever. Why she singled out 2 months as a benchmark is anyone’s guess.
Speaking of people who do unspeakable things to the English language, please welcome Marjorie at Card Hub to this week’s carnival. Her “island approach” to spending with credit cards involves…well, we’re not sure because we started gasping for oxygen somewhere around the 20,000-word mark. “Lack of proper segmentation will limit rewards potential.” Tell it, sister!
calandra at Home Equity Loan Calculator was tragically born without a capital letter. However, she can mix fonts with the best of them. Drop some peyote and try to make sense of this post.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is a douche. That’s what we got out of this post from Anisha via Tim Chen at Nerd Wallet about medical credit cards. Long story short, she explains what medical credit cards are (you can probably figure that out) and then mentions the opportunistic politicians ready to pounce on the cards’ issuers for giving them to idiots who refuse to read cardholder agreements.
This is particularly relevant. Your humble blogger got a GE Care Credit card – the very one mentioned in the post – to pay for LASIK surgery a few years ago. I was all set to pay the $3000 out of pocket, but the doctor’s finance person (also his sister) was pimping the card. 12 months, no interest.
Me: So do I get a discount if I pay you cash now?
Her: No.
Me: Then sign me up.
So I paid $250 a month for 12 months, with the CareCredit card. There was no cheaper way to do it. The card agreement contained some gigantic interest rate that kicked in on the unpaid balance after 12 months. I can’t remember what the rate was, and it doesn’t matter, nor did I care at the time. Why? Because the only thing I cared about was paying the balance by the due date, 12 months out. CareCredit didn’t make a dime off me, and only because I chose not to let them. In other words, I behaved like an adult and didn’t cry to the attorney general to make it all better. I didn’t blame the card issuer, I used them to my advantage. Anyone with half a brain can do this too.
Mr. Money Smarts hits it big this week at Smart on Money, telling you how to avoid capital gains taxes. If you’re already at the point where you’re deriving more income that’s susceptible to capital gains taxes than to income taxes, good for you. This post shows you how to make it even better.
Buy a PlayStation 3 and use a website template. These are the ways that Tarik, the funny man at I Am Wealthy Today, suggests you go about enjoying a richer and more fulfilling life. (We’re dead serious about the first one. Apparently he is, too.)
Spousal abuse is a serious matter. But so is saving money! Back Taxes Help points out that under certain circumstances, an injured wife or husband could be due tax relief. Whether you use that knowledge to pour Crisco on the stairs is totally up to you.
You need a budget. No, really, You Need A Budget. It’s the name of personal finance software that Peter at Bible Money Matters started using once the brain trust in Redmond pulled the plug on Microsoft Money. YNAB has advantages and disadvantages that neither Mint nor Quicken has, which Peter points out in detail. Also, Peter’s a heterosexual male, so we can only assume he was under sedation when he described YNAB as “easy peasy”.
What’s the investor’s secret weapon, everyone? That’s right, Sarin nerve gas.
The investor’s second secret weapon, as anyone who’s read Benjamin Graham knows, is dividends. Thus Dividend Stocks Online, which this week analyzes two tech stalwarts (I love that word) whose stock prices haven’t moved much in years – which means that their dividend yields might be unusually and deliciously high.
Interest rates are still low, at least for home loans. Home prices can’t get much lower, at least not before hay replaces drywall as a construction material. So buy a freaking house, already. Pinyo at Moolanomy thinks you should, too, and reminds you that even with prices working in your favor it’s still possible for a dumb or unprepared person to overextend himself.
Kevin Mercadante via Glen at Parenting Family Money might know the basics of antiseptic blogging work (bold subheads every few lines, posing a question at the end even if it’s a question you just spent the entire blog post answering, spelling plurals with apostrophes), but where he really shines is in telling you what kind of cell phone plan to buy for your kid. And with cell phone plans averaging around $60 monthly, this seems like another reason for getting your vasectomy/tubal ligation done as early as possible.
Jim Yih at Retire Happy Blog is happy. How happy? Look at his smiling visage on his website, where you should read his 6 unconventional estate planning tips, inspired by a speaker Jim listened to.
V.I. Lenin left his estate to the state, presumably. Miserable bastard.
Thanks again for your participation, comrades. Finally, here’s one from us on why only douchebags play the lottery. See you next month.
