personal finance

Two weeks from today I will be hopping on a plane and heading back to Chicago for the long Labor Day weekend.  My wife and I have tickets to watch our Alma Mater, the University of Iowa, play Northern Illinois at Soldier Field in the opening weekend of college football.  Sure is hard to believe…

Last week I found out that with your help I made it to the finals of the GoBankingRates.com Personal Finance Olympics.  Now I need your help win the gold medal.  My final article is live and I need as many votes as I can get.  You can come back EACH day through August 12 and…

I will have to admit that I haven’t been watching very much of the olympics over the past week.  I’m going to be heading up in the mountains for a long weekend tomorrow so I will probably end up missing a few more days.  My hometown is sure holding strong over the last two Olympics…

One of the most useful financial tools a person can have and use is credit.  It is also one of the most dangerous tools and can completely ruin a person’s financial health if it is used inappropriately.  There are many financial professionals out there that think it should only be used in rare circumstances.  For…

After you have a good start on paying down credit card debt, and the beginnings of an emergency fund set up, then you can get started on their investments.  In order to get the most out of your investments, you should strive to maintain proper asset allocation.  Staying properly allocated, and rebalancing regularly, will help…

During our teenage years we feel pretty much invincible.  As we get older, that feeling subsides some, but even when we hear about our peers being injured or dying early we often think, “That will never happen to me.”  As we progress in our careers we have a good income, we have created a budget,…