July 2007

Carnival of Money Stories #19 (Dough Roller Presidential Debate Edition)

July 31, 2007

Welcome to the first Dough Roller Presidential Debate, sponsored by the Carnival of Money Stories. This edition of the Carnival of Money Stories picks up where the recent YouTube Presidential Debate left off. Tonights format includes candidates from both parties and focuses exclusively on the subject of personal finance and fiscal policy as told through [...]

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10 Stupid Things We Say To Ease The Pain of a Market Meltdown

July 30, 2007

The market was down last week, as I’m sure you all well know. My portfolio dropped about $25,000. It’s times like these that I reflect on the many stupid things I’ve told myself in the past to lift my spirits during a market meltdown. Mind you, many of these things are true, but are they [...]

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10 Home Value Websites to Lookup the Value of Your Home (and your neighbor’s home)

July 27, 2007

The captain has turned on the seatbelt sign as an indication that the housing market has been cleared for landing. Please bring your seat backs and tray tables to their upright and locked positions. Turn off all electronic devices, and most importantly, assume the crash position. With housing prices falling, I thought this would be [...]

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10 Things I Now Know at 40 That I Wish I Knew at 20

July 26, 2007

If you’re new here, please check out what my site’s about. I also encourage you to get free Dough Roller updates from my RSS feed or via e-mail. Thanks for stopping by! The best thing about being 40 is surviving your 20s and 30s. And at 40, I’m considered an old-timer in the personal finance [...]

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Housing Down Until 2009 and Prime Borrowers Struggling to Pay

July 26, 2007

This week two housing items were released that bode well for buyers, but not so well for sellers. The first is that the CEO of Countrywide Financial believes that a housing rebound won’t surface until at least 2009. The second is that delinquencies by prime borrowers (yes, prime) on second lien loans (e.g., home equity [...]

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Festival of Frugality #84

July 25, 2007

The Frugal Law Student (I wish I was frugal when I was in law school) has posted the 84th Festival of Frugality for your reading pleasure. My article about the rented Nikon lens I used in Guatemala was included in the carnival–thanks, FLS! There were a lot of great articles submitted, and here are a [...]

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Buy Low, Rent Smart, Sell High–The Art of the Lease-Purchase

July 25, 2007

I recently read a great real estate investing book that I highly recommend. It’s called Buy Low, Rent Smart, Sell High By Scott Frank and Andy Heller. Before we get to the book, let’s talk about the lease-purchase. Lease-Purchase Strategy A lease-purchase agreement is nothing more than a rental agreement that gives the tenant an [...]

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AT&T Activated Just 146,000 iPhones During First Two Days of Sales

July 25, 2007

AT&T reported that it activated just 146,000 iPhones during the first two days of sales. Analysts had estimated that AT&T would activate between 500,000 and 700,000 on the first weekend. Apple’s shares tumbled 6% during after-hours trading. Apparently, the 354,000 to 554,000 folks who didn’t buy an iPhone the first weekend it hit stores had [...]

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Impulse Buying–Letting Our Kids Learn About Money By Making Mistakes

July 24, 2007

This past weekend my son had to have a video game. All Sunday afternoon he kept clamoring for one of us to take him to EB Games. Eventually we gave in and off we went to the store with his hard earned money. As fate would have it, the game he wanted was not in [...]

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