2008

Mutual Fund Investing That Costs Nothing, Nada, Zip (Free!)

November 20, 2008

What do Home Depot, Anheuser Busch, and Carmax have in common? Here’s a hint: Bank of America, American Express, and General Electric have the same thing in common. The answer is they are all investments by a “mutual fund” that does not charge you a load fee or annual expenses. You’ve no doubt heard of [...]

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97 New Ways to Save Money (from DR Readers)

November 15, 2008

One year ago I wrote an article about 51 painless money saving tips. It was a simple enough article with a bunch of ideas on how to save some money without making huge sacrifices. The response was stupendous. There have been countless comments to the article, and the article has been viewed more than 65,000 [...]

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How to Avoid the Infuriating Cost of Disorganization

November 10, 2008

Note: This post comes from my darling wife, Mrs. Dough. A few years ago, I was in charge of filing the insurance claims for our family. Somehow, slowly, DR took over. This was probably because he had the forms at his office and they would occasionally change and one day he offered to take my [...]

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How to Pick a Lucrative Online Money Making Topic

November 8, 2008

Two readers recently contacted me with two separate but related comments about how I make money online. The first came in the form of an e-mail: Hello, I really like your tutorial on how to make money blogging except I am sort of confused. Can I make a site or host a domain about any [...]

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Carnival of Financial Goals–Election Day 2008 Edition

November 4, 2008

Welcome to the November 4, 2008 edition of carnival of financial goals. As you head to the polls today, you probably cannot help thinking that our country could use some financial goals. You know, things like (1) let’s slow down on the borrowing just a bit; (2) don’t spend more than you make; and (3) [...]

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A Brief History of Daylight Saving Time

November 2, 2008

Daylight Saving Time is the semi-annual ritual of setting our clocks one hour forward or back depending on the season. “Spring forward. . .fall back” is the familiar reminder of which direction we should adjust our clocks. But why do we have DST and where did it come from? It turns out that Daylight Saving [...]

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Remembering A Good Soul–Dean Barnett (1967-2008)

October 28, 2008

I lost a good friend yesterday. Dean Barnett was just 41 when he died of complications from Cystic Fibrosis. Dean and I first met in 1989 at Boston University School of Law. We were both incarcerated in Section B, which included contracts with the distinguished and extremely tough Professor Clark Byse. Dean and I helped [...]

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How to Profit from a Stock Market Crash

October 25, 2008

According to Standard and Poor’s, the S&P 500 is down 40.29% for the year. And just in case you thought that was a typo, I’ll repeat myself: the S&P 500 is down forty point twenty-nine percent so far in 2008. Ouch! Now here is something that is far more important. How you handle your stock [...]

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Credit Cardholder’s Bill of Rights Act of 2008 – What it means for you

October 19, 2008

While the $700 billion bailout and presidential elections have dominated the news, the House of Representatives passed a major piece of credit card reform legislation. The Credit Cardholder’s Bill of Rights Act of 2008 passed the House on September 23, 2008 by a vote of 312 to 112 (with 9 members not voting). While the [...]

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