How Much Life Insurance Does a Stay-at-Home Parent Need?

April 22, 2013

Photo: Leonid Mamchenkov Generally, financial gurus recommend that you get 5-20 times your annual income in life insurance coverage. But what if you have no income because you’re a full-time stay-at-home parent? Or what if you contribute a few hundred bucks a year to the family bank account with your side job while you mostly stay [...]

Read the full article →

Motif Investing Review

April 18, 2013

As I mentioned recently, the individual stocks and ETF’s I invested in last year returned more than 33%. As a once buy-and-hold index fund investor, my foray into individual stock investing is something I never would’ve guessed five years ago. As happy as I am with the results so far, investing in individual stocks those [...]

Read the full article →

How Much Money Can You Save Working from Home?

April 18, 2013

Photo: atconc Kate Lister, co-author of “Undress for Success: The Naked Truth About Making Money at Home” and researcher for the Telework Research Network, says that about 40 percent of American employees hold jobs that could easily be done from home. The Telework Research Network also says that at least 79 percent of American workers [...]

Read the full article →

How to Refinance Any Debt

April 17, 2013

Photo: santheo What do you think of when you hear the word refinance? If you’re like most people, you probably think of refinancing a mortgage. In my weekly newsletter, however, we’ve been talking about how you can refinance any debt. I’ve encouraged my newsletter subscribers to write down every debt they have, including the interest [...]

Read the full article →

Making the Most of Dependent Care Benefits

April 16, 2013

Photo: epSos.de For single parents or dual-income families, child care is on the list of major expenses. A Child Care Aware of American study in 2012 detailed average child care costs across the nation. The results are astounding. According to the study, the average annual cost of full-time, center-based care for an infant ranged from [...]

Read the full article →

Cellphone Plans: To go prepaid or postpaid?

April 15, 2013

Photo: JonJon2k8 Cell phone carriers could learn a thing or two from Hick’s Law. Named after British psychologist William Edmund Hick, it posits that the more choices you’re given, the longer it will take you to choose. Verizon Wireless, meet Dr. Hicks. The options offered to you when buying a cell phone and choosing a [...]

Read the full article →

The Best Credit Cards for Your Credit Score

April 15, 2013

“How do I know which credit card to apply for?” The question above is, by far, one of the most common questions I get from people looking to apply for a credit card. Many people have an idea of what their credit score is, but may not know it exactly. Even if some people have [...]

Read the full article →

How to Calculate and Pay Quarterly Self-Employment Taxes

April 12, 2013

Photo: x_jamesmorris If you’ll have self-employment income this year – either from a small business with employees, a sole proprietorship, or even just contract work you do alongside your full-time job – you’ll probably need to pay quarterly self-employment taxes this year. As an employee, this isn’t something you have to worry about. Your employer [...]

Read the full article →

How Much Should You Save for a Home?

April 11, 2013

Photo: 401(K)2013 My family is on a long journey toward homeownership. Despite plenty of questions about when our little family of three will move out of our tiny apartment and into a home, we know we’re just not ready to buy a home yet. The main reason? We know how much money we’ll have to [...]

Read the full article →