My Wealth Builder

Outraged but not Accountable

2013-05-18T08:01:00.000-04:00

This week's events with IRS targeting has confirmed my belief there is no accountability at the top. Note the difference from the private sector. When JP Morgan Chase had significant losses due the "whale" trader, the CEO and Chairman, Jamie Dimon, was called before Congress and held accountable to for the issue. Over the last few days, I've listened to President Obama claim outrage, unacceptable behavior, and dismay, but never accountability. President Obama claims he had no knowledge until the press reported the issue.

However, it shouldn't take any unbiased investigator long to figure out where the idea to target politically conservative groups came from. With the current capability to track and trace electronic communications, the originator of the of the directive can be found. That's why Mr. Obama should be accountable and use a special independent counsel to investigate the issue.

For more on Reflections and Musings, check back every Saturday for a new segment.

This is not financial or policy advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

What I've Learned from my Retirement Jobs

2013-05-17T07:05:00.000-04:00

It's been a little over 5-1/2 years since I took early retirement. During that time, I've worked at eight different jobs in hopes of finding the perfect retirement job. Here's what I've learned from the experience.

No perfect retirement job. Perhaps, the perfect retirement job is the equivalent of a modern day Holy Grail, which an never be attained. Some were close, but none met all my criteria. My proposal to create the perfect retirement job was turned down by my organization.

No longer a corporate mindset. I am no longer interested in conforming to corporate direction if I do not personally agree. Also, I only give respect to those managers worthy of receiving it, which only happened a couple times in my retirement jobs.

Need meaningful personal learning. An must have element of my retirement jobs is that I get significant personal development from the experience. Once the personal learning stops, I am no longer interested in the job.

Finallly, a "job that I love" is only possible for the short term, maybe 2-3 years. So I'm glad I chose a 27 year career in a job that utilized my strengths and paid well during my working years.

For more on Reaping the Rewards, check back every Friday for a new segment.

This is not financial,career, or retirement advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Millennials are Savers

2013-05-16T06:47:00.000-04:00

Unlike Boomers, Millennials Appear to Be Super Savers reports that Millennials are saving earlier than their parents for retirement. According to the report, the average savings for mass-affluent ($50,000 to $250,000 in assets) Millennials (ages 18-34) is $55,000. The experience of growing up through two major bear markets and two major recessions makes this group more aware of not saving.

Many Millennials start investing at 22 (versus 35 for Baby Boomers) and over 70% participate in their companies' 401K plans. In addition, less than half plan to rely on public programs for retirement.

Based on this report, it appears that Millennials are actively taking charge of their retirement future, which is good since companies and the government can no longer guarantee a comfortable retirement.

For more on Crossing Generations, check back every Thursday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Commission Free ETF Investing

2013-05-15T07:12:00.000-04:00

Fidelity, Vanguard, E*Trade, TD Ameritrade and Schwab offer commission free ETF investing for their customers. The number, ETF company, and ETF sector vary by brokerage firm, but include many of the popular ETFs. Companies Add to Lineups of 'Free' ETFs by The Wall Street Journal does an excellent summary of the ETF offerings and the trading restrictions for each brokerage.

I plan to use commission free ETFs as a cost effective way to create a diversified portfolio, using primarily broad market index ETFs. Here's how commission free ETFs will minimize my cost and expenses.

No trading costs. I can periodically purchase small lots and incur no additional costs above the ETF expense ratios. This will enable me to make small initial investments and dollar cost average without trading costs reducing my returns.

Low expense ratios. The commission free ETFs include companies that offer the lowest expense ratios for index ETFs, as low as .04%. That would be only $4 of expenses per $10,000 invested on an annual basis.

Low expenses mean higher investment returns. Therefore, I'm going make commission free ETFs a significant part of the investment portfolios in our retirement accounts.

For more on The Practice of Personal Finance, check back every Wednesday for a new segment.

This is not financial or investment advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

The Wealth Builder Carnival #126

2013-05-14T07:19:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the one hundred twenty-sixth edition of The Wealth Builder Carnival. The purpose of this carnival is to collect articles from the blogosphere on building, preserving and keeping enough wealth for a comfortable retirement. For reference, I have tried to keep the carnival content tightly focused on wealth building and did not include submissions that were off topic. For reading convenience, the posts are listed with a brief summary or comment by the submitter and organized into seven categories: Earning, Insuring and Protecting, Investing, Living Frugally, Retiring, Saving and Taxes.

And now on to the Carnival.

Earning

Ben presents The Game posted at More Sales Appointments, saying, "Sales 2.0"

Theresa Torres presents 7 Signs that Freelancing is Right for You posted at MakeMoneyInLife.com, saying, "Freelancing may not be as easy as you or others think but if you are not afraid of hard work and if you possess or are willing to work on the following traits, then you may consider entering the world of freelancing."

Bryan presents Reasons To Change Jobs posted at Gajizmo, saying, "The best ways to improve your future financial security are to increase your earned income through a career or home business, invest wisely, and limit your spending. This article advises readers on when it may be time to change jobs, make that jump, and get that promotion or raise."

Insuring and Protecting

Jon and Krista Maroni presents What to do When a Friend Tries to Sell You Life Insurance posted at Responsible and Generous Living in Early Adulthood, saying, "How to navigate the awkward and inevitable insurance salesmen, particularly those you know, sent out to recruit family and friends into buying through their insurance company. Tips on what type of life insurance is beneficial and which plans you'll be pushed toward."

Investing

Dividends4Life presents PepsiCo, IBM and 7 Other Dividend Stocks Raising Their Payouts posted at Dividend Growth Stocks, saying, "When you purchase individual stocks, risk is inherent. Sometimes bad things happen to good stocks. Eventually, every investor will hold a stock that falls out of favor and endures a double-digit decline. Understanding this from the onset makes it easier to deal with. To minimize the risk of significant declines, your core portfolio should focus on blue-chip dividend growth stocks..."

Martin Poldma presents How to Create a Billion Dollar Business posted at Success and Personal Development Blog, saying, "I would like to submit my latest post on how billion dollar companies are created and how anyone could really do it, if they have a successful business in which they keep investing their wealth."

Living Frugally

John Schmoll presents 5 Great Ways to Save Money When Buying a New Car posted at Frugal Rules, saying, "Buying a new or a new to you car can be a stressful time as you need to figure out how much you can afford as well as negotiating with the dealer. With a little homework, comparison shopping and outside the box thinking you can generally save a nice little sum of money on your car purchase."

Retiring

Jason Hull presents Are We Taking the Wrong Retirement Risks? posted at Hull Financial Planning, saying, "According to one economist, '(A new Congressional rule) proves that pensions are pretty much dead.'"

Super Saver presents The Death of Pensions posted at My Wealth Builder, saying, "This article examines how we should be using mental accounting to allocate our investments in our retirement portfolio."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of The Wealth Builder Carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: the wealth builder carnival, blog carnival.

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial, earning, insuring, investing, living, retiring, saving, tax, or wealth building advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Patiently Waiting for a Correction

2013-05-13T15:52:00.001-04:00

At this point, I have only a couple more positions that I want to sell in anticipation of a correction. I'm waiting, along with millions of other investors, for the most anticipated correction ever :-) However, I still think its worth being patient and waiting.

For now, I won't be adding any more money to equities, and I will be looking to reduce my exposure in two positions.

For more on Strategies and Plans Ideas, check back every Monday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Composted All our Leaves, Finally

2013-05-12T06:12:00.000-04:00

After starting the process in 2010 to compost all our leaves, I finally achieved 100% composting of all the 2012 leaves from our yard. There were three key elements that enabled us to compost about 45 bags of finely chopped leaves.

Mixing grass clippings with leaves. This was my 2010 discovery for the composting process. By having a 3:1 mixture of leaves to grass clippings, the compost process was accelerated.
Saving uncomposted leaves until spring. I was only able to compost about 35 bags of leaves with grass clippings from the fall. So we decided to save the 10 bags to mix with grass clippings from the spring 2013 grass cutting. I addition, I also turned the compost pile from the fall and added new grass clippings.
Creating bigger piles. I attended a composting class last fall and it provided students with wire fencing to create a 4 foot diameter and 4 foot high cylindrical composting volume. This enabled me to create a much larger compost pile.

At this point, 100% of our leaves are in one of three compost piles. My goal is to complete the composting by end of summer so that I have a clear area to do the fall 2013 composting. If I continue, my goal is to the get all 45 bags from this fall into compost piles for the winter.

For more on New Beginnings, check back every Sunday for a new segment.

This is not financial or composting advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Market Top or Market Breakout

2013-05-11T08:19:00.000-04:00

With the Dow and S&P breaking through the previous highs and setting new highs, a case can be made for the market going higher. The market advance continues to be the most unloved rally. The next correction will be the most anticipated correction. However, pundits are starting to acknowledge the possibility of a continuing rally. For example, permabear Noriel Roubini acknowledges that the rally could continue another two years, before it crashes.

I'm still in the camp that a correction is only one event away, but in the meantime, this is a Goldilocks economic recovery, which is positive for the stock market. So I remain cautious about putting additional funds in equities and am using the opportunity to take some profits on some trading positions. It also appears that the market is highly overbought, which usually indicates a correction is due. So I am preparing to execute my ETF investing strategy when the correction happens.

I expect the next month will provide the answer for near term market direction.

For more on Reflections and Musings, check back every Saturday for a new segment.

This is not financial or investing advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Useful Facts About Social Security

2013-05-10T08:28:00.000-04:00

10 Social Security facts to know shares ten basic facts to know about Social Security. Here they are:

Workers contribute 6.2% of earned income and employers contibute 6.2%.
Benefits are based on 35 highest earning years.
Full retirement age depends on the year of birth.
Delaying benefits increases the benefit amount.
Married couples have options to increase total benefits received.
Payments are adjusted for inflation.
Insurance (death and disability) are provided prior to retirement age.
Benefits are paid electronically.
Contribution history can be viewed online.
The Social Security trust fund is projected to run out of money in 2033.

For more details, check out the article.

For more on Reaping the Rewards, check back every Friday for a new segment.

This is not financial or retirement advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

The Next Group to Drive Economy

2013-05-09T07:32:00.000-04:00

Millennials Are On the Rise reports that the 18- 37 age group (also know as Gen Y or Millennials) will be the population group that has more impact than Baby Boomers on the economy. This generation has 86 million people, 7% more than the Baby Boomers, and already account for 21% of consumer spending. The Millennials are already driving increased apartment demand and will likely impact housing demand in the future. Also, as Millennial save more for retirement, the stock market should benefit.

According to the article, the impact of the Millennials will start rising in 2015 and continue through 2029, which will be a significant positive of for stocks.

For more on Crossing Generations, check back every Thursday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Frugal and Productive Exercise

2013-05-08T09:00:00.000-04:00

Since my heart surgery, I have made major lifestyle changes. One change is to get at least 30 minutes of cardio exercise for 6 days a week. (Coincidentally, this was similar to one of my new year's resolutions: getting 3 hours of exercise for three times a week.)

During the winter, I had been using exercise machines in indoor gyms.  Although I'm find using exercise machines boring, I was resigned to using them since it was a convenient way to get the required exercise. I was testing out fitness clubs to decide which one to join. The minimum cost was $22/month.

However, last month I discovered a better option to getting my required exercise done.   For the past few years, I've been cutting our grass to create green yard waste to compost the previous fall's leaves.   While cutting the grass, I noticed that my heart rate achieved a 120 - 130 beats/minute range, which is the target for my cardio exercise. So with the warmer weather, I am cutting my grass for 30 minutes a day, over five days.

By cutting my grass, I get my exercise for free, but I accomplish something productive: lawn maintenance and composting.    In addition, I save time since I don't spend time driving to the exercise facility.

For more on The Practice of Personal Finance, check back every Wednesday for a new segment.

This is not financial or health advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

The Wealth Builder Carnival #125

2013-05-07T07:30:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the one hundred twenty-fifth edition of The Wealth Builder Carnival. The purpose of this carnival is to collect articles from the blogosphere on building, preserving and keeping enough wealth for a comfortable retirement. For reference, I have tried to keep the carnival content tightly focused on wealth building and did not include submissions that were off topic. For reading convenience, the posts are listed with a brief summary or comment by the submitter and organized into seven categories: Earning, Insuring and Protecting, Investing, Living Frugally, Retiring, Saving and Taxes.

And now on to the Carnival.

Earning

Bryan presents Best Ways To Make Money From Home posted at Gajizmo, saying, "Saving money and living below your means is fundamental to financial independence, but more importantly, families need to find ways to grow their income. Whether it is building a business or starting a venture from home, this article can help you get started by giving examples of the best ways to make money from home or online."

Insuring and Protecting

R.J. Weiss presents How do I complete a home inventory? posted at The Insurance Protection Blog, saying, "Three simple ways to complete a home inventory"

Investing

Dividends4Life presents 4 Big-Name Stocks With Double-Digit Dividend Increases posted at Dividend Growth Stocks, saying, "To succeed as a dividend growth investor you must identify and purchase stocks with sustainable dividend growth. Inertia is powerful force. Once a company has established a track record of growing its dividend over the decades and developed a shareholder base that expects higher dividends each year, it becomes increasing difficult for management to cut or fail to raise their dividend. No CEO of this type of company wants a dividend cut to occur on his or her watch..."

Living Frugally

Mr.CBB presents Junk To Funk: Some Woman Down The Road Left Me With Hardwood posted at Canadian Budget Binder, saying, "It’s not everyday I come across a money maker in the streets for free but when I do see it I jump on it. Often a simple DIY project can yield you savings in your budget or profits to your bank account if you can sell it. Watch me turn junk into funk and save!"

Retiring

Super Saver presents Early Retirement Readiness Checklist posted at My Wealth Builder, saying, "Here's a checklist to consider when evaluating whether to take early retirement."

Saving

Jason Hull presents Why You Shouldn't Obsess Over Your Net Worth posted at Hull Financial Planning, saying, "The financial planning industry likes to focus on a target number - your net worth. It's the wrong metric. Here's why."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of The Wealth Builder Carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: the wealth builder carnival, blog carnival.

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial, earning, insuring, investing, living, retiring, saving, tax, or wealth building advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Using Covered Calls

2013-05-06T06:34:00.000-04:00

Since I am retired, I periodically do a rollover of my company stock from my retirement plan to my traditional IRA. This allows me the additional option of using covered calls while trying sell some of my company stock. A covered call enables me to get additional gains from the call premium and sell my stock at a higher price. The main risk is the stock may fall signficantly, and the losses are greater than the premium received for the call.

A call is like a coupon; it gives the owner of the coupon a right to purchase an item at a specific price. A coupon is usually free, but in the case of a call option, a buyer would purchase the call option from me.

Here's an example of how I use covered calls. Say my company stock is currently priced at $40.00 and I want to sell within the next six months at $45.00. Since the price is currently $40.00, no one will pay me $45.00 for my stock. One approach is to wait until the price reaches $45.00 and sell the stock. Another approach is to sell a $45.00 call option (coupon) for $1.00 that is good for six months. I have chosen the second approach.

Here's the reason I chose the second approach. In the first approach, I receive $45.00 when I sell the stock. In the second approach, I receive $46.00 when I sell the stock for $45.00 because I received $1.00 for selling the call option. If the stock doesn't reach $45.00 at the end of six months, then I still make $1.00 since I keep the money I make from selling the call option. Then I can repeat process of selling a call option again.

The main risk is the stock falls significantly instead of rising slowly or staying the same. If the stock falls to $35.00, the $10.00 decline is greater than the $1.00 I received for the call option. Also, if the stock didn't have a covered call, I could have sold the stock at a price below $45.00 but above $35.00, and minimize my losses. However, if I was planning to hold until $45.00, then I'm still $1.00 better off while waiting.

The other risk is the stock goes to $50.00 and I am obligated to sell the stock at $45.00 to a holder of the $45.00 call option (coupon). This is lost profit, but it's not different than if the stock goes up to $50.00 after I sell at $45.00.

Since I believe the stock will get to $45.00, am willing to wait and am happy with that selling price, I have sold short term covered calls increase my gains when I eventually sell the stock.

For more on Strategies and Plans, check back every Monday for a new segment.

This is not financial or investing advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

New Stock Market Highs

2013-05-05T19:35:00.001-04:00

The stock market reached new highs at the Dow crossed 15,000 intraday for the first time and the S&P closed above 1,600 for the first time. This rally continues to be the most unloved stock market advance, as investors are not celebrating.   It has been reported that the new highs probably resulted from significant short covering on Friday.

I am one of the investors that is not celebrating. Although our portfolios have benefited from 2013 market advance, I continue to be cautious by selling into the rally and taking profits.   I strongly believe there will soon be an opportunity to by a lower prices.

Of course, the coming correction is the most anticipated ever. The market has gone six months without a 5% correction, when the average is five in a year.   2013 will be only the third time the stock market has gone from January 1 to May 1 without a 5% correction. One pundit claimed that other two times ended badly without providing specifics and I haven't found the supporting data for the claim.

This week will be interesting, especially if the market continues to advance.
For more on New Beginnings, check back every Sunday for a new segment.

This is not financial or investing advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

A Goldilocks Recovery

2013-05-04T16:13:00.000-04:00

"Ahhh, this porridge is just right." ~ Goldilocks

I'm starting to believe the U.S. economic recovery is "just right." It hasn't been too fast leading to bubbles that would ultimately collapse. It hasn't been too slow leading to a major depression. It has been in the middle, a tenuous recovery that occasionally shows signs of potential strength. The economic recovery just keeps grinding upwards.

Although he probably didn't intend to have such a slow recovery, President Obama deserves all the credit. His adminstration's policies have kept private business cautious, which has limited investment, hiring an spending by many companies. Pork stimulus projects, Obamacare, debt ceiling crises, and sequester cuts have made the future unclear for many businessse, leading them to grow much slower, but still grow, than in previous recoveries.

The result has be a slow healing economy, which in hindsight has been a good thing. Maybe this will break the boom/bust economic cycle the U.S. has experienced the last 15 years, and lead to another big advance in the economy over the next 20 years.

For more on Reflections and Musings, check back every Saturday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

The Death of Pensions

2013-05-03T10:32:00.000-04:00

Pensions used to be the mainstay of retirement income. For many companies, pensions were a good retirement option. Only current payments to retirees were an expense, and pensions expenses could be paid by future income instead of current income. However, the use of pensions has been declining as requirements for estimating pension liabilities and funding pensions were created. These requirements revealed that the majority of pensions were way underfunded.

New Rule Signals Kiss of Death for Pensions reports that a little rule change passed by Congress will revise the calculation for pension liabilities and allow companies to contribute even less to pensions, increasing the underfunding issues. According to one economist, "This proves that pensions are pretty much dead."

The significant decline of pensions as a retirement option is not a surprise to me. In my part time job that had a state pension, I figured out that my estimated pension far exceeded the contributions by my employer, me and a 7% investment growth. In addition, according to the pension rules, I could significantly increase my retirement payments even further by taking steps to increase my pay during my final three years before retiring.

After reviewing the pension option, I decided it was too good to be true and not sustainable. Soon afterwards, our state reduced pension benefits for current employees, but probably not yet at a sustainable level, in my opinion.
For more on Reaping the Rewards, check back every Friday for a new segment.

This is not financial or retirement advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Job Interview Mistakes

2013-05-02T15:14:00.000-04:00

When I attended job interviews during my senior year, I understood that companies were going to judge and evaluate me. Therefore, I wore a suit to all my interviews and was very professional during the session. My biggest mistake was not researching each company before the interview and not revising my resume to be customized for different types of jobs.   However, I did well enough since I received offers from six out of nine interviews.

Some current college graduates don't make the same assumption that I did on being evaluated during an interview. This CNBC article report that 20% of new college graduates exhibit strange behavior during an interview, e.g. texting, dressing inappropriately, and overly casual language.  Some extreme examples include having a parent attend the interview (or negotiate salary) and bringing a pet to the interview.

As a former hiring manager, my main concern would be the candidate not knowing how to act professional after being hired.   That seems to be the case, as the article reports that about half of HR executives report that most new hires are unprofessional during their first year, up from 40% of HR executives the previous year.

For more on Crossing Generations, check back every Thursday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

No Such Thing as Good Debt

2013-05-01T07:00:00.000-04:00

"Too much of a good thing can be wonderful." ~ Mae West

When I first started blogging in 2006, there was a lot of discussion about good versus bad debt. The common thinking was that home mortgage debt, student loan debt and auto debt was "good" debt. Credit card debt and other debt was typically categorized as "bad" debt.

My personal perspective was that debt is financial tool and it is neither good nor bad. It's how debt is used that is the good or bad. For example, the Great Recession has taught me that home mortgage debt and student load debt can be a financial negative if the amounts are too high. If my home mortgage exceeded the value of my home or my student loan debt significantly exceeded my salary, I would feel the debt was a significant financial burden.

Although we've taken out a home mortgage, college loans, and auto loans, we were generally conservative in our borrowing. For example, we made a 40% down payment for our last house and paid it off after 6 years. At this point, we are debt free and do not plan to take on any new debt since we've witnessed the significant issues caused by debt during the recent recession.

For more on The Practice of Personal Finance, check back every Wednesday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

The Wealth Builder Carnival #124

2013-04-30T07:11:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the one hundred twenty-fourth edition of The Wealth Builder Carnival. The purpose of this carnival is to collect articles from the blogosphere on building, preserving and keeping enough wealth for a comfortable retirement. For reference, I have tried to keep the carnival content tightly focused on wealth building and did not include submissions that were off topic. For reading convenience, the posts are listed with a brief summary or comment by the submitter and organized into seven categories: Earning, Insuring and Protecting, Investing, Living Frugally, Retiring, Saving and Taxes.

And now on to the Carnival.

Earning

Bryan presents Questions To Ask In An Interview posted at Gajizmo, saying, "Answering your interviewer's questions well is obviously the most important part of an interview, but few job applicants realize the immense significance of asking the right questions back to your interviewer at the end. This article highlights a number of good questions to ask in an interview that will help you strengthen your relationship with the hiring manager and ensure you ace the complete process."

Investing

Dividends4Life presents 8 Dividend Stocks Growing Future Yield posted at Dividend Growth Stocks, saying, "Yield does not come without a price, usually in the form of added risk and/or complexity. Ultimately, dividend growth investors realize that long-term and sustainable high-yield investments are grown over time. This is accomplished by purchasing high-quality dividend investments with a reasonable yield and a long history of growing their dividends, and waiting for the yield on cost to grow..."

John Schmoll presents Online Brokerages I Use: OptionsHouse Review posted at Frugal Rules, saying, "There are many online brokerages to use as you look to invest in the stock market. The good ones are there to meet your needs and help make sure you’re doing what you can to be investing for things like retirement."

Living Frugally

Super Saver presents Prepared for a Significant Correction posted at My Wealth Builder, saying, "Although our stock investments are up, I realize a significant market decline can take away all the gains, and them some."

Retiring

Jason Hull presents The Case Against Self-Directed IRA Investments posted at Hull Financial Planning, saying, "If I would have put my startup in a self-directed IRA, I would have been account rich and spending cash poor after I sold it. Here's what to incorporate into a decision to put an alternative investment in a self-directed IRA."

Taxes

James Powell presents Tax Credits and Benefits Changes 2013 – How They Will Affect You : Tax Credits posted at Tax Credits, saying, "This post will look at how the changes in tax credits will affect you in 2013."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of The Wealth Builder Carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: the wealth builder carnival, blog carnival.

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial, earning, insuring, investing, living, retiring, saving, tax, or wealth building advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Long Term Umemployment Is a Major Resume Negative

2013-04-29T15:01:00.000-04:00

The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment shows the data from an experiment in which researchers sent out virtually the same resume, with the only exception the time of being unemployed. The results show that being unemployed over six months essentially eliminates any interest by the employer, even if the candidate had relevant experience. In fact, a candidate with no relevant experience but with less that six months unemployment was much more likely to receive employer interest than a candidate with relevant experience and over six months unemployment.

Here are my conclusions. First, any job is better than no job, in the view of potential employer. Second, long term unemployment compensation programs may have caused issues for workers that chose to stay on unemployment rather than taking lower paid.

My lesson learned: To be employable, stay employed, even if the job is in a different or lower paying field.

For more on Strategies and Plans Ideas, check back every Monday for a new segment.

This is not financial or career advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

All ETF Strategy for Two Retirement Accounts

2013-04-28T19:15:00.003-04:00

In Using an ETF Portfolio, I wrote that I was considering using no commission ETFs to build a diversified portfolio in one of my retirement accounts. I've now decided to proceed with two retirement accounts. Here are my reasons:

Simple strategy. I can create a diversified portfolio with as little as four ETFs, at specified percentages with periodic rebalancing. Thus, anyone can manage and rebalance the portfolio, and a professional is not needed to manage the account.

Cost effective. With no commission costs and low expense ratios, the ETFs are an inexpensive way to have diversified investments. In addition, it is also cost effective to buy on dips to dollar cost average the basis lower.

Less effort. Trading stocks is effort intensive, requiring screening and evaluating numerous stocks to find a select few to trade. This is a constant on-going process. By investing in ETFs, I focus on a few indicators or rebalancing to determine when to increase or reduce exposure in equities.

For now, I will start the all ETF portfolio with the next market correction.

For more on New Beginnings, check back every Saturday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

A Wild Week

2013-04-27T10:12:00.000-04:00

The past week was an exciting one for our finances. My company stock advanced an all time high just before the earnings announcement and the dropped over 7% when the results were disappointing. So I've spent a large amount of time monitoring the stock price. Fortunately, I took the opportunity to exercise stock options and sell company stock near the all time highs, locking in gains and profits before the stock dropped.

Of course, the drop in stock price has been a negative financially. Surprisingly, I am somewhat relieved the stock prices has pulled back. The stock price was getting uncomfortably high based on the company situation. It had become just about priced for perfection, which usually means a near term major disappointment will happen. I would have been really worried if the stock price had advanced another 3-5% right after the announcement of Q1 results. Although the results were disappointing, I think the stock will be able to recover from it.

Hopefully, the stock won't decline too much further and will settle back into a stable price range for now. That way, I won't need to be making frequent decisions on selling stock or exercising options, due to concerns of a market pullback.

For more on Reflections and Musings, check back every Saturday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Early Retirement Readiness Checklist

2013-04-26T13:58:00.000-04:00

Six Signs That You Are Ready to Retire Early had a list to evaluate whether one should consider early retirement. I did the evaluation based on my situation in 2007, when I took early retirement.

You are emotionally ready to quit working. Yes, I was ready to stop working at my job. However, I did test several jobs while I retired to determine if starting a second career would be of interest. After five years of testing, the answered turned out to be "no."

You followed a retirement budget for 6 months. Yes, we lived below our means while working. So our expense after retiring were the same as the expenses before retiring.

You have reliable health insurance coverage. Yes, my company provided me the same insurance coverage, although at a higher price.

Your children are financially independent. No, our three year old hadn't quite achieved financial independence.

Your debts are paid off or nearly paid off. Yes, our only debt was our home mortgage. My spouse was right that we should have sold our stock investments and paid off the mortgage in 2008. However, I was greedy and stayed invested until after the market crashed. We did sell our stocks to pay off the mortgage in May 2009.

Your portfolio is big enough to withstand losses. Yes, in hindsight. Our portfolio declined over 40% from October 2007 to March 2009. There were times I thought our early retirement might fail. I even took on some part time jobs to reduce our withdrawal rate. However, thanks to the Fed QE programs, our portfolio has recovered, at least for now.

Five out of six is pretty good. I guess we should have started having our daughter work when she was two, in order to get six out of six :-)

For more on Reaping the Rewards, check back every Friday for a new segment.

This is not financial or retirement advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Hot Air Popcorn Popper

2013-04-25T07:11:00.000-04:00

In college, my roommates gave me hot air popcorn maker for my 21st birthday. I enjoyed many batches of popcorn. Back then, I used the butter melter on the popper to add more flavor to popcorn. The appliance lasted about 10 years before it stopped working.

Over 30 years later, I am on an meat free, oil free, and nut free diet. So oil popped or butter popcorn is not a part of my diet. We tried oil free microwave popcorn, but it was expensive and require maintaining additional pantry inventory. So my spouse bought a hot air popcorn maker for me. It's great. It's easy and fast to use. We can pop regular popcorn. Best of all, there's no mess to clean up.

For more on Crossing Generations, check back every Thursday for a new segment.

This is not financial or health advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Choosing Pay As I Go Options

2013-04-24T07:32:00.000-04:00

I am always tempted to purchase a membership over just making a one time payment when attending museums, zoos, pools, gyms or similar venues. It always seem that the membership will payout in relatively few visits. In the past, I have purchased the membership because of the perceived savings. However, I've learned that for the majority of memberships, I would have been better off financially to just pay when we decide to attend since the total cost of my visits often don't exceed the membership cost.

So for now, I'm no longer purchasing memberships for any activity. (My spouse will keep one membership to a local nature preserve.) Although each time will feel like I'm missing a deal when attend a venue, I will know that paying for an admission each time will be a savings over purchasing an annual membership.

For more on The Practice of Personal Finance, check back every Wednesday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC