Investor Junkie

The Poor Transfer Wealth to The Rich Via Credit Cards

Investor Junkie — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:46:57 +0000

Reuters has a story about the poor getting bamboozled with yet another scam. No it’s not three card monte, or state run lotto tickets. It’s via credit cards, and the rich are getting well.. rich off of them. According to the Boston Federal Reserve report, with its pretzel logic, only poor people pay by cash, [...]

Obama Educates His Children About Finance

Investor Junkie — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 04:27:04 +0000

The AFP and ABC News have a puff piece about Obama eyes babysitting duties for daughters. Implying somehow Obama still lives a regular life now that he’s president. While I commend that he is trying to educate his children on how to manage money, I also find it ironic based upon his government spending policies. [...]

Payday Loans VS. Loan Sharks

Investor Junkie — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:35:37 +0000

The Huffington Post recently had an article about Payday lenders leaving Arizona. In their usual left leaning slant the article was cheering about these companies were leaving the state, and how awful they were preying on people to take out loans. Which got me thinking about what exactly is predatory lending anyway? Is the lender [...]

How Wealthy Are You?

Investor Junkie — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 01:45:33 +0000

Being wealthy can be defined in many ways. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines wealthy as: 1 : having wealth : very affluent 2 : characterized by abundance : ample This definition of course is very vague. What exactly is “very affluent”? Being a numbers guy, I like specifics and like to measure things like wealth. I [...]

Added More Exxon Mobil (XOM) To My Portfolio

Investor Junkie — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 14:49:19 +0000

I’ve owned Exxon Mobil (XOM) for the past 7 years, and including dividends, I’ve had an annual return of slightly over 5% APY. While it’s not knocking it out of the park, it’s not bad for a Dow component, and especially not bad in this economic environment. Exxon, as with other oil companies have been [...]

Performance Update For Lending Club

Investor Junkie — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 18:15:07 +0000

Here’s the latest performance update for my Lending Club account. As of today I am earning 11.98% (almost 12% w00t!) annual return on my investment. This is up from my 11.27% return from my last blog post. I’ve been a Lending Club investor for over one year now. Since my last Lending Club update, I [...]

Economic Forecast for 2010 and 2011

Investor Junkie — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:23:15 +0000

I normally don’t make outright predictions on this blog, but Sam from Financial Samurai challenged me in his latest blog post. I’m always up for a challenge, so I’ll take a stab at it. Please come and revisit this blog post at the end of 2011. The purpose of the Investor Junkie blog has always [...]

I’ve Joined the Yakezie Challenge!

Investor Junkie — Mon, 24 May 2010 23:50:47 +0000

I finally joined the Yakezie Challenge! For those who regularly follow my blog you are probably wondering what too me so long? For those do don’t know much about it the purpose of the “The Yakezie” is it’s dedicated to promoting high quality personal finance content on the Internet.

Fidelity Investment Rewards Visa Card Review

Investor Junkie — Thu, 13 May 2010 20:42:09 +0000

We here at the Investor Junkie household have multiple accounts with Fidelity and is the primary account for our taxable investments. In addition, our low interest “fixed” rate credit cards suddenly skyrocketed to over 9% and now a variable rate. It was time for a new credit card strategy, because low interest rate credit cards [...]

Leave Investing To The Professionals

Investor Junkie — Wed, 12 May 2010 02:13:26 +0000

This interesting guest post is by Mr. Credit Card. While I (Investor Junkie) may not completely agree with his position, it’s a more common notion to let investment professionals perform the stock picking for you via actively managed funds. I used to work in the financial industry and I can tell you that I know [...]

Why I Sold Stocks In My Taxable Account Today

Investor Junkie — Fri, 07 May 2010 19:23:30 +0000

I sold stock from my taxable account today. I obviously don’t have to tell you about yesterday’s roller coaster ride in the market. I’ve had the feeling the market has gone too high too fast before this, and believe the market is not cheap right now. I sold stocks today because of these reasons: I’ve [...]

Our 2010 Hyundai Genesis Purchase

Investor Junkie — Tue, 04 May 2010 14:06:22 +0000

We got a new car! As mentioned previously, we were in need of a new car. With baby number three on the way we needed something to replace the existing clown car, our 10 year old 2001 Toyota Solara. If it weren’t for our growing family, I would have been happy keeping the existing car [...]

Weekend Reading for April 11, 2010

Investor Junkie — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 22:58:46 +0000

What I’m reading this weekend: Make More on Your Cash : WSJ – Tired of earning less than 1% on your MM account? William Bernstein an interesting idea to get a decent return. The Katana: Holy Crap! Taxes Due Soon : Financial Samurai – Better get your taxes done before the 15th. Doing it yourself, [...]

Monitoring Your Financial Independence

Investor Junkie — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 00:08:18 +0000

When driving from your home to a location you’ve never been before, how do you get there? In today’s world, you plug the address in your car’s navigation system, and based upon the parameters you select, it will tell you how to get there. More fancy GPS systems also have available: The estimated time of [...]

Angel Investors: A Blessing For Start-Up Entrepreneurs!

Investor Junkie — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:57:49 +0000

This is a guest post by Priscilla Solomon. Priscilla is a finance blogger and debt adviser at OVLG. Gathering funds for starting a business is really tough, when you are a fresh entrepreneur looking out for opportunities to turn your dreams into reality! Nothing is more disappointing than seeing your dreams crumble due to lack [...]

When Should A Late Customer Get Cut Off?

Investor Junkie — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 22:55:58 +0000

When owning a business one of the important parts is ensuring you have cash flow. No cash flow equals a dead business. Collections are a critical aspect of your cash flow. You have to make sure customer invoices are paid in a timely fashion. The question with a late paying customer, when should you cut [...]

Will The Wealthy Donate Less Because Of Health Care?

Investor Junkie — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:29:24 +0000

Here is an interesting statistic. America donates annually more money than any other country (the link also has some other interesting stats). Our European counterparts are not even close. This has gotten me thinking about our procession to create more entitlements. Now that the health care bill has passed, will this cause the wealthy to [...]

Lending Club – Update

Investor Junkie — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:11:05 +0000

When I initially reviewed Lending Club last December I promised I would give periodic updates. That time has come. I’ll let my screenshot speak for my results: As you can see my performance has increased from 10.45% to now an annual return of 11.27%. Some highlights in my investing for the past three months: I [...]

Life Isn’t Fair. Now Get Over It.

Investor Junkie — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:07:28 +0000

Lets deal with one of the more common realities of life. If there isn’t an axiom more self-evident than that life isn’t fair. It never has been throughout the history of mankind, nor will ever be. No matter how much others try to make right with what’s wrong in the world. Life will still be [...]

How is Investing and Owning a Small Business Related?

Investor Junkie — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:41:27 +0000

When I first created and named this blog, my wife asked me the question “How is investing and entrepreneurship related?” She didn’t see the connection. Perhaps my audience doesn’t either, and I’ll explain. They are very much interrelated. With index funds, you are investing a bucket of companies that match specific criteria. For example, the [...]