A quick little finiancial checklist to start you off right. This was first shared by Scott Adams and I though I should add it here. This is from Scott Adam’s book “Dilbert and the Way of the Weasels.” He goes on to state that annuities are a bad idea. Whole life insurance is also a bad idea. Investing in individual stocks is a bad idea. Investing in managed mutual funds instead of an index fund is bad. The list goes on but that is the idea. Tell me what you think.

1. Make a will if you haven’t already done so.
2. Cut up those credit cards as they are the things of evil.
3. Seek and get Term Life Insurance if you haven’t already done so.
4. Fund your 401K to the maximum amount.
5. Fund your IRA to the maximum amount.
6. Buy a house if you wish to own one and only if you can afford it.
7. Always stash away at least six months worth of expenses expenses in a money-market account.
8. Take all other money and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund and do not touch until ready to retire. I like to use Sharebuilder to do this.

There are still some that are not making the most of Google Adsense. Fact is, some are still only generating a few dollars with Adsense. Some are newbies while others are trying to squeeze every bit from their website real estate. The fundamentals are often forgotten and over complicated.

Should your ads take top priority where visitors can see them… Wrong

When placing ads you should take caution as to not be too obtrusive on the reader’s area of interest. Placing Adsense ads in sections where the visitor has already read your content and is about to leave your website like in the footer may be more suitable. Often when Adsense is placed in prime real estate areas of your website, competitor websites are typically displayed and the user ends up clicking away from your website before actually engaging on your website. This often leads to getting engaged readers and just pushing them off to your competitor thus losing a potential return visitor.

The idea behind this is to allow people to the opportunity to browse through your website in the hope that they will become return readers. Top priority is to create a loyal visitor base while you profit off of them when they’re ready to leave by providing them with relevant websites in the form of Adsense ads. This however is more of a long term thing and will deflate your short term earnings but will both allow you to hold onto visitors for a longer period of time therefore increasing return visitors and long term profits.

Relevant Adsense Ads by using section targeting

Why are you serving higher paying ads for keywords that do not relate to your website theme/site content? Use Googles’ quick tags to only target the actual page content and not the header, side and footer junk thus increasing click through rate and leading to more profits.

Simply add <!– google_ad_section_start –> before and <!– google_ad_section_end –> after the content you want to gear your Google Adsense ads to return relevant ads for.

<!– google_ad_section_start –>
Content
<!– google_ad_section_end –>

Key points to focus on:

• Try to exclude irrelevant content such as the footer and sidebar info.
• Wrap these tags before and after large chunks of content as they lead to better optimization by Google.
• Google allows for multiple sets of these tags on any page.

Integrate ads effectively into your website

Some websites out there go with the “trash the design” method and focus on horrible layouts and non blending colors. These often end up with angry readers and low click through rates. We are trying to make these ads look as though they are in fact just a list of relevant websites that the user may click on in order to get more content on referenced keywords.

• FNBO Direct. No fees, no minimum balance. 3.25% APY.
• E*TRADE Bank. No fees, no minimum balance. 3.01% APY.
• ING Direct. No fees, no minimum balance. Orange Savings Account 2.75% APY. Electric Orange 3.05% APY. Orange CDs – 12-month CDs 3.50% APY.
  Note: ING Direct offers a $25 bonus to new customers who deposit $250 or more. Once you have an account you can earn $500 by referring other customers.
• HSBC Direct. No fees, no minimum balance. 3.00% APY.
• CitiBank Ultimate Savings. No fees, no minimum balance. 2.75% APY.

I am averaging a cool 10% gain since then till now. When good value stocks have no more to lose they become under valued and that is when you must grab them up. I bought a couple ETF stocks and a couple individual stocks. The funniest thing is that I am not even buying stocks that are risky. Take some time and sit down and truly research the market and hopefully you can make a cool 25% this year with ease.

The next thing is that when the value goes up in the next 1-2 years you will be thanking me greatly.

If you were to take 20% of your annual income starting at age 20 and put it in a S&P 500 index fund, that index fund continues to grow at the long-term historical rate (12%), and you received a 4% raise each year, you could walk away from your job and live off the interest at age 41 matching your current salary, or quit at 43 and be able to give yourself a 4% “raise” each year from the interest, which is probably the better plan because it combats inflation. Raise the amount to 25% and you’re done at age 38 and able to live in perpetuity at age 40.

All he has to do is save 20% of each pay check and then invest into an index fund like the S&P 500 index fund, I prefer to use Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) but all the same.

The hardest part is saving that 20% or heaven help you if you can 25% per paycheck.

But like snow-flaking debt, why can’t you snowflake to a rich retirement? And of course, once you start to save and that compounded interest really kicks in, then you can be saving an extra couple thousand per year just on interest alone.

If you can save $20,000 and get 5% in interest, then you just gained an extra $1,000 for having your money sit there. That $1,000 will then help you reach another $20,000 that much quicker then before you know it, you are now getting an extra $2,000 per year.

1. Map out your route.
2. Know the drill.
3. Strategize about when and how to shop.
4. Remember, you’re after bargains.
5. Haggling can be good for you.
6. Take all sorts of items on a test drive.
7. Expect great deals on clothes.
8. Know when to say no.
9. Care for potential purchases.
10. See the big picture.

Those tips are great and maybe you can reveal some top tips of your very own.

Tax rebate FAQs

• Will I get a check?
• How much will I get?
• Will I get more for my child?
• Who won’t get a rebate?
• What do I need to do?
• When can I expect my money?
• Will a refund affect my rebate?
• Rebate boosting tax moves

Should answer almost about all the question that you have on the 2008 tax rebate.

Fixed-Rate Mortgage Term Viewpoints

• Shorter Term is Key – You will have higher monthly payments but equity will grow faster. You will actually own the home faster and would have had paid much less in interest.
• Longer Term for Well Rounded Benefits – With a longer term you pay way more accumulated interest and equity builds slowly. You also have cheaper monthly payments money left over for other things.Prepaying a mortgage versus investing money in the stock market. You can invest the additional money that you save per month into the stock market by investing in Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). You will gain around 7%-12% compounded annually and this will dwarf the 5%-7% interest rate that you are willing to knock down. In 10 years you would have accumulated far more money in return on investment (ROI).Another factor is that paying interest is a huge tax reducer that many individuals use. Even though you can pay off in full for your house, don’t, you will give up this huge tax reducer if you do.
• Flexibility – As long as you don’t have any prepayment penalties, you can pay off you mortgage loan in much less time. If you get a 30 year, pay 10% of your monthly mortgage payment in principal and reduce your mortgage significantly. You can knock down a 30 year or 40 year down to 20 years or 15 years without problems.My Money Blog has a great post about choosing a fixed rate mortgage term. They even show the difference that extra payments towards principal will make.

This is yet another kick in the head over at Toshiba because HD DVD was developed by Toshiba. The major film studios still supporting HD DVD are Paramount and Universal. You can also find HD DVD players on the Microsoft XBox game system.

So what does this mean for you and me? This means that we are not control here, instead the film industry has decided the new format in which we should abide with.

Is HD DVD Dead??