Personal Finance 101 Posts of the Day 6/5/07

• Queercents has a great expense tracker that you can download!
• No Credit Needed talks about getting out of debt one dollar (drip) at a time.
• Money and Credit talks about the need for financial education.
• Don't Mess with Taxes talks about kids and money.
• Money Smart Life has a great intro to ETFs.
  

Personal Finance 101 Posts of the Day 5/26/07

• Ask Mr. Credit Card talks about the importance of diversification.
• Money Ning reminds us to keep an eye on mutual fund fees and expenses.
  
• Bankruptcy Law Network has a series on how to deal with debt collections:
• Stop the Harassment
• Statute of Limitations
• Stop the Calls
  

Personal Finance 101 Posts of the Day 5/22/07

• Ask Uncle Bill talks about how to save a million dollars.
• Blogging Away Debt has some tips for living within your means.
• Mad Money Analyst talks about why you should start saving for retirement now.
• Queercents talks about setting goals and getting organized.
  

Personal Finance 101 Posts of the Day 5/9/07

• Advanced Personal Finance talks about why he doesn’t have an emergency fund.
• Adventures in Money Making gives us 5 ways to go broke.
• Five Cent Nickel talks about why credit cards rock.
• Get Rich Slowly talks about eating well for less.
• Free Money Finance talks about how to save money on a small income.
• Make Your Nut gives advice to new grads.
• Wealth Building World talks about the importance of saving.
• Personal Finance Articles talks about why it's important to budget.
  

Car Sharing: Would it work for you?

John and Queercents writes a useful article about the benefits of car sharing programs.

Those who don't live in a city might not know what this is all about. Basically joy join a service that allows you to rent a car by the hour or more and you pay according to how much you use it. The price includes gas, mileage and insurance and is much easier and cheaper than owning a car in most cities (John has a much better, much more in depth description on his post.).

Personally, while I think these services are useful and much better than owning a car, I don't think they're worth it. Having lived in a city for the last 4 years, I looked into joining Flexcar but decided against it. I ran the numbers and for me, it was too expensive unless I was using the car for 2 hours or less. I can easily rent a car for a full 24 hours through priceline and it will only cost me $25 or so. I probably do this once a month, if that often, and I just save up all the errands that require wheels to perform.

The only times I really wish I had a car for a short time is when I'm grocery shopping. But even with that, if I'm doing a small shop I just use my shopping cart and if I'm doing a monster shop I use peapod or similar. Their delivery charge is less than a car service would be for the time it takes to shop and I find that I spend less because I don't have impulse buys.

They are a great idea though and much better than owning a car in a city. They just aren't the best idea for me.

Personal Finance 101 Posts of the Day 4/24/07

• Free Money Finance reminds us not to count on an inheritance to fix us for life.
• Willster’s Financial Blog talks about pre-paid cell phone plans. I plan on doing this when my current contract is up. I get VOIP for $30/year from yahoo so there’s no reason I can’t use that for most of my calls since I usually have my laptop with me.
• CFO talks about how to stick to a budget while using credit cards.
• Principled Discovery talks about what our junk mail says about the financial future of the country.
• Accumulating Money talks about the evils of payday loans.
  

Personal Finance 101 Posts of the Day 4/16/07

• Everybody Loves Your Money lists the 13 top money saving ideas of all time.
• Frugalist lists 15 ways that being frugal makes you happier, healthier and sexier.
• The Digerati Life explains how much a car really costs.

Take control of your employer retirement plan!

This post is inspired by Broke Now, Rich Later's post on getting a Roth 401k offered at his company.

I love to hear about people like BNRL who are taking control of their retirement options at work. There are too many people who are stuck with horrible investment options at their jobs but prefer to complain about it than to do anything. They just assume that since it's what's in place, it's what the company thinks is best.

In reality, what probably happened is that a representative of your company who knows nothing about benefits was sold a policy that sounded good at the time. They may not have known about things like sales loads, expense ratios or asset allocation options so they trusted the sales person to set them up with a good plan. Unfortunately, what likely happened is that the company got stuck with an expensive plan with bad investment options (like the one I saw recently with no international but 5 bond funds) and, that's what will reamain until someone who knows better comes along and makes an issue out of it.

You should be that someone. For your benefit and the benefit of others in the company.

Will it be easy? Nope. It will take time, effort and persistence. And, it may never happen. But you don't know if you don't try.

If you are going to go down this path, there are things you should be prepared for.

1. Whoever chose the plan, if they're still there, probably won't like that you're trying to change it because it will make them look bad. So, be *very* delicate in how you approach this. Don't make them wrong, just point out alternatives.
2. You should be willing to do this on your own time unless your company assigns this to you as a project.
3. You'll get much further if you have people standing behind you so rally the co-workers but don't be obnoxious by complaining about how horrible the benefits plan is. This will not make you any friends in management and those are the people you need to convince.
4. People like numbers but they like charts and graphs too. This is a sales pitch and you should treat it as such. Offer concrete examples and run the numbers of how this will impact the company and each investor bottom line. For example, if the cheapest fund in your selection is a S&P fund with a 1.15% ER (don't laugh, this is a real example) then run the numbers. Show the difference that a 1.15% ER will have on $10k invested over 30 years. Compare that to $10k invested in VFINX (Vanguard's S&P fund) with an expense ratio of .18% and you will have a nice fat number to show them.
5. Follow the chain of command. Nothing will tick people off more than if you skip them and they hear about it from someone else.
6. Provide expert commentary. If your company is ok with it, find a consultant to hire to set up the new plan. If you're flying solo and have to convince them, do your homework and bring in supporting documentation from known sources.
7. If at first you don't succeed try, try again. If you're automatically shot down, then you need to really rally the troops. Start a grass roots campaign for financial education and get a petition going. Make your point clearly and without emotion. Whatever you do, don't lose your cool.

There are other things, but that should get you started. I'm hoping that BNRL will post about how things are going for him so others can get ideas to use.

If you do decide to go down this path and they agree to change the plan/policy/whatever, see if you can shoot for the stars and get them to implement an auto-enrollment policy. I am a huge supporter of these for two main reasons (the first one is most important to me).

1. It will get the people who otherwise wouldn't enroll on their own to start investing. People don't enroll for lots of reasons, most of which are excuses so if you make it opt-out instead of opt-in, most people won't complain. True story: Recently I was presenting a basic financial education seminar at a local small business. At the end of the seminar I did a little poll to see how many people in that office were enrolled in the 403b plan which had just started a matching program. I was not surprised to learn that a full 2/3 of the people attending the seminar were not enrolled in the plan. ALL of them intended to enroll but just hadn't gotten around to it or didn't understand the process. The solution: everyone got their forms, sat around the table and we got them all enrolled right then. If that company had an auto-enrollment program, all of those people would have been participating the whole time (some had been there for 3 or more years) and they would be much further along the road to retirement.
2. It will benefit the company by getting more money into the plan. This will do a few things: 1 - they will probably get better deals on plan fees. 2 - it will help with non-discrimination testing. 3 - it will allow highly compensated employees to contribute more if they've been phased out.

If you decide to take this all on, then good luck! If you have any questions, just ask I'll be happy to help in any way that I can.

Personal Finance 101 posts of the day 4/13/07

• Uncle Bill shows us that negative savings isn't always negative.
• Grad Money Matters talks about whether you should loan money to friends and family.
• Personal Finance Advice wonders if you can save too much for retirement.
• Aimee’s Blog talks about marriage and money.
• Crazy Money talks about the dangers of mental accounting.
• 3 Debt Consolidation talks about DIY debt reduction plans.
• Smart Money lists 5 sneaky bank fees to watch out for.
• Aridni talks about the value of your time. This is a great thing to keep in mind. You should use it in lots of areas but particularly when you're spending time doing research for investing. Whenever I have a 'stock picking guru' bragging about his returns I ask him what his return was minus taxes, fees and the value of his time spent on research/execution. That always stops them dead because most people don't think to include the time they spend researching as an expense for investing.
• Money and Happiness Blog talks about some of the best kept finanical planning secrets.
  

Personal Finance 101 posts of the day 4/12/07

• Young and Broke talks about how people aren't saving these days.
• Broke Now Rich Later tells us how he's campaigning for a Roth 401k at his job.
• Consumerism Commentary asks if personal finance should be required in high schools. He says no but I strongly disagree.
• The 6 Month Project talks about ways to trim your budget.
• Mighty Bargain Hunter talks about pre-packing your lunch to take to work.
• The Thinking Men talk about how you can get a free credit report.
• Yahoo Finance has an article about how deluded people are about their retirement prospects.
• Free Money Finance asked his readers for suggestions on how to save on a small income (read the comments).
• Fool for Travel gives some great tips on how to save money while traveling.
• MSN Money talks about payday loans and their huge interest rates.

Personal Finance 101 Posts of the Day 4/7/07

• Personal Finance Odyssey talks about applying the 80/20 principle to personal finance.
• Debt Consolidation News talks about how to get your expenses under control.
• Ask Mr. Credit Card gives tips on how to choose a debt consolidation company.
• 1031 Exchange Lowdown talks about things that keep people poor.

Personal Finance 101 Posts of the Day 4/5/07

• Debt Free talks about how to save money every day.
• Interest.org has a great article about credit card tricks and tactics that you should know.
• An old post from Matt Hutter talks about how to save money on credit cards.
• The Frugal Law Student tells us 5 things you should never buy new. #2 is my downfall. I buy 90% of my books used but I never borrow them from the library.
• Frugal Zeitgeist talks about why cheaper isn’t always better.
• My Financial Journey talks about finding the balance between living and saving. I highly recommend every frugal person read this! It’s important information.
• Advanced Personal Finance talks about what financial records you need to keep and which you can toss.
• Frugal for Life talks about the benefits of frugal living.

Personal Finance 101 Posts of the Day 3/30/07

• Mint posted on ways to reduce your expenses.
• Free Money Finance talks about why shopping with a list is important.

Personal Finance 101 Posts of the Day 3/27/07

• Debt Consolidation News has a good post about 50 common sense spending tips. I agree with most of them. Except # 20. I've taken long distance bus trips and no thanks, never again. I'll pay $250 for the flight to save 14 hours of my time. It's worth it not only for the comfort but also for the time savings.
• Save Money gives 4 Ways to Keep Your Credit Score High.
• The Simple Dollar talks about how to Follow Your Dreams. I love this post. Not enough people focus on goal setting. My Goal Setting class is the least popular of the Personal Finance Classes I teach but I really think it's the most important. You need direction if you're going to succeed and the key to that is to make your goals/dreams measurable and give yourself a timeline.
• The Consumerist tells us about 8 Free Personal Finance Management Programs (and a few paid ones)
• Anxiety Ended talks about how to save money and reduce anxiety.
• No Credit Needed talks about how to keep grocery costs under control.
• Personal Finance Advice talks about how to eat out without spending a lot of money.
• Kirby on Finance wonders if your ego is your own worst enemy.
• Financial Hack tells us 10 ways to simplify your finances.
• Free Money Finance doesn’t seem surprised that financial planners give bad advice.