Good As Gold?
Thursday, January 7th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Gold is selling at record highs these days, and that means that plenty of people are trying to cash in. Many are trying to turn their old gold into cash—but in some cases, the buyers make a whole lot more than you do. This story for Bankrate.com details the different ways you can sell you gold, and how to make the most money doing it.
Check out the full story here.
Smarter Holiday Spending
Thursday, December 17th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
It’s easy to spend a lot of money during the holidays without getting much bang for your buck. It’s become a cliché to talk about all those unfortunate sweaters, ties, and useless electronic gadgets that don’t make it into the new year. So when I was asked to write about a holiday gift that actually gets *more* valuable over time, I couldn’t pass it up. With just a little bit of advance planning, you can give gifts to a 529 plan. Sure, it won’t make a kid’s face light up like that Zhu Zhu pet, but let’s face it: they’re often more delighted with the packaging it came in, anyway. So consider an inexpensive toy and pair it with a gift to a 529 plan. That’s my plan for the holidays.
Read more about smart ways to help boost funding a child’s 529 account here.
Experts Weigh In
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
I’m always talking to financial experts to ask for their advice on reducing debt, saving efficiently, and investing wisely. But very rarely do I ask them how they’re managing their own finances.
In this story for SavingForCollege.com, I asked experts about investing in 529 education accounts. But instead of asking them how people should ideally save, I asked them how they saved for their own kids. Their answers are revealing. In some pre-interviews, I discovered that some financial planners may tout them for their clients, but they haven’t gotten around to setting them up for their own children (ultimately, they weren’t included in the story). Others admitted that they maybe didn’t invest quite as much as they thought they would. But overall, it was nice to see that in general, experts put their money where their mouth was, and invested in the same way that they advised their clients.
Read the full story here.
Share Price?
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
When I’m not writing about personal finance issues, I often tackle features for college alumni magazines.
Recently, a story I wrote about the perks and perils of social media appeared in the Carleton College Voice. In part because social media is such a new phenomenon, plenty of people worry about how the information they offer up on sites like Facebook and Twitter will have an impact on them—and perhaps their children—years from now. Alumni and professors at Carleton on both sides of the argument wrestled thoughtfully with the implications, but my favorite quote came from a recent graduate, Taylor Odean, who now works at Google (and gets in a plug for his employer):
“A hundred years ago, we were still getting our information by telegraph and newsreel. Now anyone with a webcam can set up Google Voice and Video Chat and have a face-to-face conversation with anyone in the world. I think that when social networking has matured, future generations will be baffled by how we ever got by without it.”
Read the full story here.
Card Tricks
Friday, October 30th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
I’m always looking to get a little extra with my cash, so when CreditCards.com asked if I’d update a story on getting gift cards for less than face value, I was all over it. I got expert advice on buying cards in bulk, picking up added-value restaurant gift cards during the holidays, and even using sites like Bing.com’s shopping portal to get 10 percent cash back on gift card purchases. Turns out that even if you are cheap, you certainly don’t have to look that way.
Read the full story on CreditCards.com here or on Yahoo!’s personal finance site here.
Front-Page News
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
I headed to Yahoo! this morning and was both surprised—and delighted—to see that a story I’d written about credit cards was their top feature.
The fact is, we all make mistakes with our credit cards—whether it’s using them to pay for unnecessary purchases or missing a payment. But it’s not always easy to know how bad each particular blunder is. Will it just cost you a few bucks? Or could it completely decimate your credit? In the story, which I originally wrote for CreditCards.com, I asked credit experts to give each each misstep on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst. You might be surprised which credit card mistakes worry the pros the most, and which ones (almost) get a free pass.
Read the full story here.
529 Plans For 50+
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
One of the biggest myths about 529 college savings plans is that they’re only for young adults seeking a degree. The fact is that people can benefit from them, whether they’re 18 or 81—and they don’t have to be working toward a degree to benefit from a plan. My story about 529 plans for people 50 and older appears in this month’s issue of Kiplinger’s Retirement Report. It’s not available online (for now, anyway), but here are two of the top tips from the story: first, don’t buy from a broker—it’s expensive and won’t gar. Second, there’s no holding period for most 529 plans. That means you can funnel it through the plan and (probably) save on state taxes.
Why Credit Cards Are Like Investments
Monday, September 28th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
You wouldn’t choose a 401(k) investment just because you got a free T-shirt out of the deal, but for many of us, that’s all the incentive we need to pick up a new credit card. In this story for CreditCards.com, I looked at how people should think about building a credit card portfolio in the same way that they might build an investment portfolio. Having a selection of different options with your plastic may be more valuable than you think.
Read the full story here.
Mi$takes Were Made
Monday, August 17th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
When Hollywood celebrities goof up, their mistakes get captured on outtake reels and on TMZ. When financial celebs make blunders? Well, unless you’re Jim Cramer, you get to sweep ‘em under the rug. Until now.
I was delighted to tackle this story for Bankrate, where I got to interview some of my favorite financial gurus, like Dave Ramsey, Jean Chatzky, and Brian Preston, and ask them about their worst money mistakes. Turns out even the pros make the occasional 4-figure (or even 7-figure) mistake with their money.
Their smart advice always helps me make better decisions with my money—but now that I know that they’ve done some dumb stuff with their cash, I won’t feel as bad when I make a mistake. Read the story here.
Put It In Writing
Friday, August 7th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
About once a month, a writer or editor asks me about transcription. Should they do it? Is it worth it? Is there someone I’d recommend? The short answer is yes, yes, and yes.
Back when I worked in a college publications office, I taped tons of interviews—and had them all transcribed by student workers. It was one of the many great perks of my job that I wasn’t sufficiently grateful for until I didn’t have it anymore. When I left to freelance full-time, I tackled transcriptions myself, and discovered the work was pretty brutal.
It took me three years to realize that getting interviews transcribed might be smarter than trying to save a few bucks by doing it myself. Thanks to some recommendations from colleagues, I discovered CLK Transcription, which is quick, reasonably priced, and accurate. There is no question that it’s changed my working life for the better. It’s easy, it saves me hours of headaches, and it lets me focus on the most important parts of my job. It’s also helped me boost my bottom line, because I’m not spending hours procrastinating instead of transcribing. I just download the interview, send it off, and then look for a finished transcript a couple days later in my inbox. Delightful.