If you live in a frugal lifestyle, you will have fun reading about the never-ending buying and consuming of material possessions in the modern middle class. Being middle class is not quite enough now that everyone wants their own bourgeois bunker in “mass affluent” competition. “Yet the list is out there, and it rings true. It is also indicative of how we have turned our homes into post-Cold War nuclear bunkers. Heated with an underfloor system, naturally. The MA class doesn’t need to go out any more; whether due to economics, the internet, fear or, frankly, cooking standards, it more and more chooses to stay at home, drinking fine wine, looking at art and listening to professional-level music on a Sonos system. Who needs to indulge in office banter when you have your own private office? Who needs to engage with a local nursery when your child has its own playroom? The rise in home cinemas and restaurant-style range ovens is part of the same mindset.” (independent.co.uk)
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9 Costly Mistakes Taxpayers Make
The IRS held $1 billion in unclaimed refunds for those who didn’t file tax returns in 2011 alone. Mistakes can delay your refund, increase tax bill or give back smaller refund. Kiplinger describes 9 costly mistakes taxpayers make so you can smartly avoid. they include having too much tax withheld, missing deadline to file, making common math errors, using the wrong filling status, entering the wrong bank account for direct deposit, and failing to report all incomes. (kiplinger.com)
10 Guaranteed Ways to Retire Rich
The median savings accumulated by workers ages 30 through 40 is $30,000. That is still a far cry from a comfortable retirement. But with self determination and financial planning, there are 10 guaranteed ways to retire rich. They include spending less than you earn, saving early as possible, minimize your tax and maximize your income potential. (moneytalksnews.com)
10 Ways to Graduate Without Crippling Debt
According to Diana Clement, having a manageable student loan is the first step to future happiness. She advises students 10 good ways to leave university with below average debt. First, borrow wisely and spend less. Beware of the banks and be picky with credit cards. Get a job and earn more than the minimum wage. Most importantly, make a budget. “A lot of your financial success comes back to what’s percolating around your head. People who think positively — see the cup as half full — get ahead in their career and financial life.”
New App Splits Up Dinner Bill Based on Race and Gender Income Inequalities
Going out to eat with friends who have higher income than you or have a bigger appetite that order steak with extra glasses of wine, how do you split the bill? Should everyone just split it evenly? If you’re being cost conscious, Equipay might has an solution as the new app helps you split up the dinner bill with some adjustments for race and gender income inequalities. For instance, when using the app, women would only pay 78 cents for every $1 men pay of the bill. Other apps that help to split the bill include Foodivide, Splitwise and Venmo. Pleasing others is what leads to subsidizing your friends’ drinks and dessert which then leads to resentment, so don’t be afraid to stick up for yourself after ordering the cheapest item on the menu. (kshb.com)
World’s Most Expensive Parking Garage at $110,000 Per Spot With a Long Waiting List
The parking lot at the Vault, belonging to Bighorn Golf Club east of Los Angeles, may be the world’s most expensive place to park. Members of the club have to pay $110,000 annually for the privilege to park their vehicles there. Don’t tell this to Mr. Money Mustache or he’ll get angry at the stupidity and destruction of these rich folks. “Paying for parking is a sign from God that you’re in an area not designed for a car,” Mr. Money Mustache said. Beside the extremely high price of $110,000 to park, the cost to play golf at the club is even higher. An individual club membership, without golf privileges, costs $100,000 USD. Throw in golf, and the cost climbs to $250,000 USD. Indeed, this is a bizarre concept where you pay hundred of thousands of dollars in advance, for the privilege of paying even more hundreds of thousands of additional dollars to play golf. It’s just insane! (stuff.co.nz)
How to Save an Extra Thousand a Year by Just Using Your Credit Cards
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, a typical American family spends annually $3,971 on groceries, $2,468 on gas, and $2,787 on food away from home. Using credit cards that give back 3% cash back on gas, 6% cash back on groceries and 2% on everything else, you can easily save an extra $1,094.86 a year. Personally, I also use PenFed Visa to get 5% cash back on gas and Citi Double Cash to get 2% cashback on everything else. As Jason Steele said: “If you’re already spending this money on everyday purchases, there’s no reason not to save an extra thousand dollars a year.” (wisebread.com)
Free Advice is Sometimes Not Worth the Price
Julie Shea on The Spectator warns consumers to beware of free advice from banks and Wall Street as they are there to purely make profit. “When we are in these warm, welcoming banks we forget the mammoth towers on Bay Street housing these corporations that make hundreds of millions in profits and pay their CEOs tens of millions of dollars. Profit is their bottom line. When advisers are compensated to sell and not paid a fee to provide advice, people can sometimes be sold things that don’t necessarily fit into their overall plan or that they don’t even understand… The moral of this story is that the compensation structure of our financial services industry, which pays advisers to sell and not to give advice, creates an unavoidable bias. Consumers need to take time to educate themselves and get second opinions so they can determine whether the free advice that they are receiving is worth the price they are paying.” (thespec.com)
The $100,000 Job: Garbage Workers
As mentioned before, best paid jobs with no experience needed are out there. Here’s another one: Garbage workers making $100,000 annually. Both Noel Molina and Tony Sanka were high-school dropouts. Molina made $112,000 last year as a garbage truck driver and Sankar made $100,000 as a helper, riding on the back of the truck. By starting at an entry level and working hard at the graveyard shift, they outearn many people with a college degree. In fact, the waste industry offers long-term job security for working class folks with health care coverage and a 401(k) retirement account. (cnn.com)
Americans Are Moving to Europe for Free College Degrees
As outstanding student loan debt in the United States rose to $1.3 trillion and the class of 2015 was the most indebted ever with the average of over $35,000 for 70% of graduates, free college degrees in Europe become an option for many families. Katie Lobosco writes on CNN Money: “There are at least 44 schools across Europe where Americans can earn their bachelor’s degree for free, according to Jennifer Viemont, the founder of an advising service called Beyond The States. All public colleges in Germany, Iceland, Norway and Finland are free for residents and international students. And some private schools in the European Union don’t charge for tuition either. Many are going out of their way to attract foreigners by offering programs taught entirely in English. When they do charge for tuition, the bill is paltry compared to the U.S. The average cost of tuition in U.S. is currently $9,410 at public colleges and $32,405 at private colleges, while a majority of programs in Europe charge less than $2,225 a year.” (cnn.com)
Best Cars for 2016
Consumer Reports just released their ranking for Best Cars of 2016 with extensive data to back it up. The ranking is based on performance, reliability, owner satisfaction and safety.
- Best Subcompact Car: Honda Fit
- Best Compact Car: Subaru Impreza
- Best Midsized Car: Toyota Camry
- Best Small SUV: Subaru Forester
- Best Luxury SUV: Lexus RX
- Best Large Car: Chevrolet Impala
- Best Pickup Truck: Ford F-150
- Best Minivan: Toyota Sienna
(consumerreports.org)
Peter Adeney, the Man behind Mr. Money Mustache, Earns $400,000 a Year on His Blog
The New Yorker has a long article detailing the life story of Peter Adeney, the Man behind Mr. Money Mustache, who retired in 2005 at age thirty. He is, by his own reckoning, a wealthy man, without want, but he and his wife Simi, who have one child, spend an average of just twenty-four thousand dollars a year.
Adeney presents thrift as liberation rather than as deprivation. Living a certain way is his life’s work. His goals, he says, are as follow:
- To make you rich so you can retire early
- To make you happy so you can properly enjoy your early retirement
- To save the whole Human Race from destroying itself through overconsumption of its habitat.
The blog Mr. Money Mustache, which he started five years ago, is currently one of the top blogs on the list of Top Personal Finance Blogs. His blog is now earning around $400,000 a year and he plans to donate the money away some day.
[Read more…]
Digital Senior: Independent Living & Earning In Retirement
Glenn Carter writes: “This series of posts teaches seniors and retirees how to leverage the digital tools available to them to live more economically and independently. The key focus of this article is income supplementation and independent living through the sharing economy… So what is the sharing economy exactly? The sharing economy is about how we capitalize on abundance. Specifically, the sharing economy is composed of hundreds of online platforms that enable people to turn otherwise unproductive assets into income producers. This include homes, cars, hobbies, pets, spare space, parking spots, clothes, consumer items, and much more.” So join in the sharing economy and earn some income during retirement. (thecasualcapitalist.com)
Two Common Biases that Lead to Erroneous Investment Decisions
Forbes Contributor Mike Patton explains that the reasons behind do-it-yourself investors routinely sabotage their investment success are due to two common biases. “Two of the most powerful emotions we experience are fear and greed. When an individual invests in the stock market and stock prices decline, at some point the pain becomes too much to bear and fear begins to dominate. This investor may believe that things will only get worse and that the near term will resemble what has happened most recently. In short, they become convinced that stocks will continue to decline and decide to sell everything, thus escaping further pain. This is called the ‘recency bias’ and is quite common… The second bias is the ‘bandwagon effect.’ Many investors have a subconscious, but strong tendency to follow the crowd. If everyone is doing it, it must be right.” Hopefully Investors who manage their own portfolio can learn these two common biases and avoid making the costly mistake. (forbes.com)
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