photo credit: daryl_mitchell

A troubled economy has affected life in many ways, and has now begun to influence neighborhood real estate. Empty strip malls, fueled by a need to collect rent, are now filling their spaces with nontraditional tenants, like libraries and churches. (more…)

photo credit: 416style

It seems like a huge, unattainable goal, but a joint study between Merrill Lynch & Co. and the Capgemini Group reports that the world now houses more than 10 million millionaires. Indeed, their total net worth, not including real estate holdings, amounts to an astounding $41 trillion, an increase of 9 percent from the previous year. (more…)

Originally used as a term to describe wealthy individuals who funded theater productions in great Britain, angel investors have become the go-to people when your start-up needs seed money, but not enough warrant a full fledged venture capitalist firm. Acquiring an angel investors can involve everything from full on formal proposals to an individual visiting your dorm room and writing a check. What follows are some of those individuals.

Ron Conway – Arguably the most famous angel investor of them all, Ron Conway is a founding general partner in the investment fund, “Angel Investors LP.” Ron’s fame (infamy?) in the angel investment world has earned him the unofficial title of, “Godfather of Silicon Valley”. Ron was one of the first investors in Ask Jeeves, Google, and Paypal. Currently he also works as an advisor for Facebook.

Andy Bechtolsheim – Co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Andy made one of the most famous angel investments when he gave $100,000 to two boys in their dorm room after they showed him their search engine software. The boys’ names were Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Their software was Google. Andy also founded Granite Systems and Kealia, which which were later bought by Cisco, and Sun respectively. Currently, he is the chief architect at Sun.

Chris Sacca – One of the more recent employees of Google to move into angel investing, Chris Sacca began in 2006 with his investment in Photobucket. Up until recently, Chris was Head of Speical Initiatives at Google Inc., where he headed Google’s efforts to install a WiFi network in San Francisco. He also headed a similar project in Mountain View.

Loic Le Meur – A well known French blogger and entrepreneur, Loic Le Meur had his start when he founded his first company, an interactive agency, B2L. At the same time, Loic also founded RapidSite France, which grew to be the number one web-hosting company for small business’s in France. Loic would go on to sell both B2L and Rapidsite. Since then, Loic has founded and sold Tekora, an application service provider, as well purchased Ublog, which he merged with Six Apart where he was named Executive Vice President. Loic has served as an angel investor in a number of tech startups and currently serves on the RSS advisory board who are in charge of creating the RSS 2.0 specification.

Aydin Senkut – Founder and President of of Felicis Ventures, Aydin was originally a Senior Manager at Google in charge of strategic partner development and account management in Asia Pacific. Since moving into angel investing Aydin’s investments have rivaled even Ron Conway’s. Companies in his portfolio have included RapLeaf and webs.com. He also funds Lead2, a conservative organization focused on public policies regarding entrepreneurship and technological innovation.

Marc Andreessen – Marc will forever be cemented in the internet’s history as one of the two creators of the very first popular web browser Mosaic, which Marc programmed while he was a student at the University of Illinois. When Mosaic was brought into the commercial world it was given a new name, Netscape. When AOL bought Netscape for $4.2 billion, Marc became AOL’s CTO. Since then he has served as founder and chair of Loudcloud (later known as Opsware before being purchased by Hewlett-Packard), and is now co-founder of Ning. Marc has invested in such companies as Digg, Plazes, and Twitter.

Peter Thiel – Co-founder and former CEO of PayPal, Peter is now President of Clarium Capital Management LLC and a managing partner of The Founders Fund. Earning a degree in 20^th Century Philosophy, as well as a Juris Doctorate from Stanford, Peter practiced law for a short period before forming Thiel Capital Management. Co-Founding PayPal, he would take it public and sell it to eBay for $1.5 billion. His personal stake has been valued at roughly $55 million. After the sale he reformed Thiel Capital Management under the new name Carium Capital Management. Peter has made investments in companies such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Friendster.

Josh Kopelman – Founder of Half.com, an online store that connected sellers of used books, music, and movies to prospective buyers, Josh successfully sold Half.com in 2000 to Ebay for $350 million. In 2001, Josh and his wife created the Kopelman Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on angel investing. Currently, Josh is Managing Director of First Round Capital. He has invested in a number of tech companies including StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, and Wikia.

Dr. Ian Sobieski – Managing director and founder of the “Band of Angels Fund L.P.”, Dr. Sobieski oversees a fund amounting to roughly $50 million. His Ph.D. is in Aeronautics from Stanford University. Beyond that he also has an MS in Aeronautics, a BS in Aerospace Engineering, and a BA in Philosophy. Before managing the “Band of Angels Fund”, Dr. Sobieski was a director and executive at Evite.com. He is also a founding member of the Angel Capital Association and a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the Young Venture Capitalists Association.

Joe Kraus – Founder of Excite, JotSpot, and DigitalConsumer.org, Joe had his start when he joined with five engineering friends to found Excite. After leaving Excite a year before it went bankrupt, Josh would co-found Digitalconsumer.org a non-profit group dedicated to fair-use rights in digital media. Josh would also serve as co-founder and CEO of Jotspot, which was bought by Google, where Josh now serves as director of product management. He has also been involved as an angel investor in a number of tech startups including LinkedIn.

Gil Penchina – A graduate of the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University, Gil gained most of his fame as Vice President and General Manager at eBay. He made news when he left eBay in 2006 to become the CEO of Wikia, Wikipedia’s for profit sister company. Although currently “on hiatus” from angel investing, Gil has invested in such companies as Paypal, Evite, Properazzi, and Qype.

Despite their varying background and training, angel investors to all be ambitious trailblazers with their eyes on the future and the funds to push towards it.

photo credit: mhofstrand

If you’re getting into trouble with your home mortgage repayments, you might be interested to know what kind of compromises lenders are prepared to make to find a way to keep your loan viable and avoid selling your house. Apparently, foreclosing on a loan can cost the lending authority around $50,000, so there’s often a real incentive for them to find a way to get the borrower paying back the loan on a regular basis. Plus, with house prices falling in some areas, the lender will be trying even harder to work out a loan rather than foreclose, because they may not fully recoup their money if they sell the property. (more…)

photo credit: Darren Hester

Though it may not be a dinner conversation topic, many Americans need to start preparing for retirement, specifically for the costs of long-term care. Current estimates state that $225,000 is necessary for basic health care, and a new study states that $85,000 will be necessary for long-term healthcare issues, such as home health aides and nursing home stays. (more…)

photo credit: DeclanTM

If you’re one of the 4 million Social Security or Supplemental Security Income recipients in the United States without a bank account, you have a new option in place for receiving your monthly payments. Instead of receiving a monthly check, the government is now prepared to disburse Social Security payments on prepaid debit cards. (more…)

photo credit: CarbonNYC

It’s easy to take your home and its contents for granted - it’s there when you wake up and there when you get home at night. And the home insurance is just another bill that you pay every year with thinking too much about it. But that can sure lead to problems, which is why checking these tips could save you a whole lot of hassle: (more…)

photo credit: Darren Hester

With food, gas, and other prices on the rise, families across the country, and the world, have taken creative steps to lighten their financial load. It can be a challenge, at times, to reduce the budget while keeping the fun factor high, but many families have made the switch, and their experiences can help us all to be a bit more frugal. (more…)

credit: ninjapoodles

If you’re a little bit organized, a good planner and flexible, you can easily save $100 a week on your grocery shopping for a family of four. Laura Rowley’s tips focus on using (and organizing) coupons, following some key websites and doing a reasonable amount of planning ahead. Some of her most interesting tips include: (more…)

credit: heipei

Does the idea of afternoon picnics, barefoot walks through the park, museum visits, lazy mornings spent in bed, and refreshing swimming fit the bill for your next family vacation? But does the thought of how much it’ll cost make you want to run and hide? If so, reconsider your vacation plans, and take a “staycation,” a vacation where you stay at home. (more…)