Even with the stomach-churning twists and turns of 2008 and 2009, most people who continued contributing have recovered their original portfolio value. However, the stock market drop has made it obvious that as a vehicle for retirement, certain safeguards need to be put in place. For one, it’s important to understand your 401K investment strategy based on your age. Two, a 401K should not be the only way to invest your funds for retirement. Finally, 401Ks need to be managed by someone who understands the market, as the risks increase with a laissez-faire attitude. (more…)

We all know that supermarkets are out to get us - but we all fall into the same old traps of buying “bargains” from the end caps and putting stuff we don’t need into our shopping cart over and over again. But here are a few more tricks retailers use - if you are aware of them, then there’s a better chance that you can avoid their traps.

• If you don’t buy it now, you won’t be able to buy it - some retailers (especially of clothing and other non-perishables, for example) deliberately keep you guessing about which items will still be there on the shelves the next time you come back to the store. They want you to feel pressure - if you don’t buy it now, maybe you’ll never see it again.
• You really need ten jars of this - the buying in bulk trap is a tricky one, because sometimes buying a bulk offer is a really smart thing to do. You should ask yourself if you really need a large quantity of the product - will you use it within a reasonable time frame, and will you remember it’s in the cupboard. You should also check if it is actually a good deal - sometimes it won’t be.
• You must have this appliance - advertising or demonstrations that show you how useful a product is are forgetting one important thing: until that moment, you have survived perfectly well without this product. Remember that fact and you’ll come home with fewer new-fangled devices that you don’t end up using.

Is each slot of your wallet filled with a credit card of some sort? Do you find yourself experiencing a euphoric feeling or “high” when you swipe your credit card at any type of store?  Is this feeling of euphoria followed by a low feeling shortly afterwards?  Do you find yourself making excuses for why you must have an item?  Are you the first one to the mailbox each day in hopes of getting the credit card bill before anyone else does?  If you answered yes to any of these questions or to all of these questions you may have an addiction. (more…)

Graduating from college is supposed to be one of the most hopeful times in a person’s life. Upon receiving a degree, the world is supposed to become your oyster and the job market is supposed to be a vast field from which you can choose the job that you like the most. For the roughly 1.5 million people graduating in 2009, however, the prospect is a bit different. While the dream scenario has been true for many graduating classes, 2009 college graduates find themselves entering the job market at the time when there is the least money available for hiring new workers. (more…)

An interesting thing happened to me last week. As a (very) belated Christmas gift, my father gave me a $100 coupon for the local department store. But he gave it to me on one proviso: that I buy something I wanted, rather than something I needed. In other words, clothes for work or kitchen equipment were out. Fun was the order of the day.

I headed out shopping, coupon in hand, and after about an hour, I hadn’t found anything that I really wanted. I only wanted to buy something worthwhile, not something frivolous that would soon sit around taking up space. When I read Philip Brewer’s Needs, Wants and Not Even Wants post I could recognize that I’ve got beyond that place where I wanted to buy something just because someone else has one, or because it satisfied some short-term want. I’ve become frugal!

I guess that’s a good thing, as I’ve got a mortgage to pay off and a retirement fund to contribute to. I’ve lost the ability to go and spend money frivolously, and that means I’m still carrying around that $100 coupon. I might even end up spending it on something I need instead - just don’t tell my father.

If you’ve been unfortunate enough to lose a professional job in the last few months, you might be amongst quite a large proportion of these people who think this interruption to their career might create a good opportunity to go back to school full time and get an MBA qualification. Apparently applications for MBA programs have had huge increases over the last few months.

All that means that if you’re applying for an MBA, you have to make sure your application is going to stand out a bit more than all the other people who are in the same situation as you. According to Annie Fisher at Fortune Magazine, your application (and interview, if you’re invited) needs to focus on the following:

• Your ethical values - give an example of your own ethical behavior in business, even if you were working for a business that might not have been entirely ethical
• Your extra-curricular activities - interests like coaching, volunteer work or adventure travel show you have positive attributes
• Your future focus - outline your career plan rather than dwelling on a job loss

She also mentions that, when there are more candidates than usual, it’s very important to follow instructions carefully and submit applications before the deadline - don’t give schools an excuse to discard your application from their large piles.

Discussing financial matters with your husband or wife can be a tense situation, especially if your financial situation isn’t too good. If your partner has a different approach to financial matters from you, or even if they’re similar but have different priorities for money you save, then there is bound to be some conflict. Trent at the Simple Dollar has some talk tactics that should help your discussion work out better, including:

• Start off by talking about your financial goals and ideas for the future
• Focus on one issue per conversation (reducing spending, or retirement planning)
• Don’t make any accusations without admitting to some of your own faults at the same time
• Be realistic with expectations, and how much change you can expect - both from yourself and from your partner
• Decide on precise tasks for each of you to do before the next conversation (for example, researching retirement plan options)
• Consider what financial or material sacrifices you are willing to make (before you start talking)
• Don’t hide any spending secrets or unpaid bills from your partner - put all the financial story on the table
• If you have trouble talking about it calmly together, consider having the conversation in another way, such as by email

Sure, you have to watch your budget a lot more carefully these days, but plenty of people think they still deserve to live a little. Yahoo came up with some useful tips on how to save money on your splurges so you can have some fun without completely blowing the budget:

• Internet service: Rather than canceling your internet service to save money, shop around to see what the prices are at the competitor - then see if you can negotiate a better deal with your current provider.
• Cell phone service: Make sure you are not paying for a larger plan than you actually need. If you’re not consistently using all the talk time or messaging services that your plan includes, then downgrade to a cheaper monthly rate.
• Cable service: Try to bundle your cable subscription with another service like your cell phone - these days you’ll often get a better deal if you use the same provider for more than one service.
• Dining out: Always high on the hit list when we think about cutting back on spending, just find ways to make it cheaper and you can still go out sometimes - for example, buying an Entertainment Book for your city, or using sites like DinnerBroker.com where you can get 30% off your meal just for making a reservation ahead of time.

You can imagine the scenario: one partner is a big spender and the other a big spendthrift, and it’s a marriage doomed to arguments and conflict forever. Or is it? Some recent tips from Laura Rowley do at least provide some hope for couples who have major financial differences of opinion.

One suggestion is to seek the aid of a financial coach who can work with both partners to reach a compromise on your financial strategies. Since a lot of your financial approach to life can be a result of your childhood and family circumstances, it’s sometimes difficult to understand where your partner’s seemingly crazy ideas are coming from - a coach will help you both explain your thinking and work together to have a compatible outlook for future saving and spending.

Another helpful way to get partners on the same financial track is to use an effective tool to manage your money - for example, finding a good piece of budgeting and money tracking software that you can both use. Some of these tools, like Mvelopes.com, include a section for discretionary spending for each individual - for example, a clothing or computer game budget per month - which means that you can each buy something you like for yourself without feeling guilty, because it’s part of the agreed budget.

If you’re interested in saving money or getting out of debt, then you’ve probably heard this advice a hundred times: “Skip your daily Starbucks coffee and you’ll save a heap of money per year”. It’s sound advice, but a recent discussion at The Simple Dollar questions whether we should be focusing on small steps like these or big steps like - as in their example - selling the jet ski we only use once a year - and probably saving more money than we would by foregoing the daily coffee at Starbucks.

But the summary of the discussion is this: the best way to personal financial stability is to take a combination of small steps and big steps. If you take a lot of small steps, like brown-bagging your lunch instead of buying out, skipping that coffee, and hiring DVDs instead of going out to the cinema, then they will add up to be the equivalent of some of the big steps. If, at the same time, you also take some big financial steps, like downsizing your home or surviving with one car instead of two, then you’ll be accumulating a whole lot more savings there.

In combination, not only will you learn to live more frugally, but you’ll be feeling more secure because you are likely to get out or remain out of debt, and to be able to save towards a your retirement, too.