October 19, 2005

Long-Term Financial Plan

Lately I've been working on creating a comprehensive long-term financial plan. As much as I think and learn about personal finance, I have yet to put all of my goals and plans down in one place. So I thought I'd do it here, and maybe we can learn something from each other.

If you have something to share -- if I may have forgotten an important goal, or step, or if there perhaps is a better way to accomplish something -- feel free to jump into the discussion with a comment below. If you don't know your long-term financial plan, do this along with me!

I'm going to break this up into steps, and share each one with you as I tackle it. I'll do step 1 today, and link up to the other ones so you'll know when they're done. Here are the steps as I see them:

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Posted by Frank at 8:07 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (1)

October 17, 2005

Inflation Calculator

With all the talk about interest rates and immense savings growth over time, it's important be conscious of the effect that inflation will have on your money.

Inflation is the (generally) slow but steady increase in the price of goods and services that is caused by an increasing supply of money. Or you could think of inflation as a steady decrease in the value of money. The bottom line: a dollar just ain't what it used to be.

Calculate the Inflation Effect

This calculator will tell you what your dollar will be worth in the future, as well as how much money it's going to take to equal today's value of that dollar. It's something to remember when you're planning how much money you might need for important future purchases and plans.

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Posted by Frank at 8:43 AM | TrackBack (0)

October 13, 2005

What is Your Net Worth?

You know that the most important measure of financial health is net worth. So how do you figure out what yours is? It's actually pretty easy.

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Posted by Frank at 8:32 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

October 11, 2005

What is Rich?

I have a problem with surveys that determine the richest people in the world, or in a country, based on their income. After all, it's not how much you make, it's how much you have. Would you rather make $50,000 and have a million dollars in the bank, or make $200,000 and be a million dollars in debt? Some people would say the person who makes $200,000 is four times as wealthy. That's what those surveys say. I say that's bull.

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Posted by Frank at 8:15 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)

October 9, 2005

Carnival of Personal Finance #17

Welcome to the 17th Carnival of Personal Finance! If you haven't read the Carnival before, it's a gathering together of personal finance-related posts submitted from across the blogosphere, and hosted on a different blog each week.

If this is your first time here, welcome to Hello, Dollar! If you'd like to know more about this blog, feel free to check out the "About" section on the left. I'm glad to have you here!

Now, on to the posts!

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Posted by Frank at 9:55 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack (5)

October 6, 2005

Close your Credit Card Accounts?

One of the reasons people get into credit card debt is that they have too much credit available, and are unable to manage it responsibly. If you're working to pay off credit cards, you can lower the risk of getting in over your head again by closing accounts once you have them paid off. After all, it's impossible to charge $20,000 if you only have one card with a $5,000 limit.

So are you paying off credit cards now? Why shouldn't you close the accounts? First, if you know you'll be unable to handle your credit limit without charging it back up again, then close them! Don't risk all the hard work you're putting in now to find yourself in the same situation again.

But if you've learned a lesson from all the stress and sacrifice of getting into and out of debt, it may be beneficial to actually keep your accounts open. Why? Turns out it's good for your credit.

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Posted by Frank at 8:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)