Financial Schools Reviews

What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question. 1. Car leasing question 2. Separate savings accounts 3. Handling reduced income 4. Relationships and honesty 5. Why savings accounts? 6. Planning for debt freedom 7. Upgrading credit card 8. Trusting product reviews 9. Funding retirement 10. Figuring out priorities

Opening up the window and feeling a cool breeze when your office is stuffy.

Hearing a child laugh because of the sheer joy of life.

Eating a handful of strawberries straight out of the garden.

These little things have filled my day. The

Full Article…

– Pending home sales showed a substantial increase in the month of May, according to a report released by the National Association of Realtors on Wednesday, with the data pointing to higher housing activity in the second half of the year.

NAR said its pending home sales index rose by 8.2 percent in May following a revised 11.3 percent drop in April. The rebound by the index reflects the strongest monthly increase since last November, when the index jumped by 10.6 percent.

A pending sale is one in which a contract was signed but not yet closed.

Full Article…

Investment bank UBS has downgraded the Australian banking sector on the back of subdued growth resulting from the clichéd “two speed” economy, the second of which has slowed down.

Jonathan Mott, noted Australian banking analyst for the Swiss investment bank in his outlook for the big four lenders downgraded his earnings forecast across the entire segment based on expectations that growth of the non resource sector based Australian economy is likely to remain patchy.

“A slower, two speed, de-leveraging economy is not ideal for banks,” he surmised, in another sign of how the non-mining economy is faring.

Mr. Mott say

Full Article…

A few weeks ago, I put out a call on Twitter and on Facebook for detailed posts that people would like to see. I got enough great responses that I’m going to fill the entire month of July – one post per day – addressing these ideas.

On Facebook, Sherri requested a post on the topic of “how to have a food garden for cheap.” I’ll do my best, Sherri!

My background in gardening is pretty expansive. Growing up, my family always had a large vegetable garden, often multiple ones. Planting, watering, weeding, and harvesting from this garden were consistent parts of the spring, summer, and fall during my childhood.

Today, we have our own vegetable and herb garden behind our house. Here’s a pe

Full Article…

All investors should have a system they use to approach investing. The ultimate goal of this system is to help the investor effectively make consistent investing decisions without being tossed to and fro by market conditions.

People who suffer the greatest investing losses are those who are constantly getting in and out of ‘hot’ stocks and those who buy and sell according to the dips and spikes of the market. Not only is this approach less-than-profitable, it is also stressful and time consuming.

An alternative option is to accept a systematic approach to investing. One

Full Article…