Archive for 'Life' Category

By Peter Andrew

Time was when it was, "In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." Nowadays, young and old, male and female seem pretty focused on the subject year-round, although Valentine's Day may well trigger many to seek out their perfect partner through an online dating site. But at what cost?

How not to get dates

When I was on the dating scene, in the days before the web, I had a tried and tested five-step process for attracting new partners:

1. Meet friends at appropriate bar/club
2. Pick from a distance the person/people I wanted to chat with
3. Drink bladder-bursting quantities of beer in order to build up Dutch courage
4. Eventually, stagger across to the object of my desire, and slur--in a haze of foul alcohol fumes--some corny chat-up line
5. Receive a withering put-down/slap/false phone number

Yes, it was tried and tested, and it almost invariably failed.

How to get dates

If I were in the market for a new lover now, I'd save a fortune in bar tabs, and do my liver an enormous favor. Because I'd almost certainly try online dating. And why not? It sure can work: the last two weddings I've attended have both been the result of Internet encounters through matchmaking websites, and one 2010 study suggested that 17 percent of new marriages over the previous year had come about this way.

But what I would save in beer, I could easily spend on dating site fees. Because online dating can be quite expensive.

Putting a price on love

It's not

By Jim Sloan

Plan a beautiful Valentine's Day this year but with a difference Read the full article »

By MoneyBlueBook

Dating is like walking on a minefield: You never know what your next step will bring. Now to make it even harder, dating experts are adding a new twist.

It used to be as easy as intuition, dinner and a movie, but now experts say that financial compatibility is an important factor in finding the right person. If turns out that if the man or woman you are dating is a financial mess, they can take you down with them.

If you survived the dating battlefield like me and are now married, you probably have some of your own war stories. But if you are still out there in dating never-never land, you may need a little help. I can give you a few tips on how to figure out if your date is a financial dud.

You just have to read the signs:

1. Overspends like crazy

If your date keeps trying to impress you with how much everything they own costs, you might think twice about your future with them. Wild spending can lead to all kinds of financial problems as witnessed by the record number of mortgage defaults and credit card delinquencies seen in the last couple of years. If your date seems overly impressed by their own spending, it may be that they are forgetting an important fact: Eventually they have to pay for it all.

2. Leases to impress

Although it is not a set rule, in most

By Barbara Marquand

In the wake of the financial meltdown, top money expert Saly Glassman says investors need to take responsibility of their finances and get their investments back on track. Glassman, ranked the nation's No. 1 woman financial advisor by Barron's, is author of "It's About More Than the Money: Investment Wisdom for Building a Better Life" (FT Press: 2010).

We recently chatted with her about today's hot personal money management issues, from coping with losses to investing independently with discount brokers.

MoneyBlueBook.com: What's your advice for investors coping with losses?

Saly Glassman: The best way to deal with a loss is to step back and make an unemotional evaluation of what happened. By looking with more objectivity at the situation, you can analyze what role you played in contributing to that loss. Were you overextended with your borrowing? Did you have unrealistic expectations with that return? Did you not save enough? Did you not do enough research on the kind of investments you were buying and the person who was advising you? Ask yourself, "What role did I play in the loss that I incurred?"

If you say, "It's everybody else's fault," where does that take you? How can you be part of the solution if you had nothing to do with the problem?

MBB: What are the biggest mistakes investors have made in the last two years?

Glassman: Common mistakes

By MoneyBlueBook

This is a guest post from Marc Pearlman.

Back in the early to mid-1990s I made my living by sitting in front of computer monitor with green and red glowing pixels that flashed stock and commodity prices. I was an off-the-floor stock and commodity trader, and in my world, green and red meant everything. Green meant I was making money, and red meant I would be drawing out of my savings to pay for monthly expenses.

Fortunately for me, I was given some sage advice from a wealthy mentor of mine who was about 25 years my senior and knew of an obstacle that I was likely to encounter. I still remember his wise words: "Kid, make sure you put money into an account you can draw from when times are lean--and expect some lean times. It's part of the game."

Even though I heeded his advice, there was one thing I didn't account for: the feeling I'd have when trekking to the bank to withdraw those savings. While I had been diligently depositing money in my high yield savings account specifically to be drawn on when needed, the mental anguish of seeing my balance decrease--sometimes month after month--was one of the biggest challenges I had to overcome as a trader.

From Retirement Saving to Retirement Spending: Getting Past the Anxiety

Fast-forward 16 years: now I manage other people's money for a living. I'm on the phone with a client in his mid-60s who recently retired. He asks me if taking $10,000 out of

By MoneyBlueBook

Although we are now living in the computer (Internet) age and everything seems to be going paperless, certain people still insist on doing things the old fashioned way. But if you want to do a better job of saving precious time and money, you might want to start taking better advantage of the more efficient online services out there, if you aren't already doing so. Services like postal delivery and mail forwarding can nowadays be effectively managed online without the necessity of having to perform an errand run to the post office.

Some of you may live within a short drive or even within walking distance of your neighborhood post office. But unfortunately in my case, my local post office is a bit of a distance away situated within the city center, and getting there frequently requires that I fight through road rage inducing traffic jams and suffer through depressingly long lines once I've arrived. While I'm sure the folks at the U.S. postal service (USPS) do the best they can under the circumstances, I pretty much avoid visiting the post office as best as I can - turning to the free USPS website to manage the bulk of my postal decisions whenever possible.

Put Your Mail On Hold For Free By Requesting USPS Hold Mail Service Online

Unless you have someone at home to receive your mail for you, those of you planning to be away for an extended period of time (3 days or more) on vacation or for a business trip may want to