Last week I wrote about how amateur stock picks and even random stock picks have outperformed expert stock picks since January 2012. It is one of the reasons I don't trust the stock market. I realize this is not a popular opinion. Talk to any financial advisor or even your parents or grand parents, and they will tell you that I'm an idiot and the stock market is not only perfectly safe, but it's the key to being wealthy. Of if you don't want to talk to them, you can talk to Robert. Robert is a reader of my blog and he laid out his argument for investing in the stock market in the comm

The following is a post on behalf of Sean Home renovation can cost a fortune and often home owners are unprepared for what they actually need to spend to achieve the anticipated result. Many first time owners budget for improvements that they will carry out themselves, but often this works out to be more expensive than getting a contractor in. The steep price of remodelling makes it very tempting for owners to choose DIY over the professionals, but in the long run this can be more costly. Before you embark on renovations read this advice, as it may save you thousands and give you a bigger R

I used to love the stock market. I loved to research companies and pick new stocks to invest in. I created an entire ETF portfolio for my fiancee's Roth IRA. I even did some very risky options trading. I don't do any of that now. My fiancee and I both cashed out our Roth IRAs for the purchase of our first house. I sold every single stock I owned outside of my 401k for the down payment. Now when you exclude my 401k, I have exactly $0 invested in the stock market. Your typical financial planner would probably say I'm crazy to have so much of my wealth tied up in my home, Lending Club, prec

Chances are good that if you are considering a venture into currency trading on the foreign exchange (FOREX) you will encounter Metatrader 4 trading software. This is the most dominant software, or trading platform, in the world. It is so prevalent; even though Metatrader 5 was released to rave reviews some time ago, many traders have zero interest in changing over. Most forex brokers continue to offer the previous version rather than risk alienating current or potential clients. The platform has powers, features and capabilities that few, if any, traders can claim complete mastery of M

My father won't survive the weekend. My dad has been sick for over a year, but in the last few months he has gotten really bad. He has a tumor in his throat that is so big he can't even swallow a sip of water. I flew to see him on Tuesday and my sister is coming in town in just a few hours. After he sees my sister, we are taking him off everything but the pain medication. He's in so much pain it's just better for him to go. I'm almost 28 years old and this is the first time someone close to me has died. I don't really know how to handle it (I don't think anyone does), but I'm doing

President Barack Obama is about to unveil his budget proposal, and parts of his proposal have already made their way into the news. One of the aspects of his new budget is that he wants to prohibit anyone from saving more than $3,000,000 in an IRA. The White House issued a statement regarding this new proposal: Under current rules, some wealthy individuals are able to accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving. How dare anyone try to save more than a "reasonable" amount of money for retirement!? T

If you are sitting there right now thinking, "I wish I had a job" or even "I wish I had a job that pays $75,000+ a year" then listen up. What if I told you that a corporate recruiter from a $10 billion dollar publicly traded company contacted me about a job simply because I had expressed interest in learning a particular skill? Check out this email: Last year I was looking for a promotion at work and I wanted to get into the mobile development space because I knew it was booming. Unfortunately I didn't have any experience there. I joined Meetup groups in my area to try to learn more abou

A few weeks ago I wrote about how terrible it was preparing my car to be turned in at the end of a lease, and how I hated having to wait and find out if they are going to charge me for damages that were above and beyond "normal wear and tear". I was told that I would hear from them in 7-10 days if they were going to charge me for any damage. It has now been over three weeks since I handed over the keys and I haven't heard a word from Toyota. I logged onto my Toyota Financial Services account and it says, "This account has been closed..." Looks like the end of the lease wasn't so bad a

If you own a home and would like to do some renovations, it can be challenging to come up with thousands of dollars at a time to do some of the bigger renovations such as remodeling a bathroom, changing the layout of the kitchen, or building a new deck. Home improvements can increase the value of your home, and in some cases also save you money on energy costs. If you don't want to wait on your home improvements, here are a few ways to pay for them. Get an Unsecured Loan from a Bank If you have good credit, you may qualify for an unsecured loan with a low interest rate. Banks are willing

If I could pick one day a year to repeat over and over again it wouldn't be Christmas. It wouldn't be my birthday either. Nope, the best (or at least most profitable) day of the year for me is 401k match day. My company gives a 100% 401k match for up to 6% of your contributions, and then gives an extra 2%. The only thing is I don't get the match every paycheck. The company contribution builds up over an entire year and is deposited in my account in one lump sum at the end of March. That day was yesterday for me, which means my net worth got a huge boost! 401k Employer Contributions are