Deciding Whether Stocks or Bonds are Right for You There are a vast number of investment opportunities available to potential investors, but not all of them are right for all purposes The most common types of investments are stocks and bonds Stocks are shares of individual companies, while bonds are government-issued investment funds Both can be great for starting in the investing market, but you should know a little about the difference between the two before making your investment Stocks Stocks can help balance out a bond-heavy ...

A Dollar Saved Is Two Dollars Earned A Dollar Saved Is Two Dollars Earned By William Cate Two hundred and twenty-five years ago, Ben Franklin advised that "A Penny Saved Was a Penny Earned" He didn't foresee State and Federal income taxes He didn't foresee State sales taxes He expected the Government to comply with the Constitutional requirement that all US Currency be gold or silver A Constitutional requirement because the Founding Fathers had seen the economic results of issuing the "Continental Dollar," during the Revolutionary War This ...

What Will You Take For A Dollar? The other day I sat in a meeting listening to a young man extol the virtues of owning real estate Much of what he said was true However two things made me sit up and take notice I couldn't help but commentFirst, he said the interest on your home loan was tax deductible, so the government underwrites your house payment I asked the amount the government pays him He said they didn’t pay ...

Selling a Structured Settlement With the countless web sites, advertisements, legal jargon and complex issues surrounding structured settlements, it is easy to become overwhelmed and frustrated when you are simply searching for answers and straightforward information Whether youÂ’ve received a structured settlement already, or if you are just trying to better understand them, youÂ’ve come to the right place for sifting through the messy details What is a structured settlement? A structured settlement is a series of guaranteed payments (annuities) made over ...

Protecting Your Assets Have you ever wondered what would happen to your assets if you were sued, in a car accident and it was your fault or if you became disabled or even died? Most people consider this question but do very little about taking the necessary steps to protect their assets The first thing to do is to have a plan in place before anything bad happens to you Even if you are one of the luck ones and ...

Could Your Income Survive A Hurricane? As you know, Hurricane Katrina has caused destruction and devastation across several states Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and are unable to work since the storm Businesses have been closed for weeks The economical impact is unimaginable No one knows what the effects will be — weeks, months, even years from now How would weeks, or months, of lost income affect your family? This event is another solid reminder of how important ...

The New Bankruptcy Law With the new bankruptcy law in effect as of October 17, 2005, there is a lot of confusion with regard to the new "means test" requirement The means test will be used by the courts to determine eligibility for Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy The purpose of this article is to explain in plain language how the means test works, so that consumers can get a better idea of how they will be affected under ...

Savings Bonds Savings bonds are a great way to save money for your future Either purchased yourself, or given as a gift, savings bonds ensure you that you will have at least some amount of savings later on Although you may already know a little about savings bonds, either owning them yourself or having given one as a gift, you may not know that there are different types Each type has its own set of rules and also different ways that ...

Free Money for Your Retirement? It can be more than a little discouraging to start making retirement planning calculations You’ll usually find that to achieve the annual retirement income you want, you need to be saving a lot more than is practical Suppose, for example, that you use a program like Quicken or Microsoft Money to determine that your retirement savings should equal to $5,200 a year—which is the same as $450 a month (This savings amount will produce roughly $15,000 ...