I have been worried about the economy for some time.  It seems like everyday there is more news of lay offs and everytime I look at my 401k I worry about how the rest of America is doing.  I consider myself lucky since I have a in-demand skill set and make enough money to be [...]

No. Not long ago I wrote my thoughts on real esate and where I thought we were headed.  I articulated my concerns and researched data to support my arguments.  However, I have come across a lot of individuals and propaganda that tell me “Oh no, Kate, now is the best time to buy.”  Since I [...]

Part of the reason I chose to open my IRA at ShareBuilder was that there has been a stock I have been wanting to purchase but didn’t want to shell out the whole purchase price. Hence part of the appeal of ShareBuilder was that you could buy dollar amounts of many stocks including Berkshire Hathaway. [...]

If your employer offers a 401k, then by all means you should make sure you are contributing (this is particularly good if they match your contributions, since that is basically free money you are missing out on if you don’t participate).  If you don’t have a 401k though, you should definitely have an IRA (and [...]

Most of us have 401ks, but a lot of people don’t really know what the best way to allocate your money. Most 401k programs require you to invest in set of pre specified mutual funds. Often times one or more of these funds will be invested in growth or value stocks (and a lot of [...]

Looking into my crystal ball (since I am currently trying out making some extra money as a fortune teller) I predict that housing prices are going to keep going down. How did I come to this conclusion? Let me lay out my thoughts: Housing prices are down. There is a great diagram showing the effect [...]

An old coworker of mine and I once argued about 401ks.  He said “Why would I put my money in that account when I can make more investing it on my own and don’t have to wait until I am 65 to leverage it?”  Fair enough, I argued about the 3% employer match we had [...]

One of my investment friend recommended this site to me and I must say it is very cool! Foliofn is a company that essentially allows you to create your own mutual fund. You can buy partial stocks–so if you wanted to owe a share of Google, but not lay out the hundreds of dollars required [...]

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with my good friend who recently who joined a startup research team developing software that hedge funds then use to create models. Since most of the people I interact with on a regular basis don’t find talking economics to be riveting conversation, I have asked my friend to [...]

I like the idea of buying real estate because there are tax advantages, it is one of those investments that have emotional appeal, and it is a great way to build equity and earn income (albeit when it comes to second homes it is often better to invest the same money into the stock market). [...]