Economics

If you want to be a successful investor, you absolutely need to understand your personal economics as well as the economy around you. These factors will have an impact on the success of your investments.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Corrections

As I write, the stock market is having more rise and falls than a ship in a storm. Since the January 2018 stock market high of 26,616.71, the Dow Jones has lost 10% in value. Almost $2 trillion in value has disappeared into thin air. Ouch! The decline officially puts us in correction territory.

How to Rebuild Your Savings After a Catastrophic Event – PART 1

What happens to your investments and savings when you’re facing a catastrophic event beyond your control? This could be in the form of an economic downturn, medical emergency, or job loss or other career-related event. How do you survive and protect yourself during this situation? This post is in response to a reader question we received recently.

How to Manage Your Finances Through Volatile Times

When the market takes a dive, protecting your investments seems like a single-focused strategy. However, there are other important financial moves you need to make in order to protect your entire portfolio, assets and finances. It’s easier to deal with a downturn in the market, but how do you successfully handle volatile times when it comes to your overall well-being?

How to Rebuild Your Savings After a Catastrophic Event – PART 2

This is part two of our response to a reader question we received recently. To read the complete question and our answer, check out How to Rebuild Your Savings After a Catastrophic Event — PART 1. In this post, we’ll deal with rebuilding your savings in the aftermath of a career crisis.

2 Reasons Why You Should Create a Trust to Protect Your Assets

You might think estate plans and trusts are something mostly for “rich people“. But think again. There are two reasons to create a trust to protect your assets, and they’re factors that can affect everyone, regardless of how much money they have.

How to Read a Financial Statement

If you want to be a successful investor, there’s one absolutely critical skill you need to acquire, and that is the ability to read a financial statement. This is particularly important if you trade individuals stocks.

Inflation Is A Hidden Tax – What Can You Do About It?

We can think of inflation as being like a financial cancer – it’s slowly and relentlessly eats away at the value of our investments. Some investors would prefer to ignore inflation; it is after all inconvenient where investment planning is concerned. It can take pretty looking investment projections and make them look downright ordinary. The $1 million portfolio that you expect to have in 20 years will be worth considerably less in real purchasing power.

Wealth Inequality in America – Who Posted This Crappy Video?

A relative of mine made me aware of this viral video going around on YouTube by the author “politizane”. As you can imagine, I have quite a few issues with this video. I’m not suggesting some of the information is incorrect, I just have an issue with the conclusions and some of its assessments.

Minimum Wage vs. Living Wage

One of the items that has been getting a lot of play since President Obama’s State of the Union Address has been minimum wage. In his address, the President suggested that the federal minimum wage be raised from $7.25 an hour to $9.00 an hour, indexed to inflation. (I’m old enough to remember being excited when the minimum wage went from $4.75 to $5.15.)

What Is Behavioral Finance?

One of the terms that tends to pop up more and more when people talk about money and economics is “behavioral finance.” Behavioral finances is a relatively new field of study. The idea is to look at the reasons that people make the money choices they do (those choices are often irrational). Behavioral finance applies psychological theories, particular those related to cognition and behaviorism, to economics and personal finance.

Betterment

Economics