Top Personal Finance Articles #17 + MORE

This update will be brief as I really don’t have much to say this week 🙁

We are starting to buy clothes for Nick lately as he has started to out grow all of the clothes that people gave us for him when he was born. It is crazy to think that he is closing in on 5 months old. I swear it feels like we just took him home from the hospital…

Gary Dek is a writer for Gajizmo.com who is always looking for ways to make and invest money. Gary has previously worked for an internet company on their M&A team, as well as in investment banking and private equity.
While an old car may seem to save on monthly expenses since there is no car note and often no collision, comprehensive, or gap insurance coverage premiums, the cost of repairing a car with little monetary value may be greater than the cost to replace the vehicle…

  Yes, I really am giving away Colorado Rockies Tickets, but first how I won them. I went on my first (and probably only) 5k of the season.  It was a fun run around Coors Field in Denver.  After finding … Continue reading →The post Giveaway: Colorado Rockies Tickets appeared first on Financial Black Sheep…

The following is an honest review of Capital One 360 through my experience banking with them over the last few years. There are affiliate links within the post, which means if you sign up for a Capital One 360 account through one of these links, I’ll get a small commission. I work hard on these reviews and share both the good and the bad…

Yesterday was the last day of school for the kids, so summer vacation is officially underway.    I think I’m just as excited as they are as I get three months of not having to go through the morning routine of pulling kids out of bed, making sack lunches, and making sure they get to the bus stop on time…

OK truth be told I didn’t hate the job, I just hated the hours.
Background:
When I finished graduate school in 2009 the job market wasn’t very good. So when I was offered a 3-11pm shift at a social service agency, that is world acclaimed as a leader in the supportive housing movement, I immediately accepted the offer…

Happy Friday Dinks. This weekend marks the start of a very busy season for me, actually what I should say is that it marks the start of a very expensive season for me.  It all started a few weeks ago with Mother’s Day, but it gets really busy this weekend.  Within the next month I have my mother’s birthday, my sister’s birthday, Father’s Day and then my Dad’s birthday…

Binary options trading is arguably the most accessible way of entering the financial markets. The initial investment is lower than the one required for trading on the stock market and the risk is not so high if we compare binary options trading to the Forex market where you can incur losses that exceed your initial …

Paying off debt faster is a big goal for many couple, not just in terms of the financial amount it can costs, but also the emotional baggage of having debt hanging over you. The good news is that having a plan of an attack significantly increases your chances of success and increases how quickly you can get rid of it…

Wow.  Just, wow.  This is the 1000th post I have put up here on The Amateur Financier.  I am completely, utterly, and totally shocked that I’ve managed to make it this far in my blogging career. That I would be still be blogging, putting up articles on a regular basis every week, four years and four months later, is stunning, really…

 
Funny story (or not really, but who cares), when I first wrote the title to this post I put it as April 7th instead of June.  With the weather we’ve had this week it certainly feels like April so that’s my excuse.  Another week has passed and we’re still waiting for the weather to get nicer here in Minnesota…

Strategery: How I Save Time and Money Working from Home
Club Thrifty – Stop spending. Start living.These are NOT my legs….but I do sit like this sometimes.
I know, I know.  You’re tired of hearing about it.
Although you may not be particularly interested in how much I like working from home, a girl has got to share, right?  After all, that’s why I have this little blog in the first place…

It is story time again with Grayson, so sit back, relax, and enjoy your favorite beverage.  I have a little story that I want to tell.
I was out at the grocery store this week to get our regular weekly perishables, and it was just another normal shopping trip.  Comparing prices, checking fruits, and finding sales is my usual routine when in the grocery store…

Happy Friday all! I am so glad this week is over as I have been sick all week. It’s one of those colds that hits you like a freight train and has been no fun. Thankfully, it appears to have run its course. I know my last few Friday posts have been a bit on the heavy side and this week I thought I would lighten it up a bit with this article from Yahoo Finance on the cronut…

Continuing with my goal of financial transparency, I’m posting my portfolio as it is at the beginning of June of 2013.

Under the portfolio tab above is where I am keeping a more or less current list of my positions.  The below is where my portfolio stands as of June 1, 2013.  Also, check out the dividends and options pages where I am tracking each of those…

Almost everyone has a collection of some sort. For me, it’s the baseball cards I’ve had since I was a kid. Many of us, myself included, like to dream that the collectibles we own will someday be worth a fortune. But they probably won’t be unless we take steps to make them a profitable investment…

This is an old Wall Street term that needs to die or else you might.
What does “buy your age in bonds” mean?
If you’re 30-years-old, this would mean that you’d have 30 percent of your investable money in bonds.
Why have most Wall Streeters used this term?
Because it has worked as a good investment strategy over the last 30 years…

It seems every Friday I have another question for my wonderful readers. Just to update, over the last couple of week you’ve helped me decide what to do with a windfall (It’s in the vacation fund for now, but part will go into stocks when there is a market correction) and helped me decide that good service is the most important thing with my phone, although I’m still not sure whether I need a smart phone or not…

education (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)
A question that gets trotted out every so often by personal finance bloggers, pundits, and Millenials is both simple and complex. Is a college education still worth its cost? People on both sides of the issue can get pretty heated about it and despite several debates on the topic, I still haven’t made up my mind…

The following is a guest post. If you are interested in guest posting for my site, please see my guest posting policy and shoot me an email. I also have a special treat at the end of this post. Jackie over at The Debt Myth has put together an iPad giveaway in celebration of her updated debt payoff app…