Commutative Law of Multiplication
Commutative Law of Multiplication is a fancy way of saying when you multiply two numbers, it doesn’t matter which number you put down first and which number you put down second. a * b = b * a This...
View Article$10,000 Lesson On Variable Universal Life (VUL)
Variable Universal Life insurance or in short VUL is sold by insurance agents as a smart investment to unsuspecting people. The pitch usually goes like this: You invest in VUL. The money in the policy...
View ArticleOut of the Market and Meaningless Stats
The stock market had a field day last Thursday (7/12/2007). The Dow rose 284 points, its biggest point gain in nearly five years. It reminded me of the stats about the risk of being out of the market....
View ArticleMore On Missing The 10 Best Days
Blogger Nickel at fivecentnickel.com made some great comments to my post about missing the 10 best days in the stock market. I showed in my post that the probability of missing the best 10 days in 10...
View ArticleMortgage Interest and Property Tax Deduction for Homeowners Who Don’t Itemize
The New York Times reported that Senate Democrats and Republicans reached a tentative deal on the new housing bill. Among the various provisions is a federal income tax deduction for property tax paid...
View ArticleA Business That Punishes Its Largest Customers
Here’s a Jeopardy question. A financial service charges no fee if you have less than $100,000 with them. If your account has $100,000 or more, they charge you $100 a year account maintenance fee. If...
View Article401k Loan Double Taxation Myth
I don’t know who started it. Suze Orman certainly helped spread it. She says that you shouldn’t borrow from your 401k (or 403b) plan because you will be double-taxed. I did a Google search and I found...
View ArticleGrace Period and Double-Cycle Billing
Twitter brought my attention to this article on SmartMoney: Double-Cycle Billing Persists, Legal or Not It’s another "banks are out there to get you" article. It alleges that some banks are exploiting...
View ArticleConventional Wisdom "Don’t Buy a Dividend" Is Wrong
I mentioned this last year in my post 3 Reminders About Year-End Mutual Fund Distributions. I see the conventional wisdom “don’t buy a distribution” is still going strong. Vanguard reiterated this...
View ArticleThe Average Daily Balance Mystery
How to calculate interest on a loan should be very simple, but it seems to be a mystery to many people, including highly educated consumer advocates. MSNBC.com columnist Bob Sullivan wrote a book Stop...
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