Clunkers: Not only is buying a brand new way too expensive car a huge waste of money, but on the other hand, a clunker that you have multiple problems with can be a slow leak of money. Are you constantly putting money into repairs to keep your clunker running? Are the repairs costing more than the car is worth? You may want to consider purchasing a car that is a little more reliable. A car that is too crappy can also end up costing more in gas, which may end up being a large amount of money in the long run.

Gadgets: Everyone likes gadgets, but if you’re constantly having to upgrade an item, usually the upgrades are slow leaks of money. They don’t seem like a lot, but do you need the newest gadget if the old one you have works the same?

Houses that Are Too Large: Of course a house that is too large for you or your family would seem like a huge waste of money but there are slow money leaks in buying a house that is too large as well. For instance are you paying electricity, heating or air conditioning on areas of the house that are never used? It may not seem like much but those small amounts can add up.

Alcoholic Beverages While Out: Restaurants and bars are the most expensive places to have a drink. Not only is a glass of soda way overpriced, but sometimes just a couple glasses of wine can cost as much as just buying a bottle and drinking it at home.

Convenience Store Items: If you stop regularly at convenience stores, you’re probably wasting more money than you think. Most often you are simply paying for the convenience of being able to stop on the side of the road, run in and grab your bottled of water. It is way cheaper to purchase a larger amount of whatever you need while on the go and keep it in your car than to shop convenience stores. Besides the fact that most people end up grabbing at least one more item than they had initially planned.

Eating Out for Lunch: It doesn’t seem like much, especially when you think you’re just purchasing things from the dollar menu each day, but eating out for lunch is a complete waste of money. Try leftovers from home or packing a lunch, it’s cheaper and better for you (which could cut down on medical expenses too).
Coffee: This is what is referred to as the latte factor. If you’re purchasing your favorite cup of coffee everyday on your way to work, this is a slow leak of money that ends up costing quite a bit. Add up how much you spend on your favorite latte for the month. You may be surprised.

Designer Wrinkle Creams: In all actuality there is more to having healthy skin and looking younger than the cream you use on your face. If you drink plenty of water, limit time in the sun, wear sunscreen and avoid things like smoking, you’ve pretty much done what you can. Designer skin care does not really do much and can definitely end up being a slow leak of money that costs a lot.

Bottled Water: Of course we need water so we don’t have to buy designer wrinkle creams, but the slow leak is that you can fill up a cup or use a purifier and save money instead of purchasing overpriced bottles of water that are usually no different.

Take a look at the things that you purchase and you may notice some slow leaks of money that you weren’t aware of. Even if they seem minimal, add up the total per month and even year. You may be shocked to find out how much you’re actually spending on slow leaks of money.

There are obviously many more ways for you to leak money. Please share with us other ways which you have experienced that slowly leaks money.

This post is written by Mr Credit Card from www.askmrcreditcard.com. Mr Credit Card reviews lot of credit cards on his site. His latest post is about instant approval credit cards.

Rule one: Never try to keep up with the Joneses.

Each day we are exposed to a plethora of images of wealth and possessions. We see our sports and Hollywood idols buy 20 million dollar mansions, buy million dollar pieces of jewelry, we hear our neighbors boast about their expensive new car, extravagant vacations they took and about the high ticket purchases the have made. Rule one says; that if we stop trying to compete, we will immediately become clear. The pressures will lift and we will be able to live for ourselves. Try this simple rule for 30 days, stop trying to keep up with the Joneses and see how you feel. I can guarantee you will feel a weight lift off your financial shoulders.

Rule two: Start your purse to fattening painlessly.

Let’s face it Americans are not the best savers. By nature we like nice things. We like good food; we enjoy fine clothing, fine wines, travel and toys. Rule two states that you must cut back, at least a little. I once had a boss that said, “Live small, until it’s time to live big” I think he was onto something. Rule two says the easiest way to start your purse to fattening is not to take money out of your income and save it, that is way too hard for us but it is in fact simply to cut some waste, some excess. Reduce your cell phone bill by 3%, cut your cable bill by 5%, and reduce your credit card debt on one single card, saving you 9%. Do the math. These savings equal 17%. Rule two says, save your money this way because we all know that it is not realistic to take 17% of your income and save it. Savings are savings. Save wherever you can.

Rule three: understanding a Real Rate of Return.

I am by no means anti CD (Certificate of Deposit) or anti bank. They have there place but please try and understand your real rate of return when investing. Let’s illustrate this simply. If you put $1000 into a one year CD and you earn 3% that year you now have $1030. Not bad, simple, safe and easy. Did you know that your bank is going to send you a 1099? This is a tax form stating your income from your earned interest, in other words your 30 bucks. Now let’s say your tax bracket is 30% total and then deduct that from your $30. You now are left with only $21. This means that your real rate of return is 2.1%. Rule three says; don’t get fooled, understand your real rate of return.

Rule Four: Triple Compounding Interest.

In rule three we explored the tax consequences of standard savings. In rule four we will explore the magic of what I call triple compounding interest so pay close attention, so I don’t lose you. If we put money into a multiyear tax free or tax deferred savings vehicle we earn interest. Simple enough to understand, but did you know we also earn interest on our interest? Yes, of course you did, this is simple compounding interest. So here is the kicker. Did you know there is a third way we will earn interest on this account? No, you didn’t. Well let me explain. With this type of savings account we also earn interest on the money that was not taxed and subsequently not taken out of our account. This means we earn interest on our savings. In this case we are earning interest on our tax savings. Uncle Sam is actually floating us. Rule four; use triple compounding interest.

This guest post is contributed by Maria Rainier, she writes on the topic of online education.

Investing for the Future

The winds of change are definitely blowing in the direction of green business practices and sustainability. Instead of investing with the old tried and true methods, research the options for investing in companies that are promoting a smaller carbon footprint, social responsibility investments and greener business practices. When you see that Wal-Mart is promoting these types of methods, you can practically see the writing on the wall.

Pay Your Bills Online

As simple as this may seem, many people are not utilizing the convenience of paying their monthly bills electronically. Not only will it save the trees by eliminating paper, it will also save you time. Reports indicate that the average American family receives about twenty bills per month. Take into consideration the time you spend opening the bills, writing them out, buying stamps and posting them and it is thought that this task takes approximately two hours a month. By paying your bills electronically you can find yourself saving as much as an hour or more of your time plus eliminate the need to buy stamps which no longer are so cheap.

Direct Deposit

Having your weekly paycheck deposited into your account automatically can save you lots of waiting time in line at the bank. You will not have to deal with tellers or make a special trip to the bank because you had to wait for your check to clear. Many financial institutions will provide you with monetary benefits for using this method such as a higher rate of interest on savings accounts along with free checking.

Investment Reports

Instead of waiting for your financial information to arrive in the mail each month, sign up for alerts through your email so that you may check on the status of your investment whenever it is convenient for you. This will help to stop the paper trail that follows so many of us like a faithful dog.

Opt Out of Receiving Catalogs in the Mail

Just about any shopping you can do from a catalog can be done just as easily online. Many times online purchases afford the consumer bargains and incentives that are not available through conventional catalog purchases. You will enjoy a shorter waiting period for your purchases to arrive and many times shipping and handling charges are absorbed by the merchant when you shop online.

When you manage your financial affairs in the virtual world, you are helping to reduce the greenhouse effect that is threatening the global environment. You can enjoy a savings of as much as $150-$200 per year on checks, stamps and even late fees when you pay your bills and do your banking online. Invest the money you save so that your profits continue to grow from caring for the environment you are leaving for future generations.

During a recent visit to the local grocery store, my 5-year-old, carrying one of these $5 bills, passed in front of this display of miniature cars that read “4 for $5.” He was pretty excited about the “deal” and continued to make his selections.

At more than $1 per car, I failed to find the deal in that, but I proceeded to praise his ability to find such a bargain. As we were leaving the store, I asked him “Why do you think the store was selling those cars for that price?” to which he promptly answered “maybe they really like kids.”

How early in our children’s life should we begin to teach principles of sound money management?
What can parents do to teach their children about money?

As we strive to establish other good habits in our little ones, many parents ignore financial awareness. But, as with everything else, most children start acquiring life-lasting concepts from a very early age and basic money management skills should be as gingerly peppered around given learning opportunities.
Lessons about money can begin as early as you notice that your child can instinctively assign value to his or her belongings.

But you have to get creative.
When my wife and I go shopping for groceries, for example, we give my son his own shopping list. We write down a dollar amount next to each item and help him to find a matching or lower price. In addition to keeping him focused on a task and busy while we do our shopping, he is learning important concepts about value along with simple math skills.

There are many ways to turn daily consumer moments into lessons. As your child grows, he or she will sense a meaningful connection with money and goods, learn to make good decisions on how money received is to be spent or saved, and the financial mistakes they make will be fewer and occur much earlier in their lives instead of when it really counts.

We read books to our children every day and they grow up to love reading. In this same manner you can help your child develop early financial awareness and interest.

Finally, whether or not you believe it, your children do pay attention to everything you say AND do, so get control of your own financial life!

The Dow Theory – The Dow theory has been around for almost 100 years, yet even in today’s volatile and technology-driven markets, the basic components of Dow theory still remain valid.

Tulip Mania and the Stock Market – Is a tulip bulb worth $76,000? It is, if people are willing to pay that much for it, and that’s exactly what happened in Holland in the 1630’s. If that sounds unbelievable, you may have never heard of Tulip Mania.

Thousands of experiments in behavioral economics, neuroeconomics and evolutionary economics conclusively demonstrate that we are every bit as irrational when it comes to money as we are in most other aspects of our lives.

Regret falls under a psychological effect known as loss aversion. Research shows that before we risk an investment, we need to feel assured that the potential gain is twice what the possible loss might be because a loss feels twice as bad as a gain feels good. That’s weird and irrational, but it’s the way it is.

Human as it sounds, loss aversion appears to be a trait we’ve inherited genetically because it is found in other primates, such as capuchin monkeys.

Experiments show that these monkeys show the same sensitivity to changes in supply and demand and prices as people do. They also demonstrate the same trait of economic loss aversion. In an experiment where the monkeys had a choice of a 50% chance of a bonus food or a 50% chance of a loss of food, the monkeys were twice as averse to the loss as they were motivated by the gain.

According to the article:

If there are behavioral analogies between humans and other primates, the underlying brain mechanism driving the choice preferences most certainly dates back to a common ancestor more than 10 million years ago. Think about that: Millions of years ago, the psychology of relative social ranking, supply and demand and economic loss aversion evolved in the earliest primate traders.

What do you think? Is evolution the cause of your bad financial decisions, or is it something else?

“For the rich, it’s not about getting more stuff. It’s about having the freedom to make almost any decision you want,” says T. Harv Eker, author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.

That is one of the descriptions that that most closely resembles my own motivation for building wealth. Here are the “secrets” from the article:

1. Set your sights on where you’re going

This means pointing yourself in the right direction and heading for your goal. You’ve got to know what you want and shouldn’t be afraid to think big. Part of the reason for starting this site was because I had a goal of achieving a net worth of one million dollars.

2. Educate yourself

Financially that is. A big hurdle to becoming wealthy is not understanding money. With all the knowledge we have at our fingertips, there’s really no barrier to how much you can learn. The more you know, the more opportunities open up to you. Again, another reason I started this site was to improve my financial understanding.

3. Passion pays off

This is an interesting one, not surprising, but interesting. I wonder how many of us are passionate about our jobs. While I’m pretty happy with the job I have, I wouldn’t say I am passionate about it. I go for the paycheck. Going after a true passion might involve my same skill set, but it would probably be in a different direction. According to research by Thomas J. Stanley, over 80 percent of millionaires say they never would have been successful if their vocation wasn’t something they cared about.

4. Grow your money

I think people are pretty familiar with this one. Spend less than you earn, and do something smart with the difference, so your money can work for you. The article suggests not just retirement accounts, but something that can grow dramatically like a business, or real estate. That’s something I am trying to do, and why I recently invested some money in a start-up.

5. No guts, no glory

This one is difficult. While taking risks is a common trait among the wealthy, but there are a lot of people who have been financially devastated by the risks they have taken. I guess you need to take calculated risks.

Bonus Secret: Stop spending.

All the millionaires they spoke to had one thing in common: they didn’t spend needlessly. According to the 2007 Annual Survey of Affluence & Wealth in America, some of the richest people “spend their money with a middle-class mind-set”. Many modern millionaires live in middle-class neighborhoods, work full-time and shop in discount stores like the rest of us. This one might be disappointing to those with dreams of getting rich and spending money recklessly.

1.  Bank Deals – Best Rates and Deals

2. FreeMoneyFinance – Grow Your Net Worth

3.  Moolanomy – The Science of Money

4.  GetRichSlowly – Personal Finance That Makes Cents

5.  Savvy Saver – Personal prosperity depends not on how much money you make, but on how much money you keep.

Smart Money Remains Invested

Fundamental Indexing vs. Traditional Indexing

Your First Million Is the Toughest

Spending Money: Needs vs. Wants

Understanding Capital Gains Tax

Top Ten Richest Men Of All Time

Spend Your Money On Doing Things Rather Than Owning Thing

How Much Interest Do You Earn On One Million Dollars

Offer to Switch Citi Dividend to World Mastercard

Can I rollover my 401k while still employed?

Roth IRA’s: Max ‘em
The new Roth IRA limits mean it will take $10,000 to max our Roth IRA’s for 2008. I actually want to add a new fund to my Roth IRA which requires a minimum investment of $3,000. I’ve lowered my automatic investments to dollar coast average in for a total of $2,000 for the year, so I’ll have to save up in the mean time for the lump sum $3,000 contribution, which will purchase the new fund and max my Roth for the year. My wife’s automatic investments will give her $3,000 for the year, so we’ll also have to come up with an additional $2,000 for her Roth.

Emergency Fund: $5,000
The emergency fund has always been a low priority for me. It’s currently at $1,000 which gives us a little bit of breathing room, but if there was a true emergency, it doesn’t even cover the mortgage for 1 month. Granted, there are other funds I could tap into before having to take on any debt, but I’m getting to the point that I would like to have a little extra security. It’s not the first goal we’ll tick off, but by the end of the year we’d like to have it up to $5,000.

Let’s get it on.

FHA Loans – An FHA loan is a mortgage loan in the United States insured by the Federal Housing Administration. FHA’s mortgage insurance programs help low and moderate income families become homeowners by lowering some of the costs of their mortgage loans.

My Credit Score – I recently received my credit report. The numbers look pretty good as I received scores of 783, 783, and 778. So, what the heck is a credit score anyway?

What I’m sure it came down to, was the employees were seeing this: “$.002″ and saying “.002 cents”. At a quick glance, it’s an understandable mistake. The part that blew me away, was that after half an hour of the customer trying to explain this difference, the Verizon employees, including the supervisor, still thought the customer was wrong. They were convinced that “.002 dollars” was the same as “.002 cents”.

The recording of the call is still available if you want to follow my original link. However, if you are easily frustrated by displays of ignorance, I don’t recommend it. It was a pretty popular story on the internets for a while . Verizon received some bad publicity, released some official statements and like all things it eventually blew over.

I assumed at that point Verizon would make the necessary changes to its training program and make sure all the employees understood the difference. Apparently, I was wrong. Check out the video below, and you’ll see that not only are they making the same mistake, they are making all kinds of new ones. An astounding 93% quoted the wrong rate. Shame on you, Verizon and Verizon customers, be warned.

Click here to view the embedded video.

ESPP – Many large companies offer Employee Stock Purchase Plans (ESPP) that let you buy your employer’s stock at a discount. These plans are offered as an employment incentive, giving you an opportunity to share in the growth potential of your company’s stock (and, by implication, work hard to keep the stock price soaring).

Capital Gains Tax Rates – The advantage of capital gains, as opposed to ordinary income, is that the basic maximum tax rate on capital gains for property held for more than one year is currently 15 percent. In contrast, the top four ordinary income tax rates are all higher than this, with the top rate through 2010 at 35 percent.

Recently, my wife was charged a $20 overdraft fee, because her paycheck, which was supposed to be direct-deposited into her account, didn’t go through. She over drafted by 18 cents!

The sharp increase in total fees is largely due to two factors: The increasing use of debit cards and the fact that many banks automatically enroll customers in overdraft programs without them knowing about it.

My advice, beyond obviously avoiding spending more money than you can cover in your account is this: 1. Make sure you understand your bank’s overdraft policy. 2. If you are charged an overdraft fee, ask your bank to refund it. When my wife deposited her check, and explained the situation, her account was refunded the $20 overdraft fee.

What is the Efficient Market Hypothesis? -EMH suggests that the army of analysts and fund managers whose job is to actively manage portfolios are engaged in a futile exercise because everything they find out is rapidly transmitted around the market, and share prices instantly reflect the common knowledge.

Do You Need an Emergency Fund? -We typically hear that everyone should have an emergency fund equal to three to six months (or more) worth of basic living expenses. But, do you really need such an emergency fund? I’m not sure you do.

My wife was was starting to dislike her work. Recent changes had made made the work environment less and less bearable for her. As I have mentioned before, she is currently going to college full time and she only stayed at the job because they were always willing to work around her school schedule. After a particularly frustrating week, she decided to see what other opportunities were available. After only a little searching, she found a job opening that she was very interested in. She sent in her resume, had a couple of interviews, and was offered the job.

Working only part time, she has never made much, and she is actually taking a small pay cut, but she should enjoy the work a lot more, and unlike her previous job, it will giver her experience in her field of study.

I, on the other hand, have been happy with my current employer. I like the people, I like the environment, and I like the work. A few weeks ago, I received a call from a friend letting me know about a job opening at his employer. He had worked with me at my current employer and felt that with his referral I would have a good shot at getting the job and a nice raise.

I figured it was worth checking out, so I interviewed with them. After the interview, the said they were interested and would call me to schedule a 2nd interview. After 2 weeks I hadn’t heard from them. Talking to my friend, he told me they were still interested, just had been very busy. I didn’t have the exact qualifications they were looking for, and because I am happy where I am, I set my desired salary pretty high, so I assumed that it just hadn’t worked out.

Then, at the beginning of the 3rd week, I received the call to schedule my 2nd interview. They were very apologetic about the delay. The day after my 2nd interview, they offered me the job at my desired salary. So, although I am happy where I am, the large pay increase (it’s over 35%) made me feel obligated to accept the new offer.

So, within the next couple of weeks we’ll both be starting our new jobs. We’re both excited and hoping for the best. The job changes will obviously result in some pretty big changes to our finances, which will of course, all be documented here.

How much interest do you earn on one million dollars? – It depends on several factors including: What is the interest rate? Over what period of time? How often is the interest calculated and paid during the period?

The Risks of Investing – All types of investments have risks, whether you’re investing in stock funds, bond funds, or even money market funds.

International Investing- Pros and Cons – With today’s wars, ethnic strife and oil prices, you might think global investing would be mostly rough sailing these days. Not so, according to global-investment managers who can point to plenty of opportunities for solid growth in overseas markets.

Why Costs Matter When Investing – The old adage “you get what you pay for” doesn’t apply to investing.

Top 10 Richest Men Of All Time – Rankings of some of the most influential men in the history of humanity.

Top Myths of Social Security – Social Security is a real problem and we need to fix it and that involves pain.

Click here to view the embedded video.