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[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]July 29, 2009: We all have our own system of keeping records such as bills, tax returns and statements. They are either stored in a file cabinet or as scanned images on data CD/DVDs or perhaps in shoe boxes. That is pretty good as long as the system works for us. But the most important question that arises

[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]July 28, 2009: Being tech savvy people, every year we change our cell phones. Now comes the tricky part. What do we do with our old cell phones - dump them? No way! We have been selling them for the past few years and making a tidy sum out of each deal. This year we sold them online to a new company named

[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]One of the basic money rules about a portfolio was that it had to be diversified to reduce our risk of losses. Well all of us know that diversifying our portfolios did not stop us from losing money in the recent downturn of the stock market. What went wrong?Rule #6: DiversificationOld thinking: A diversified

[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]Most of us have a will in place. Well that is not the be all and end all of estate planning. Now a days most financial accounts come with the options of naming beneficiaries. If you plan to name beneficiaries or want to update out of date beneficiaries on your financial accounts then be aware of the

[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]July 22, 2009: Recently we learnt a lesson about withdrawing money after depositing a check for a large amount. Please read on to learn the drama as it unfolded. We hope that our readers can benefit from this experience of ours and avoid paying unnecessary fees.Day 1 - We went to a physical branch of a

[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]July 21, 2009: Often when we have no access to the internet and we need to look up a business we dial 411 on our cell phones. Most cell phone providers charge their customers for 411 calls. But now we can call 411 FREE! Thanks to services provided by 1-800-FREE-411.1-800-FREE-411 offers the same 411 service

[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]Until recently it was almost always assumed that renting meant throwing away money. The golden money rule was to build home equity since real estate "always" appreciated. Thanks to the sub prime mortgage fiasco and the recession that emanated from it, the real estate bubble finally burst with a big

[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]This year is a particularly tough one in perspective of the massive job losses and a shrinking U.S. economy. We are feeling the pinch since we got laid off. An immense aid for our survival has been the presence of an emergency fund. In fact we feel that it is one of the most important practical personal

[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]July 14, 2009: We all need to keep a tab on our credit and identity. Checking our credit report at regular intervals is a nice way to keep an eye on the state of our credit card accounts. It also helps in early detection of suspicious activity. Usually we recourse to a couple of options for procuring our

[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]The past decade saw the boom of the "power of leveraging" - a fancy name for debt. Until recently, most Americans put their purchases on their credit cards and personal savings fell to nearly zero. Credit was easy, and people used it to build wealth. Can building wealth with debt be a money rule?Rule #4:

[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]While the U.S. economy is in recession and the stock market in shambles, is it a good idea to invest in Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS)?We feel that this is probably the best time to invest in TIPS. The reason being the fact that our economy is in deflation (negative inflation). TIPS safe

[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]Of late we've been studying Callan's Periodic Table of Investment Returns. Callan Associates are famous for presenting these charts free of cost to the world. Their Periodic Table of Investment Returns offers a comprehensive representation of relative asset class performance over the last 20 years. It

[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]When we began disciplined investing through a diversified portfolio, "experts" were of the opinion that the more years one had to recoup losses, the more aggressive one could be. In other words the younger we were the more risk we could take on. Unfortunately we learnt that the rules of money are not so

[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]July 2, 2009: With the growing power of the Internet and e-commerce, it has become easier to own a small business. Consequently the number of small business owners are on the rise. This is really good news since it helps us to be our own boss, do something which we enjoy and also earn a livelihood. Sounds