Thursday, December 29, 2011

What to Do After a Car Accident

Just about everyone of us have very little or no experience at all at the scene of a car accident. But knowing beforehand the right and appropriate steps to take during such instances is very improtant to every driver.

No matter whenever the hit is a minor fender curve or a major car accident, having the knowledge on what to do next will definitley make the unfavorable experience a little less traumatic. Knowing what to do next will also help you avoid even further mistakes.

Most likely than not, your area or the state you live in has provisions for information that are important like this one. Check out the agencied responsible for regualting insruance in your place and ask for a copy of the materials, or brochures, that indicate the legal steps you should do in case of an accident. This is very important since different states and areas have different traffic regulations. Knowing what traffic regulations that apply in your area will work best for you.

Below is a concise of information on what to do after an car accident which you may copy or print out to serve as your guide.

Step 1 It is very important that you stop your vehicle after an accident. Not stopping your car can put you subjected to a criminal offense or prosecution.

Step 2 If anybody is hurt or wounded, or if the entire damage to all the cars and material possession involved comes out to be more than a thousand dollars, better call 911. If nobody suffered and injury and entire damage to all the cars and properties involved seems to be lower than $1,000, call your local police for guidance and directions.

If the police force are not discharged, you must report to a Collision Reporting Centre within twenty-four hours. Check your local phone directory or the internet, to find a Collision Reporting Centre in your area

Step 3 Turn on the hazard lights of your car. Once it is safe already, move your car to the safe side of the road.

Step 4 Get the addresses, names, phone numbers, licence numbers, driver's licence numbers, and auto insurance details of the drivers and the owners affected by the car accident. (Some states provide downloadable accident worksheet together with the electronic brochure.

Step 5 Get the contact information of all the passengers, if there are any, and even the witnesses.

Step 6 Put down on record the particular information about the setting of the car accident.

Step 7 Finally, it is important to let your broker, auto insurance agent, or auto insurance provider know about the accident the soonest possible time. You may also ask them for help and guidance on how you can claim your auto insurance.

These are just few of the helpful steps you may wish to observe or implore in the event of an accident. The most important thing to remember is that you should gather all the information necessary in the event of the accident. This will work for your own best in the end.

Article Source articlesnatch.com

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

The Difference Good Performance Can Make


The Difference Good Performance Can Make


Posted: 20 Dec 2011 12:45 PM PST
Yahoo includes the following information in a recent post on how to earn more without giving up your whole life:
There are real rewards for a company's best workers. Top performers received average base-pay increases of 4.4% this year, compared with 2.8% for average performers, and 0.4% for the lowest performers, according to Mercer, a human-resources-services provider. Further, with most employers seeking to increase performance-based pay differentiation, even greater rewards could be in store for top performers.
Let's take this information and look at the life-long impact of being a good, average, or poor performer. Not that these numbers will be exact throughout a working career (in a good economy, for instance, they'd all probably be higher), but they are likely relative to each other and provide a good comparison for the difference in earnings based on performance.

We'll start with three guys, "Good", "Average", and "Poor" starting their working careers at 22-years-old just out of college. They all make $25,000 as a starting salary. They all work until they are 65. And they all get annual raises as described above: 4.4%, 2.8%, and 0.4% respectively.

Here's where they end up at age 65:
  • Good: Career earnings: $2.6 million; Final year salary: $134,048

  • Average: Career earnings: $1.8 million; Final year salary: $73,396

  • Poor: Career earnings: $1.1 million; Final year salary: $29,212
Big difference, huh? These are exactly the points I was making in How to Maximize Your Lifetime Earnings and Making the Most of Your Most Valuable Financial Asset.

The numbers above show why it's so important that you work at growing your career. No other asset you have is as valuable, and if you consistently strive to grow it (by excelling at your work), you will be handsomely rewarded financially (and, by the way, it's more likely that you'll enjoy what you do if you are doing it well.)

So, do you have a plan to grow your most valuable financial asset?


Posted: 20 Dec 2011 10:37 AM PST
I'm in the process of picking the best post of 2011 from the winners of the Best of Money Carnival. I've narrowed it down to these five, but I need your comments on them. (I'll still pick the winner, but a well-thought-out comment could sway me one way or the other.)
Here they are in alphabetical order and without comment from me:
Which do you like best? Why?


Posted: 20 Dec 2011 10:02 AM PST
Just a note for those of you who are looking to make an end of year charitable contribution and want to help families who are less fortunate: the FMF $20k Challenge is still on until December 26. Up until that time I will match, dollar for dollar, contributions to the Salvation Army, up to a grand total of all contributions of $20,000. For details, go to this link.
Thanks for your consideration and here's wishing you all the best of holiday seasons.


Posted: 20 Dec 2011 07:45 AM PST
Forbes has an interview with a top job recruiter and lists his top tips for a great resume. They are:
  • Avoid the fancy-schmancy layout, font, and other special effects. Stick to traditional font of Times New Roman, 9 to 12 point size, and black type against a white paper.

  • Prepare it in a simple Word format that can easily be viewed on most computers.

  • Use a reverse chronological order.

  • Get rid of objectives and summary and all that silly stuff.

  • Skip personal information such as married with three kids.

  • Stories sell. Numbers, statistics, percentages get attention if you put in bold type. Increased profit by this 28%. Came under budget by 30%. If you were born and raised on chicken farm, note it on your résumé.

  • Fuzzy key words and phrases should be avoided.

  • Get the photos off your résumé. You are looking for a job, not a date.
In other words, you want your resume to be the standard, formal, middle-of-the-road document. No bells or whistles, simply information that tells what you did and how well you did it (which hopefully is "very well").

A few extra thoughts from me:
  • I like and recommend the black ink on white paper look best. I've tried grey and beige paper, but neither looks as good IMO.

  • Focus on action words. After I list the title of each position and the dates I held it, I have bullet points listed with accomplishment after accomplishment. Each of these bullet points begins with an action word like "led", "created", "developed" and so on. These snippets demonstrate that I'm a person of action who can accomplish a wide range of tasks (and do them well.) This is exactly the point you want to make.

  • I don't like objectives, summaries, or anything similar on resumes either. IMO no one reads them anyway so they simply take up space you could use to sell yourself.

  • Personal info is a clear no-no -- unless it's something truly amazing and neutral. Example: you won the Olympic gold medal or raised $10 million to fight cancer. Other personal info (spouse, kids, etc.) can only hurt you (in most situations), so why include it?

  • I'm not so sure about the "stories" he lists above, unless it's a story about how you made the company $1 million last year. Yes, stories are interesting, but do I really care that you were raised on a chicken farm? Not really. And maybe I hate chickens and everyone associated with them. Plus, how do you really tell a story in the short, bullet point format of a resume? Hard to do well.

  • Make every word work. That's why you need to eliminate fuzzy words -- because they take up space that could be used on words that advance your cause/employment.

  • Photos? Really? Do people really submit photos with their resumes these days? I guess if you were very attractive it COULD help. But even if Miss America or Mr. Universe included a photo, wouldn't it bring into question their professionalism (which is never a good thing to raise doubts about in a hiring process)?
To note, these are tips for "standard" jobs. Of course you may want more flair if you're a designer or include photos of you're a model. But for 99% of the jobs out there, I think these tips are solid and won't steer you wrong.


Posted: 20 Dec 2011 01:29 AM PST
The following is the latest post in my "Reader Profiles" series. Each post in this series details the financial situation and challenges of an FMF reader. The purpose of this series is to help us all identify with people like us (in similar situations -- not all will be, of course, but eventually I'm sure you will find someone like you here), get to know the frequent commenters on the site, and hear some financial wisdom/challenges from people other than me.

If you're interested in contributing to this series, then drop me an email. The series seems to be very popular with readers and I need a steady stream of new ones to keep it going.

Next in the series is FMF reader BG. He answered my questions (in red below) as follows:

Please tell us a bit about yourself.

I am a 27 year old male from the South Central US. My wife of 3.5 years is 26 years old. We both graduated from a state school about an hour's drive from the city in which we now reside. We both grow up in the same hometown which is in the opposite corner of the state that we still live in. We met in high school and dated for about 6 years (all through college) prior to getting married. I graduated college one year ahead of my wife, and we got married about a month after she graduated from college.

Describe your financial situation (who works in your family, how your income is (general), how your expenses are, etc.).

Presently, my wife and I both work full time jobs. I am a commercial lending officer for a locally owned bank and my wife is a team supervisor for the local housing authority (section 8 housing). Our average monthly take home pay is about $7,000 per month. This does not include bonus income, which can vary from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars per year (bonus income is from my job).

Take home pay is after we contribute 10% of my gross pay (my employer matches 3%, so total for my 401k is 13%) and my wife contributes 6% of her gross pay (with an 8% match, 14% total). We also contribute a full $10k per year to ROTH IRA's.

Monthly living expenses are about $4,500 per month (not including ROTH contributions or cash savings/investments). Total monthly budget looks like this:

$7,000 - take home pay
  • $1,300 - mortgage payment (PITI)
  • $300 - utilities
  • $400 - food/groceries
  • $85 - cell phones
  • $115 - cable
  • $500 - auto expenses (fuel/maintenance)
  • $580 - auto loan payments (most funds used for investments)
  • $250 - giving
  • $40 - gym membership for me
  • $500 - golf club membership (includes golf & dining)
  • $400 discretionary spending
  • $832 - ROTH IRA Contributions
  • $1,700 cash savings/various investments
A few notes on my monthly expenses:
  • I am a golf nut and pay a premium to belong to a very nice local club. As a banker, this is a tool I use frequently to help grow my career by entertaining clients.
  • We have to 2 auto loans of which most of the funds were used for various investment opportunities. The rates on each of these are 3.49%. You can see below that we could fully pay these off if we wanted to, but decide not to since investments earn much more than 3.49%.
Our household net worth is approximately $210,000. This includes the following (this is all net of debts):
  • $60,000 in cash
  • $50,000 real estate partnerships equity
  • $50,000 retirement assets
  • $30,000 stock/options in the bank I work for
  • $20,000 - other private investments, home equity, vehicle equity, etc.
What are the current financial issues you're facing (saving, paying off debt, etc.)?

The main financial goals that we have right now are growing our overall investment portfolio, focusing more on investments outside of retirement assets. We put a good chunk of money into retirement accounts each month, but I don't think too much about these accounts. I do spend a good deal of time each month focusing on our other investments, which are focused in real estate investments and a few other private company investments (insurance company, etc.).

Working as a banker, I have the opportunity to see all different types of businesses and work with the most wealthy and successful business people in my city. This allows me insight on and access to investments that many people would not.

I own 7 rental properties (some personally and some with a partner). These are all condos so they are fairly easy to manage, and me and my partner handle all management ourselves.

I also just recently had the opportunity to buy a chunk of stock in the bank I work for. I've worked here for about 1.5 years and have moved up quickly, which is beginning to open up solid equity opportunities (both in buying shares and getting options).

I am not too concerned about paying off debts at this point, as they are all at low rates. Debts consist of the following:
  •  $190,000 home mortgage @ 4.50%
  •  $30,000 in auto loans @ 3.49% (all but about $10k used for investing purposes)
  •  credit card balances usually are around $1,000 and are paid in full monthly
What are your plans for the future. (retire early, build your career, etc.)?

My wife and I plan to have children in the next 2-3 years at which point we plan for her to become a stay at home mom. She is not as career focused as I am, and we both believe it will be worth the sacrifice for her to be able to stay home. Her take home pay represents about $2,000 of our total $7,000 monthly income. I believe that my income growth from my job over the next 3 years combined with growth in investment income should come pretty close to covering this gap by the time my wife quite her job. Thankfully, we spend much less than we currently earn so this should be easily doable.

My goal is to be "retired" from having an 8-5 job by the time I am 45 years old. I plan to focus very heavily on investing over the next 15-20 years. My investments to this point have been heavily focused on real estate. My goal for 2012 is to make a sizable direct investment into the oil and gas industry by either acquiring some royalties or some working interests in various wells. I am heavily involved in lending to the oil and gas industry and have developed a good working knowledge of the industry. My mother is also employed in a small oil and gas firm and will help to provide me access to some investment opportunities.

I've been heavily focused on my non-retirement investments for about 2 years now, and I've built an income stream of about $600 per month (net of associated debt service - not included in take home pay described above). I realistically believe I can build this to about $15,000 per month by the time I am 45 years old. I typically amortize any debt on investments very rapidly, so once debts are paid off, my income stream will increase quite a bit. Still, I'll have to acquire a lot more assets in order to eventually reach my investment income goals.

What's your best piece(s) of financial advice and/or your general philosophy on personal finances?

My general philosophy on personal finances is generally one of being aggressive (focus more on offense than defense). I work very hard to grow my income and to create new income streams. I also don't shy away from debt when it provides me the ability to own an asset that will increase my wealth and income over time.

Keeping spending under control is important, however, to me its not fun to spend your whole life preventing yourself from spending money on things you want to spend money on (see country club membership above). Money is only a tool that can be used to acquire things, or to invest to earn more money.

I'm not shy about wanting big things out of life, but I also try to be smart about creating a plan and working extremely hard to execute in order to reach my goals.

My main piece of financial advice (more like "life advice") - don't let anyone tell you that you can't do something you want to do, or have something that you want to have. People achieve big things every day, and the people that achieve big things are the ones that believe in themselves. Some people think having money or nice things is evil, which is fine. But I don't believe that, and I am not afraid to strive hard for success.


Sunday, December 18, 2011

Free Money Finance

Free Money Finance


The Poor: A Cornerstone of Christian Generosity, Part 3

Posted: 18 Dec 2011 05:10 AM PST

For those of you new to Free Money Finance, I post on The Bible and Money every Sunday. Here's why.

The following is an excerpt from The Secret of Generosity, an excellent book on what the Bible says about the power of generosity. The author has kindly allowed me to publish excerpts of his chapter on "the poor" in support of my Red Kettle Challenge to help the needy. Today's excerpt is a continuation of last week's part 3.

The social justice gospel

In response to the previous portions of this chapter, we are in danger of making a critical mistake.  Excited and inspired to change teams and use our resources to rebuild lives, we are tempted to leave God behind.  There is a growing movement in modern Christianity that minimizes (or eliminates) the spiritual elements of biblical generosity.  This ideology focuses only on the physical effects of generosity such as food, water, or medical treatment, and neglects to offer the Bread of Life (John 6:35), Living Water (John 4:10), or the Great Physician (Matt. 9:12-13).  In a matter of speaking, this viewpoint worships giving itself rather than the God who calls us to live generously—turning faith into social idealism.

We have to take the gospel with us; otherwise, we make ourselves to be humanitarians or philanthropists rather than  Christians.  I believe this is one reason why Peter, immediately after challenging his readers to be eager to do good, reminds them:  "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." (1 Pet. 3:15, NIV)

The church must certainly focus on the physical needs of the poor but not in a way that neglects their spiritual needs.  After all, Christ did not come to make this world a better place.  He told us plainly that His kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36).  Instead, He died and rose again so that the dead (in sin) may rise with Him (Rom. 5).  This must be our aim as well:  To bring the redemptive, restorative power of the gospel to the broken, needy, and afflicted—not to fix society.  When we focus only on the physical effects of generosity, we begin to trust in the power of our resources rather than our Redeemer—our money rather than our Maker.  The gospel, and the God of it, must go with our generosity.

Should the poor give?

Because of how frequently I get asked this question, I felt it would be beneficial to include it in this chapter.  Before diving in, I would like to start with a little aside:  Study after study has shown time and time again that the poor tend to be more generous (proportionally) with their money than their higher-earning counterparts.  While we often can be a little melodramatic when debating this question, the poor themselves have apparently already answered it!

Should the poor give?  First, the Bible teaches that giving:  "is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have." (2 Cor. 8:12)  Therefore, if someone literally has nothing, then they have nothing to give.  This is permissible by scripture.  Secondly, several passages in the New Testament instruct grace-based giving to be proportional (Acts 11:29), meaning that a person with less means is free to give less.  However, the poor widow in the gospel accounts was unwilling to follow this principle and gave "all she had to live on" (Mark 12:44).  When Jesus observes her doing this, He does not correct her.  He commends her—pointing out her generosity to His disciples.

I think this is an issue where Christians are free to disagree, but personally I believe the poor should give for several reasons.  First and foremost, biblical generosity revolves around the heart.  If giving finds its anchor in the heart not the amount, why is our call to give dependent on our tax bracket?  When we distinguish subgroups as exempt, we unintentionally make giving about numbers.  Focusing on the heart would lead us to believe that the poor should give (even if it is a very small amount).

In addition, biblical giving is about spiritual principles not physical assets.  There are countless lessons in generosity that have nothing to do with money.  We reduce the spiritual aspects of generosity to economics when we instruct the poor to withhold their contributions (not to mention completely neglect God's promise to provide for those who are generous, Luke 12:22-34, Phil. 4:15-19).

Finally, if we say that only a certain income level is called to give, we get into the ugly mess of trying to decide what exactly "poor" means.  It's easy to see how quickly this would get complicated.  For all of these reasons, I would encourage the poor to give what they are able with a cheerful heart and faith in the Father's provision.

Final thought:  Eat your vegetables!

I am not casting the stone.  I have said the same thing to my own children on more than one occasion.  We all know the scene:  Children who won't eat their vegetables are urged on by their parents to do so because "there are starving kids in Africa who would be thankful to have food to eat."  As I have heard this phrase fall from my own lips, I have begun to wonder just how cramming broccoli down my son or daughter's throat in the name of African children does anything to help the hungry mouths in Africa...or any of the other continents for that matter!  In fact, it gets me thinking that from a very young age we make our children aware of the less fortunate in a context that has nothing to do with helping them.  How powerful would it be if we began to teach our children how to help the starving children of the world rather than keeping that soundbite in our back pocket to help get the vegetables down?

I remember having a meeting in the middle school room at my church and seeing hand-written posters hanging all over the walls.  Curious, and having time to kill, I began to take a closer look.  Each poster was titled:  "How will I be a part of a generous generation?"  Below the question were hand-written answers, signed by their authors, explaining how they were going to try to be a generous Christian in a self-centered, consumption-driven society.  I was inspired.  It gave me hope for tomorrow.  How remarkable of a legacy could we leave if we not only challenged our children with this type of thinking, but also lived out an example to follow?


The Poor, Part 4

Posted: 18 Dec 2011 03:05 AM PST

For those of you new to Free Money Finance, I post on The Bible and Money every Sunday. Here's why.

For the rest of the year I'm going to be highlighting verses relating to the poor on Sundays as a reminder of why I'm doing my $20k Red Kettle Challenge. Here are two for today:

  • Proverbs 31:10, 20: Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies. She extends a helping hand to the poor and opens her arms to the needy.

  • Proverbs 29:7 (NIV): The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.

Hope you're having a blessed holiday season.


Financial Translation Blog

Financial Translation Blog


The Death of Borders and Naïve Technological Determinism

Posted: 18 Dec 2011 12:04 PM PST



One very superficial way of looking at the present is to think that everything is changing very quickly and that the pace of change is only set to increase. The problem is we view progress as a straight arrow. This is because—after God and Joe DiMaggio died—our religion is technological progress. I am wary of all religions, but I'm particularly suspicious about secular ones.

Take the closure of Borders, for instance. Aha, the naïve technologist tells us: The book is dying. The sale of books is a moribund business. No one will read within 30 or 40 years, right about the time we are uploading our brains into Kurzweil machines. And if any reading occurs, it will be done from a screen. Although by then advances in speech software and optical character recognition will mean that most of our "e-reading" will probably be auditory. We will be listening to a computer program simulating the voice of Al Pacino as it read to us A Tale of Two Cities ("It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… HOOAAAAH!"). Unless, of course, we get our reading material uploaded immediately into our brains, a la The Matrix ("I know Dostoyevsky!").

But that is not how technological change works. People who don't know anything about literature or history extrapolate from their present time. And usually they get it wrong. Dead wrong.

Let's return to the closure of Borders. For readers not familiarized with the United States, it was a mega-chain of bookstores similar to Barnes and Noble. (For a cultural reference, Borders and B and N were the real-life equivalent of Tom Hanks's Fox Books chain in You've Got Mail, which ended up mercilessly crushing Meg Ryan's little children's book shop.) Now, of course, the Borders bankruptcy is driven by changes in the book industry (although massively bad management also played a part). The thing is "change" is such a pedestrian category for looking at society that it is almost tantamount to saying nothing. Open any history book at random about any period and you will find that "the thirteenth century was a time of upheaval" or "the Iron Age brought about a revolution in the way human beings lived." Whenever I read a sentence like that in a history book, I wish I could throw the damn thing at the lazy bastard who wrote it. It is such a tired trope. "You will not bathe twice in the same river" (because both the river and you are not the same). It was probably already a commonplace thought by the time Heraclitus wrote it in Ancient Greece. Yes, change is the substance of humanity and society. Tell me something I don't know, Einstein.

As a bibliophile, believe me, I will not mourn the passing of Borders. Chains like that seemed intent on hiring the most ignorant sonsabitches they could find. And the seven-foot piles of books by the latest spazzmo or in-the-closet-but-fooling-no-one celeb who placed third or fourth on "American Idol" are nothing to rue. The passing of Borders means that another example of vulgar, mass commercialism has gone on to meet its forefathers. That is nothing to cry over.

Instead, the really interesting development is that independent bookstores still exist. In the naïve vision of the technological determinist, e-books and Amazon should have blown away first small bookstores and later Borders. But it was Borders, with its mega-balance sheet, its bloated ranks of middle managers, its relentless commoditization of the book, its ruthless exploitation of razor-thin profit margins to squeeze competitors… yes, this monstrosity was the company that bit the dust first. In the mean time, better-managed competitors and smaller bookstores are thriving in the midst of this soft version of the Great Depression we are currently living through. The New York Times reports the following:
Barnes and Noble, the nation's largest bookstore chain, said that comparable store sales this Thanksgiving weekend increased 10.9 percent from that period last year. The American Booksellers Association, a trade group for independents, said last week that members saw a sales jump of 16 percent in the week including Thanksgiving, compared with the same period a year ago.
That is the really fascinating development. The likeliest thing is that the retail book industry will be a barbell. Amazon will be one of the dumbbells, sucking up revenue like a vacuum cleaner and driving down the prices for everything. Behind Amazon will be a bloated Barnes and Noble, huffing and puffing under the weight of expensive rental contracts as it tries to reinvent itself as a tech company. And, on the other end of the barbell, a smaller dumbbell will consist of thousands of tiny, niche bookstores, providing a service to local communities. So, please, go out and celebrate. Buy yourself a book from your local bookstore staffed by one of those impossibly arrogant people who inexplicably still work at a bookstore. Luxuriate in the rudeness of their snooty contempt. Reality is always more interesting than ideology.

(For an essay making a similar point to mine, visit this blog. Our naïve ideas of the past and the way technology changes things are at the heart of the misperceptions described there as well.)

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Free Money Finance

Free Money Finance


College Towns Can Be Great for Retirement

Posted: 17 Dec 2011 03:08 AM PST

Moneyland likes the idea of retiring in a college town saying the following:

A lot of retirees find what they want in a college town. That means value, first and foremost. But it also means high energy, good healthcare facilities, continuing education opportunities, and a rich cultural environment.

So, their thoughts are that you can downsize, buying a nice home for a fraction of what you'd sell your current one for, and move to a nice place that has a lot going on.

But there's something I think they are missing -- another reason why I might consider moving to a college town (if I wasn't already in one): a job.

I've always thought that I would work part-time in semi-retirement/retirement and one option for working would be to teach at a college. I could either stay where I am and do this (we have several colleges in my city) or potentially move to a different (nicer?) location in a better climate. There's still time to think this over, but to me this is another great reason to consider a college town for retirement.

But I have one question: are there any downsides I'm missing? Like drunk students driving at all hours of the night? Becoming a ghost town in the summer? Having 60k fans wanting to park in your yard for a football game? I guess the answers probably depend on which college town you live in, where you live there (close to the campus or not), and so on.

Anyone live in a college town? Do you like it? Why or why not?