A Personal Finance Blog for Regular Folks
In my Betterment review I talked about how they make investing easy for someone who wants to start investing but doesn’t know where to start. Now they are adding a cool incentive to their program:
In order to qualify for the bonus you need to make an initial deposit of $250 when you open your account.
[Read more…] about Betterment $25 Signup Bonus – Start Investing Smart and Simple
A little while back the S.E.C. recommended that stock brokers be required to act as fiduciaries. This would mean they would have to act in the best interest of their customers. The New York Times reviewed the salient issues on their Bucks Blog.
We think this is a no-brainer: OF COURSE brokers should act in the best interest of their customers – and they should be legally liable if they do not.
[Read more…] about Brokers Should be Legally Liable to Act in the Best Interest of Their Customers
One of the ways you can improve your financial stability and freedom is by cultivating income diversity. Income diversity means that, rather than relying on a single source of income, you actually develop different income streams. One way that you can increase your income streams is through income investing.
Prosper.com is a personal loan and investing site with over one million members and over two hundred fifteen million dollars in personal loans funded since 2006. Using a unique person to person lending model, prosper.com connects borrowers and lenders and allows them to establish a mutually beneficial financial relationship. Prosper offers borrowers rates as low as 5.9% and lender returns as high as 10.1% (this varies, of course based on your borrowing and lending situation).
[Read more…] about How To Prosper With Peer to Peer Lending – A review of Prosper.com
Dividends are a portion of a company’s earnings that is returned to shareholders. When a public company is profitable, they primarily have seven methods to invest their profits:
1. Hire new employees
2. Pay existing employees a higher salary
3. Purchase equipment and/or services
4. Merge or acquire another company
5. Purchase stock shares on the open market (otherwise known stock buyback)
6. Distribute the profit to shareholders (otherwise known as dividends)
7. Do nothing and save it for a rainy day.
This article discusses primarily number six.
[Read more…] about What Are Dividends?
