Should I Buy Disney Stock?

I am a huge fan of the Walt Disney Corporation’s products. I shudder to think how much money I have dropped on their theme parks alone in the past five years. I think they do a wonderful job, have great assets and seem like a great company. So I should buy their stock, right? Hold Up Right There

“Good” Doesn’t Mean “Well Priced”

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Tax Minimization Strategies

Disclaimer:  I am not an accountant or a tax professional and any advice here should be verified with a professional before acting upon it.

I’m doing my taxes this week.  It’s going to be painful and I’m not going to like the answers it gives me, but I might as well bite the bullet.  If you’re in the same boat you may be looking for strategies to help you minimize your taxes this year.  There are several categories of expenses that we should consider as possible sources of tax deductions:

Business Expenses

Most of the minimization strategies you will see are for people with small businesses.  You open up a world of deductions by starting a business, however this who area of deductions doesn’t apply to most of us.  Consider starting a business if you have one in mind, but we’ll cover individual deductions instead since they are of the broadest interest.

Tax-Deferred Accounts

Make sure you put any money into your IRA, 401(k), HAS or any other tax advantaged accounts you have.  Not having to pay taxes can be a huge savings by itself.  When you throw in the capacity of some of the accounts to grow tax-free, this is a no brainer.

Unemployment

This is very relevant to all of us in this economic climate.  If you lost your job, many of the expenses that you incur in your job search are tax deductable.  Phone calls, agency fees, travel to potential employers as well as costs for printing resumes may all be deductible.  Be sure to take advantage of any opportunities to lessen your tax burden in this climate.
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Do Economics Matter?

I write generally about three topics on this site:

• Personal Finance
• Investing
• Economics

I list them in that order based on what I perceive as the general public’s interest level.  Most people are concerned with getting out of debt and maintaining a budget – Personal finance issues.  Those who have succeeded at those tasks become more interested in how to put their savings to work for them and become interested in investing.  Very few people proceed to an interest in policy and economics, and perhaps rightly so.  It’s certainly not immediately clear that an understanding of economics is beneficial to your personal wealth.

The Case for Economics

There are obvious reasons to believe that an understanding of economics should be a great asset in your financial life.  Inflation is one of the examples.  If I judge accurately what future inflation will look like, this can greatly improve my ability to choose good investments.  If I can look at upcoming legislation and see what its effects will be, I should be able to capitalize on that.  It seems like a slam dunk that an economic view should be a great boon to my financial freedom.

However…

Sadly, economists have a habit of being spectacularly wrong.  Even when they aren’t completely wrong, it’s very difficult to profit off of their decisions.  For example, right now treasuries are already priced very low because of a perception that inflation in the future will be high.  So even if that perception is correct, the expected price change is already “baked into the cake;” and if they’re wrong, there’s a chance for spectacular loss.

So Why Bother?

Despite all this I have a nasty habit of continuing to write about the big picture, particularly policy.  One reason I do this is because I believe that a basic understanding of economics can help you make wise decisions in your day to day life, not just in your investing life.  The law of supply and demand may not be useful in deciding whether to buy Microsoft, but it can be useful in starting a business or in deciding what political policies to pursue.  While the value of economic understanding may be questionable for investing purposes, its value in life is much less questionable.

The More Things Change

Many sage investing professionals have a saying:  The most dangerous words in the English language are this time it’s different. Each time that politicians proudly proclaim that we’ve defeated the boom and bust cycle for example, we know how the story always ends.  The more things change, the more things stay the same.
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Wednesday Links — March 16, 2010

We’ll all just agree to pretend last weeks Wednesday had some links in it, okay? Haven’t been reading as much this week so I thought I’d go with fewer links and more discussion:

• Investing First Steps combs the NASDAQ for dividend finds.  While the findings are slim, you’ll note that once you sell calls on the positions the yields look similar to stocks with higher dividends.
• Canadian Finance Blog talks about passive income investing for retirement.  I think this is something really important for most people closing in on retirement to consider.  If you can build “machines” that create a little bit of income for you, your savings for retirement can last dramatically longer.  Think about how much less you need to have to retire if 10% of your expenses are met by passive income.  Can make a huge difference in when you can retire.
• I’ve mentioned before that HSA’s are vital to your financial plan.  I also think they could be a huge part of fixing healthcare.  Free From Broke has a good post about their benefits as well.  All of the points made are good and I think their convenience is something I’ve failed to mention before.  Most of them act like a debit card, how easy is that?
• Miranda Marquit discusses how effective spending can be as important as effective saving as well as discussing 529 savings plans.

Is Debt consolidation the right solution for you?

Today’s post is a guest post by David Brown,  a financial writer with Oak view law group

Have you been hit by the money bug? Are you suffocating under the burden of multiple debts? Well, debt consolidation can be one of your options. However, you need to know certain things before you decide to consolidate your debt. Read on to know more:

How can debt consolidation help me?

• If you have a poor monthly income right now then debt consolidation provides you the option of making lower installments over a longer period of time. It might certainly suit your current financial condition

• If you have several loans right now then you might be facing a tough time calculating interest rates. With debt consolidation you take a single loan to pay off all your debts. So you can manage your finances in a more organized manner.

• You need not handle calls from the collection agency. The debt consolidation company does that for you.

What are the shortcomings of debt consolidation?

• In most cases debt consolidation loans are secured loans. This means that you have to pledge some asset (your car or your home) as collateral for the loan. So you risk losing your assets in case you fail to pay back the loan. You should be confident about health, job and other unpredictable issues which can cause financial trouble. To be eligible for unsecured consolidation loans you must have a pretty good credit rating. Even if you manage to get a unsecured consolidation loan with a poor rating, it will probably not be big enough to pay all your debts.

• Many people wrongly assume that all consolidation loans have low interest rates. However it’s a different story altogether. In most cases the payment is lower because of the extended term and not the interest rate. Secured consolidation loans sometimes have a low interest. But it can still cost you if you are taking a long term loan, say for 30 years. In such cases you have to pay interest for a long period of time and over the years the interest might grow even bigger than the original debt amount. Depending on your present debt, the interest rates for these consolidation loans can be more than those on the pre-existing debt. That is what makes debt consolidation a profitable business for your lenders.

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