Updates of this week - Carnival Of week 3/27/06 - 4/3/06
Time past so fast, today is Monday for another week. This week, There are a lot of great and hot articles were being posted in this week carnival events in money blog. Another good news is this week, My Journey to financial freedom, is so proud to submit 3 articles to the carnivals. So here is the chart of carnival:
| Carnival For Week 3/27 - 4/3 2006 | ||
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Carnival
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Hosting Site
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Article Summited By Journey To Financial Freedom
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Carnival of Personal Finance
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Things You must do to achieve Financial Freedom | |
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Carnival of Debt Reduction
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Be Careful if you invest using debt | |
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Festival of Frugality
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Frugal For Life |
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Carnival of Investing
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Invest to financial freedom - 12 Investment Tools for your Personal Finance.
Today, I have nothing to do. So I sat down and open my Microsoft word and intend to type something out. I just type anything. Suddenly I came out an idea to list down all the investment tools that we might use for Personal finance or achieve financial freedom.
Below is what I type on brainstorming and without any long explanation:
Bonds : Returns more than Banks can give, low risk. However returns still low.
Saving: The most secure options to manage your money. However, returns are really low and consider weak compare with inflation rate.
Stock: Have the possibility to gain high returns, high liquidity but most of the time, risk is quite high.
Mutual Funds: Combination investment, invest diversification, most of time have at least one fund manager or expert to manage the fund or your money. However, your returns are too depend on the average returns of all investment in mutual funds.
Gold: The most trust worthy investment and can be make as long term investment in your plan. A good “weapon†to fight with inflation rate.
Forex: So far is the most aggressive investment that I found. Returns are extremely high. However, the risk also high and the market are easy affected by international news, events and politic decisions. So it is hard to be control.
Real Estate: Can reduce the risk of inflation rate for your money. One of the most popular investment tool in the market. Risk are depend on housing market and your management skill.
Life Insurance: Basic investment for many people. Protection is high but hardly can be depend for your retirement.
Coins (I don’t know the name exactly, please remind me if you know) : have its own value and artistic value, low production. But investment modal is high and this is periodicity investment.
Stamps: Hobby type of investment. You can enjoy it while you can make some money from it. But only if you are stamps collector and this investment is hardly get any returns in short period.
Antique: Something that not only can beautify your house but also can be an investment. However you need to have some expertise in antique, high modal investment and long term investment.
Lotto/ gambling : Really an investment? “invest†small but gain big. But once you addicted, your future will be ruin!
Above are just some of the list that I can think about and I believe that are a lot of different investment tools that available in the market. Maybe I don’t know or I miss it. Anyway, the best way to invest is having a plan that consist different type of investment to assist you to achieve what ever you want.
Debt Control - Pay Down Credit Card Debt : APR vs Minimum Payment
Credit card debt is one of the most ” famous” debt that all most everyone of us have in life. Get into credit card debt is just as easy as ABC. I think the reason mostly because credit card is attacking the weakess point of human - Emotion. Sometimes it is hard to control our emotion especially when you found something that you like to buy and you know you have a plastic card that let you buy it right now but pay it later.
Anyway, if you cannot stand it anymore, then you must get ready and prepare a plan to pay down your credit card debt. I read a lot of forum and I found that many people ask a question how they should pay down their multiple credit card debts. Pay them according to the APR where the card with the highest APR goes first or minimum payment where the highest payment is the first choice?
My points of views :
If this case happen to me, then I will choose the first option - Pay down the highest APR debt. There are several reasons to do this :
- The total amount of debt you going to pay is directly affected by APR. You will have the highest risk with high APR debt because you debt will become bigger easily than other if anything happen.
- Some of the highest APR card sometimes has the lower monthly minimum payment. So if you choose the option 2, then this danger debt will be the last one to be paid off.
- Anyway, pay the highest APR card is more aggressive than the option 2. In long run, this will be the fastest way to settle down all the credit card debts.
