Thing One A Tale Of Three Savings Plans Once upon a time, there was a person who earned $12 per hour, working diligently at their job for 40 hours a week. They harbored a dream of saving up to a million dollars through careful savings and investments. Here are three tales of how this dream could unfold, all with an assumed 7% annual return on investment: The Moderate Saver's Tale: Our protagonist chose to save 20% of their net income after taxes, which came to $3,840 ea

Thing One To Pay Down Or Invest, That Is The Question To get to the answer you are going to have to balance potential returns against the cost of borrowing. Totally paying off debt is like earning a guaranteed return equal to the interest rate of the debt. For example, if you have a credit card debt with an 18% interest rate, by paying it off, you effectively gain an 18% return on your money, which is often higher than what many investment vehicles might offer in the shor

Thing One Revisiting The Social Security and Medicare Issue We've previously mentioned the ticking time bombs that are the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. The former is projected to be insolvent by 2035 and the later by 2026. Given the dire nature of the situation, we believe that all options for addressing the impending crises should be on the table, including means testing, which would essentially reduce benefits for well-off “older people”. With that in mi