From the category archives:

Personal Finance

Now that you have an emergency fund in the works…

October 21, 2009 by Ryan Barr

After my last post about what an emergency fund is and how to build one up, I’m hoping that everyone who read it is on their way to get that started! Having something as basic as an emergency fund is a must, especially in times of economic stress.  I’m not going to get into a [...]

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Building an Emergency Fund

October 7, 2009 by Ryan Barr

It’s been a while since I’ve written any posts regarding personal finance, and I happen to think this is a very important topic. Yesterday, my wife and I were discussing how and when to pay off my car. That is one of the few debts we still have and one that we decided made sense [...]

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It’s Official – You ARE going to pay your neighbors mortgage

September 11, 2009 by Ryan Barr

I cannot begin to explain how angry this makes me, I’m not kidding when I say that I can feel the anger building up after reading this.  The FDIC, on a Friday afternoon with no vote, no say, no representation, from the people is socializing mortgages and making you and me pay for it.  I [...]

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Managing Money Long Term – Some Additional Thoughts

August 27, 2009 by Ryan Barr

A few days ago I wrote about my internal struggles in determining what is the best allocation of funds for my 401(k).  Well, I’ve gone back and forth, again and again trying to figure out the best move. The biggest constraint is simply the funds available in my 401(k).  I’m not horribly comfortable throwing 100% [...]

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First things first…

February 22, 2009 by Ryan Barr

If you haven’t already done so.  It is well past time to get your financial house in order. So lets start with the basics Do you know where your spend your money?  Chances are, if your finances are out of control, you have no idea how much, or where you are spending.  How do you [...]

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If you don’t yet have a budget….

November 15, 2008 by Ryan Barr

Get one, and stick to it! We are about to enter one of the most difficult economic cycles that our country has ever seen.  There are a myriad of reasons for this; and most of them boil down to a lack of personal responsibility. It’s time to take responsibility for one of the most basic [...]

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The economics of depression

November 14, 2008 by Ryan Barr

I’m obviously not a liberal, and a lot of the time I don’t fully subscribe the things that Paul Krugman talks about… However, the guy is flat out brilliant and you know, in this post I think he has a pretty darn good point.  I’m going to copy in a few of the things that [...]

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Cash, Cash and More Cash

July 15, 2008 by Ryan Barr

Today I received an interesting note from The Vanguard Group. The article is titled: “Do you spend more when you use credit cards?” And of course, the answer is YES! Here are just a few things that are cited in the article that I found very interesting: Visa says that it reviewed 100,000 restaurant transactions [...]

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Paying off your debt

April 19, 2008 by Ryan Barr

So, if you’ve read any of my other posts on personal finance you’ve likely figured out that I think debt (that doesn’t make you any money) is bad.  If debt is bad, and you have it, then you’re goal should be to get out of it! How to get out of bad debt… There are [...]

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How to ruin your retirement

April 14, 2008 by Ryan Barr

Borrow from your 401k. A few days ago I was at a dinner party with some friends. We were talking about a ton of different issues from politics to economics and during the course of the conversation privatization of retirement plans came up. One of the folks in the conversation said that he supported privatization [...]

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