The Basics – Real Estate Investing
December 10, 2014
What is Real Estate Investing? Traditionally many people have regarded real estate investing as investing in your own home, and making profit through selling the house after it has increased substantially (capital appreciation). This is certainly a tax advantaged approach, as the first $250,000 profit if you are single or the first $500,000 if you are married, is not taxed as capital gains, giving you huge savings. However, this is also a risky proposition, as house prices can go down as well as up, and so requires good market timing (or maybe luck). Continue Reading
The Basics – What are Bonds?
December 5, 2014
What are bonds? Bonds are essentially loans to a company or government, so that they can use this money to expand into new markets in the case of companies, or pay for public programs in terms of governments. Large organizations will often need to borrow significant sums of money, more than is usual to borrow from banks. Thus, bonds are used to raise money publicly, which allows for large numbers of investors to lend the money to the organization that issues the bond. Continue Reading
The Basics – What are Stocks?
December 1, 2014
What are Stocks? Stocks, which are also called shares or equity, are a share of the ownership of a company, representing claim on the company’s assets and its earnings. Thus, in holding the stock of a company you have a claim to everything that the company owns, typically a very small claim as an individual investor, entitling you to a share of earnings and potential voting rights belonging to the stock. However, this does not mean you have a say in how to run this publicly traded company day to day. Continue Reading
The Basics – What is an ETF?
November 28, 2014
What is an ETF? There are number of ways to invest in stocks in the market, and one popular choice is through Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). This popularity is derived from being able to combine the features of mutual funds with those of trading stocks.
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The Basics – Mutual Fund Investing
November 22, 2014
What is a mutual fund? For many of us one of the easiest ways to invest is through mutual funds in our employers 401k/403b retirement plan. These plans mostly allow your to invest in mutual funds, and so what are mutual funds? They are an investment vehicle that takes money from investors, which is you and I, and pools this money together to buy investments that are typically a mixture of stocks, bonds and cash. When you buy a mutual fund, you are buying shares of the fund that contains these investments. Nowadays there are plenty of different types of mutual funds to buy, which can differ in their strategy of investing
Get Paid for Ads on your Smart Phone
November 16, 2014
There are several ways in which you can earn extra cash on your smart phone and one interesting approach is to allow ads on the lock screen of your smartphone. Two companies will do this for android devices, which are Continue Reading
Money Versus Currency
November 7, 2014
Did you know that the dollar has lost 98% of its value since 1913? Did you know that the dollar and other currencies used to be backed by gold, and now are only backed by government decree? (i.e., it is worth something because the government says that it is worth something! Does this mean then that it really has any value?). This drop in value of the dollar and other currencies is due to inflation, which is basically money printing by the government (both democrat and republican). How do you protect against inflation? Well there are several approaches Continue Reading
Best Stocks Now
November 1, 2014
There are several investing styles that may help you rapidly increase your net worth. In the beginning it is best to ramp up your savings but once you get into higher numbers being invested, say above $100,000, 10 or 20% gains tend to be significant amounts. One great approach is to use index funds across diversified sectors, as this minimizes fees and it tends to beat about 80% of active investing styles. Another approach is to focus on being in the right sectors at the right time, as some part of the stock marked is always making money, be it up or down. One of my favorite ways to take this sector approach is through Continue Reading
Low Cost Travel – Travel for “Work”
October 28, 2014
One way to tackle the travel bug, if you have it, is to try and get a lot of your traveling paid for by work. My ideal travel jobs would be as a surfer or as a tropical marine biologist, enabling me to go off to exquisite tropical islands, and at someone else’s expense, while I spend my time diving and surfing! Alas, I am certainly not the greatest surfer by any means, and so I am mainly stuck in the lab or teaching. What ways can you still go on trips and adventures while being frugal? Continue Reading
Cheap Travel Accommodation – Airbnb
October 20, 2014
Wanting to travel the world while still maintaining a frugal lifestyle? Well, there are a few great options to choose from, with staying with friends or family often being a good way but what happens if you want to go to far off lands, where this is not an option? There are a few ways to get accommodation that is cheaper than the average hotel. One way that Mrs Frugal Prof and I tried more recently, for trips to Hawaii, central London and also to the Lake District in the UK was Continue Reading