James' World 2

Click the link below the picture

.

.

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Over the last 15 years, I whittled down close to six figures of debt I acquired from living beyond my means. In that time, I alternated between ignoring it, agonizing over it, and finally, taking action; I became debt-free last year. Along the way, I read lots of books about money. Since April is National Financial Literacy Month, I wanted to share these nine books about personal finance that each taught me something valuable about managing my money.

The first few are more about the emotional aspects of money, which is where I faced my biggest financial stumbling blocks, while others get into the nitty-gritty of managing your money. I haven’t followed any single book to the letter, which would be impossible since some give contradictory advice. I also don’t necessarily agree with everything each of these authors writes. I have, however, gained the confidence and knowledge I’m using to keep my finances on an upward trajectory. I also learned what doesn’t work for me. I know reading any single book can’t make money simply appear in your bank account (though wouldn’t that be wonderful?), but diving into the topic helped me grapple with the ways I treated money that I wanted to change.

.

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Her mom grew up on a wheat farm, and for years, the government had been paying her family $15,000 a year to not farm. It was an attempt to keep land from being overused, and that money was basically the extent of Megan’s relationship with agriculture: the source of a yearly gift, the money she and her mom would wait for before, say, buying furniture or making home repairs. Now Megan, who asked to be referred to by a pseudonym to speak freely about her finances, receives that money directly.

In 2019, at the age of 64, Megan’s mother died. It was expected and unexpected. Her mom had been a cancer survivor for 20 years. But chemotherapy had damaged her heart, and two years ago, she went into cardiac arrest.

On the phone, Megan, 38, runs me through the process of settling her mother’s estate. It was a ton of bureaucracy: so many phone calls, so much paperwork. After paying her mom’s bills and taxes, selling off her house and possessions, and handling lawyers’ fees — setting aside for just a second the small piece of land that makes her an agricultural scion — it came to just under $50,000.

.

Francesco Ciccolella and Roman Buchberger for Vox

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

There’s a school of thought that you should spend down all your assets in retirement and “bounce the check to the undertaker,” as Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, our publisher, likes to say. But not many Americans subscribe to that school of thought. A fascinating survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute explores how people feel about spending in retirement. It doesn’t fit with finance theory. “There’s just something we’re not getting quite right in understanding how people navigate retirement,” Lori Lucas, the president, and chief executive officer of EBRI, said March 24 in announcing the results.

As this first chart shows, only 14.1% of respondents think they’ll spend down all their assets. If you add up the three left-most columns, 57% plan to grow their assets in retirement, leave them untouched, or spend down only a little. The survey by EBRI, a nonprofit research group, was conducted in September and covered 2,000 Americans ages 62 to 75, 97% of whom were retired. So U.S. undertakers don’t need to fear bounced checks.

.

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Unlocking the benefits of dividends 

Typically, investors make most of their money in the stock market by selling shares at a profit. But by purchasing shares of dividend-paying stocks, you can get rewarded regularly for holding onto those shares.

Companies pay their investors dividends based on the number of shares they own. If, for example, a company distributes an annual dividend of $2 per share and you own 1,000 shares, you’ll qualify for $2,000 in dividends as long as you’ve met the holding period requirements. 

Typically, dividends are paid quarterly, though a small minority of companies distribute them on other schedules. Each time the board of directors declares a dividend, you will receive deposits in your account. And if a company increases its dividend payout — which some have a habit of doing at least once a year — you’ll get those “pay raises” without having to do anything extra at all. 

.

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

.

__________________________________________