Posted: December 30th, 2009 | Author: Joe | Filed under: 10 Investment Tips for Beginners, Credit, Debt, Economy, Investing, Scam | Tags: 401(k), bailout, blogging, Cramer, Credit, Credit Cards, Debt, Investing, Stock Market, Stocks | No Comments »
What a year it’s been!
As the history books close on 2009, I thought it might be nice to take a look back on the topics that were hot on Simple Debt-Free Finance over the past year.
2009 saw a lot of talk about the future of the 401(k). It seems only natural, given that it is one of the major means of saving for retirement for many American workers who had just seen those savings drop like a stone in the 2008 stock market crash. A lot of the talk was centered around ways to “fix” the 401(k) when it isn’t broken. This bothered me enough to blog about it in that post as well as Fixing What Isn’t Broken and Why 401K Retirement Plans Really Don’t Work And How To Fix Them
Many workers, like myself, saw their company contributions to 401(k) plans cut or “temporarily” suspended. My response to that was to give my 401(k) some TLC, a move which paid off when my balance returned to pre-crash levels in the 3rd quarter of 2009.
Bank Failures.
Another hot topic of the beginning of the year was bank failures. So many failures naturally led many to wonder what the FDIC insurance limits cover.
Investing.
2008 was a big year for gold, and 2009 was even bigger. Such a bullish environment for gold led Rosland Capital to offer Gold Eagle coins for IRA accounts.
The 2008 crash created an historic opportunity for investors to “buy low”, but it also offered many reminders of what not to do. To that end, I shared Jim Cramer’s 10 commandments of stock trading.
Since the crash created a great opportunity for new investors to get into stocks at levels unseen in a decade, I put together a list of 10 investment tips for beginners:
1 Follow The Rules
2 Be Aware Of Taxes
3 Don’t Confuse Investing With Trading
4 Tune Out The Media
5 Don’t Tune Out Too Much
6 Pay Attention To Risk
7 Don’t Avoid Reality
8 Don’t Fall For Hot Stock Tips
9 Don’t Try To Time The Market
10 Try Before You Buy
In other news, some investing sites seemed to want to attack index fund investing in all the wrong ways. I had to respond to their criticism of index fund investing.
Kiplinger was nice enough to provide a 1st phase of credit card consumer protection rules went into effect.
I had a couple of posts about 0% balance transfer offers, mostly because 0% balance transfer offers were coming to an end at the same time my wife received a 0.99% balance transfer offer.
Since it seemed to be a hot topic, for me anyway, I decided to share 6 things you should know about 0% APR credit card offers.
And all this at a time when Bank of America began imposing fees for paying off your balance… idiots!
Government Bailouts.
2009 is likely to be remembered best for the bailout craze that gripped the auto sector, bank sector, heck – the entire nation!
credit card consumers got a bailout, the NASDAQ released a “government relief index” for tracking bailed out companies and cash for clunkers gave charities some competition
What would a debt blog be without posts about, well, debt?
The year started out with discussions about toxic debt and ended with the mortgage debt relief program going until 2012.
In between was some discussion of whether debt settlement is a good idea, and why debt consolidation is (sometimes) a scam. When it’s not a scam, debt settlement and loan consolidation just doesn’t work, and you’re much better off taking a DIY approach to debt consolidation.
And just to round out the debt consolidation talk, I shared how it affects your credit score.
I asked, “Why are you in debt?”, but not too many people answered, so I got the top 10 causes for debt from BankRate.com. 
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Posted: May 14th, 2009 | Author: Joe | Filed under: Sponsored | Tags: blogging, Web Hosting | 1 Comment »
If you’re thinking of joining the masses and take up blogging, you’re going to have to decide on hosting – don’t make the same mistake I did!
When I started this blog, I did it on the cheap. I figured, I didn’t really have the money to spend month after month on hosting. I thought about WordPress, but they were too limiting.
In the end I settled for another “free” host, and got exactly what I paid for. I have to say, in the beginning it was quite nice. But then, one day, the administrator got a little carried away and deleted my blog!
I got a message stating that my site was either spam or adult oriented and was removed for violating the agreement! I dunno, maybe they thought this was financial porn?
The point is this: If you’re going to blog, do it right from the start – Don’t skimp on web hosting!
One of the best resources I’ve seen for finding and rating web hosting providers is WebHostingGeeks.com.
Features:
- A top 10 list of providers – with ratings.
- Resources to help learn more about Website Hosting
- Finding The Best Web Hosting Service
and much, much more.
Their blog dishes dirt on the web hosting industry, as well as providing tips for hosting or finding hosting – even a little SEO thrown in now and then.
If you’re thinking of taking the leap and need to find hosting, check them out.
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Posted: November 19th, 2008 | Author: Joe | Filed under: Sponsored | Tags: blogging, hosting, Sponsored | 1 Comment »
Good web hosting is essential to success in the online marketplace. Whether you are a small business owner or even a part time blogger you need a web presence, and that starts with web hosting.
When I was looking for a host for this blog, I was quickly overwhelmed by the multitude of options I found. I knew I wanted hosting, a domain and support for word press, but even given those parameters there was a lot to weed through. Enter Web Hosting Geeks.
Web Hosting Geeks provides an excellent repository of website hosting providers. Check out there site. They have a top 10 providers list, but you can also search for hosting providers by any of the following:
Or you can narrow the field to the best host for Unix, Windows, PHP, Dedicated hosting, blogs and more.
They also provide a Web Hosting Guide to help prospective website/blog owner decide how best to find the host solution that fits his needs. It covers the basics like support and security, OS and programming tools, bandwidth, uptime and pricing.
I wish I’d known about Web Hosting Geeks when I was looking for a host when I set this blog up. I don’t think I would have made a different choice in the end (I use GoDaddy and have been very pleased), but Web Hosting Geeks would have made the whole shopping process a lot quicker and easier.
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Posted: September 2nd, 2008 | Author: Joe | Filed under: Saving, spending | Tags: blogging, Cheap, hosting | 2 Comments »
Case in point: Blog Hosting.
I really should have known better, but the cheap skinflint in me got the better of me.
When I started this blog, I was doing it more or less as a hobby and didn’t want to spend any money. Not a dime. There is so much free software available today, I thought I could do it. The one hitch to the whole approach was hosting.
I found a lot of free hosting sites, but most required ads to be displayed. I didn’t want to plaster my pages with ads – especially if I wasn’t earning any of the revenue and didn’t have control over where they appeared.
Then I discovered delishio.net.
They seemed like a winning proposition. They didn’t post ads on my page. They didn’t cost a dime. They even had some fairly nice templates to choose from. I spent a weekend configuring and selecting plugins and templates, and away I went.
Everything went swimmingly for about 8 months, but a part of me didn’t trust it. There was always an inner voice somewhere saying: “You never get something for free.” So I made a habit of exporting my posts every few posts, thinking that I could at least have a backup if delishio ever pulled the plug.
Well, it’s a good thing I did because that’s what happened.
Regular readers of this blog will have noticed 2 things:
- The site was down for almost two weeks – without warning.
- The site now looks completely different.
Well, long story short – the admin of delishio.net decided that this site constituted either spam or “hardcore porn” and summarily deleted it. Without warning.
I don’t know, maybe this site is like some kind of hardcore finance porn?
Anyway, I can complain ’till the cows come home but the fault is ultimately mine. I paid nothing for blog hosting, and I got what I paid for.
Caveat emptor, baby. Some lessons are harder to learn than others. I read mountains of recommendations saying I should have paid for hosting, and I should have listened.
The moral of this sad tale is to beware the skinflint in all of us, and don’t just go with the cheapest option presented to us; some things are worth the price.
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