As featured in The Wall Street Journal, Money Magazine, and more!

October 2006

My Company’s Stock Purchase Plan

by Luke Landes

Enrollment starts soon for my company’s stock purchase plan. Here is how it works. If an employee chooses to participate, after-tax funds are deferred from each paycheck and deposited into a cash account at E*Trade, at a rate of 1 percent to 10 percent of eligible earnings (salary and overtime). Since the payroll deductions are after-tax, they ... Continue reading this article…

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The Top Posts in the Personal Finance Blogosphere, Every Day

by Luke Landes

If you want to see what’s popular in the ever-expanding set of personal finance blogs, take a look at the pfblogs.org pop page every day. All of the entries are less than 24 hours old, but you get to see what others are interested in reading. You can also filter the results to display only ... Continue reading this article…

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What Can We Learn From SAS Real Estate?

by Luke Landes

Yesterday, the broker/owner of SAS Real Estate responded to the bad customer service issues I wrote about concerning a $300 refund due to me. She was unhappy the story was published, although she couldn’t dispute the facts. The whole problem would have been avoided if SAS did the Right Thing from the beginning. In this ... Continue reading this article…

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Review and Giveaway: The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing: Asset Allocation

by Luke Landes

This is a look at the eighth chapter of The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing, by Taylor Larimore, Mel Lindauer, and Michael LeBoeuf. This chapter focuses on asset allocation, the “most important portfolio decision.” The authors start by reviewing empirical research from the 20th century, including the studies that resulted in the development of Efficient Market ... Continue reading this article…

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Asset Allocation Report, September 2006

by Luke Landes

I’ve never taken a good look at my entire asset allocation. Now is a good time to do so, as I’ll be posting my review of The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing for JLP’s Boglehead’s October Project tomorrow. This allocation looks at my entire collection of things (other than furniture and household items), invested, uninvested, and ... Continue reading this article…

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Looking for Apartments, Update 7: SAS Real Estate Responds

by Luke Landes

Well, apparently SAS Real Estate came across my latest update on the $300 apartment deposit story, originating in June, and which I concluded in September. Sylvia from the company posted a comment on a prior post, and I’ll include her points here, to be fair:

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Robert Kiyosaki and Donald Trump Want You To Be Rich!

by Luke Landes

Real estate investing guru Robert Kiyosaki and real estate millionaire Donald Trump have teamed up to write a new book, Why We Want You to be Rich. With Kiyosaki’s cult following and Trump’s popularity, it’s sure to be a hit. Will you be buying the book or skipping this one? Personally, it’s likely I’ll pass. ... Continue reading this article…

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Winner of Giveaway Announced!

by Luke Landes

The selection of winners for giveaways on Consumerism Commentary is a supersecret process being kept confidential by the CIA. Therefore, I can only provide the results. The winner of last week’s giveaway is Jon K. The topic was the relationship between social drinking and career advancement, and here is part of Jon K’s comment: My ... Continue reading this article…

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David Bach’s Five Rules for Hiring an Financial Advisor

by Luke Landes

A few years ago, I had a brief chat with a financial advisor provided to me by my company, which also happens to be in financial services. I listened to what he had to say, but he was searching for commissions. His only offerings were expensive mutual funds. I decided to wait until I had ... Continue reading this article…

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The Carnival and Giveaway Reminder

by Luke Landes

The home of the Carnival of Personal Finance presents the 69th edition of the Carnival this morning. I selected some of my favorite articles from the submissions and included them first, but make sure you read through all the entries. There is a wide range of articles and I am sure you’ll find something that ... Continue reading this article…

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The Blame Game: Poor Money Management, Part 1

by Luke Landes

There’s a discussion at StopBuyingCrap about credit card companies’ evil tacticts. In fact, Cap comes clean with this humble admission: No body forced me to buy the mountains of Japanese comic books, computer hardware, and automotive parts. Sure, the credit card made it easier for me to spend money I didn’t have — but the ... Continue reading this article…

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Weekly Blog Round-Up

by Luke Landes

Take a look at these blog entries if you haven’t already. If you have, take a look again and participate in the discussions. These are from the MoneyBlogNetwork bloggers and a few additional. * AllFinancialMatters talks about bloggers and ethics and also is in the midst of the Bogleheads’ October Project. * FiveCentNickel points out ... Continue reading this article…

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OT: Just Arrived Home From the Mets Game (They Won!)

by Luke Landes

Reminder: Be sure to participate in the current giveaway! It has been a long day. While my coworkers were taking me out to lunch to celebrate my recently received Master’s degree, my girlfriend called to tell me she had an extra ticket for the Mets division series game. I don’t pass up opportunities like these, ... Continue reading this article…

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Enhance Your Career By Consuming Alcohol (With a Giveaway!)

by Luke Landes

I linked to this article, but I wanted to focus on it when I had a chance. That chance is now. An article from Inc.com, a resource for entrepreneurs, says that drinking alcohol can help your career. Sounds too good to be true? Here’s how. Regular drinkers make 10 percent to 14 percent more money than those ... Continue reading this article…

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Today’s Daily Links

by Luke Landes

* Does Drinking Help Your Career? Regular drinkers make 10 percent to 14 percent more money than those who do not drink, according to the study [Yahoo]. * Rewards roller coaster: Tips for navigating credit-card rewards programs. Assessing which card is the best deal is no mean feat but, after you narrow your choices based on your ... Continue reading this article…

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Holiday Season is Approaching and Kids Want Presents

by Luke Landes

If you have children in your life who are not isolated from society, then chances are they’re going to want one of the toys on this list. Even the most astute parents’ intentions to steer their kids towards more educational toys are stymied when the children go to school, watch television, and play with the ... Continue reading this article…

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The 12 Most Highly Paid CEOs in 2005

by Luke Landes

Here are the twelve most highly paid CEOs last year. Why aren’t you on this list? Perhaps you should work for one of these companies. Maybe the cash will trickle down. Barry Diller from IAC/InterActive (2005 net profit margin: 3.62 percent): $295M Richard D. Fairbank from Capital One Financial (2005 net profit margin: 18.02 percent): $249M Eugene ... Continue reading this article…

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The IT Job Market Must Be Picking Up

by Luke Landes

All of a sudden, in the past few weeks, I’ve been getting calls and emails from recruiters. Several a day have been trying to get in contact with me based on resumes I’ve left on Monster.com and CareerBuilder between one and a few years ago. These particular resumes were directed towards web programming (PHP, MySQL, ... Continue reading this article…

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Not Everyone is Perfect, Including Financial Columnists

by Luke Landes

MP Dunleavey, a columnist for MSN Money, recently came to the realization that her family’s finances were not in order. Wait a minute! Dunleavey has been writing about personal finance for years, and has covered the very issues she is facing. This cognitive disconnect is common in the world, so I can excuse her. Her ... Continue reading this article…

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Bought a Cheap DVD Player: RCA DRC200N

by Luke Landes

As you know, I greatly reduced my cable subscription to the most basic analog service: 30 channels of mostly mind-numbing boredom, including 2 Spanish language channels and 1 channel that is Korean part of the time. Therefore, my primary visual entertainment is now my DVDs. Unforunately, the Sony DVD player (DVP-S350) I inherited from an ... Continue reading this article…

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