Snowy? On October 30? I’m afraid so. We’re expecting as much as a foot of snow overnight in the Northeast. But I digress.
The first fellow bloggers article was the stupidest idea I’d heard in a long time, Five Cent Nickel (who’s quite bright, he was just the messenger here) shared how two Congress folk want to allow people to Pay Off Your Mortgage With 401(k) Funds? As I started, I think this idea is pretty awful. Tax would still be due at your marginal rate, and there’s no telling this amount, limited to $50K would be enough to get the homeowner out of trouble.
The financial buff explained how Social Security Benefits Increase More Rapidly For Retirees Than For Those Still Working. It seems the increases are tied to different indexes, I never knew this. I also am not convinced that social security will be around long enough for my wife and me to collect. Which means if I hope to retire early, I can’t count on that future income stream, need to make sure the retirement accounts are full-up.
Clever Dude gives Two real-life examples of why emergency funds are important! Great examples, I can probably come up with a dozen more. Hint: Everything you own can and probably will break one day. Most of what breaks you’ll want to replace.
At Boomer and Echo, Boomer unravels The Case Of The Shrinking Food Package. I’ve watched this phenomenon for years, as cans of coffee dropped from 16 ounces to 14, 12, and whatever they are today. Some companies *cough* Friendlies, dropped their half gallon and started offering 56 oz, and more recently, 48. Well, we’re half way to 32 oz and by the time they get there it will be a great time to off the “new” supersized half gallon.
Last, not a finance story, I read that a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic decided there’s a correlation between premature death and TV watching. He was clear that watching TV meant not exercising and sitting on the couch led to snacking on junk food, but is TV really the culprit here? I have a treadmill and in from of it is a TV. So for me 3 hours of television takes 2 hours to watch on the TiVo, and I’m good for 9-10 miles depending on my knees. The same way not all credit cards lead to debt, not all TV leads to death. In fact for me, there’s a direct correlation between the TV and being in better shape.
Great round up. Similar to the study of watching study and early death, I have heard that jobs that have you sitting most of the day make you more likely to have heat problems.