Finance

• What Your Real Estate Agent Won’t Tell You

  Real estate agents like to make it sound as if their fees are set in stone, but in a competitive market, they should be willing to negotiate their fees or you should take your deal elsewhere. All you have to do is ask. Keep in mind that real estate agents put a lot of time and money into selling your home, or helping you buy another home, and are entitled to make some income from the deal.

• Rolling your 401k: Contributory IRA vs. Rollover IRA

  In an ideal world you would start your working career with a great company in your early 20s, steadily climb the corporate ladder, retire at age 65, and draw a sufficient income from your accumulated 401k account to live happily ever after.

• Make Your Money Work for You: Five Tips for the Aspiring Homeowner

  Home ownership, a vital element in what constitutes The American Dream, is certainly a blessing. Unfortunately, it also contains the seeds of what can be financial misfortune, perhaps never more graphically depicted than in a 1986 Steven Spielberg movie, The Money Pit, in which a young couple experiences every calamity possible in remodeling a dilapidated house. With the aim of helping aspiring homeowners avoid some common errors, I want to pass on five tips.

• Choosing 529 Plans: “Where Do I Start?”

  The hardest part about saving for college is just to start doing it. Where to begin? Well, if you have not heard the news yet, 529 College Savings Plans, tax-free funds that have been made possible by laws passed in 2002, provide the best opportunity to meet the growing cost of college. Marketing of 529 plans has picked up, as you may have noticed, but this usually leads people down the wrong path. The way fund managers typically market their plans is as if they were the only plans available. This is a very tricky tactic yet it works because these plans are so new and most people are not aware that there are over 80 plans and more than 1,000 investment options to choose from.

• Families Get Major Tax Breaks for Education Expenses from State 529 Plans

  Thanks to newly enacted tax legislation called Section 529, saving for college has become a lot more manageable. This IRS tax code, first passed in 1996, states that investments in Qualified Tuition Programs (otherwise known as 529 plans) grow 100% federally tax-free, as long as the funds are utilized for Qualified Higher Education Expenses. Federal tax treatment is just one of the many benefits of 529 plans.

• On the Money Trail: Where Charity Begins

  There’s a practical limit on personal consumption, beyond which satisfaction is marginal. At some point in our finite lives there must be more than mere acquisition. In this world you’ll find deserving people, and the opportunity to share your bounty in a meaningful way is exactly thatan opportunity. There is satisfaction in giving back a portion of your good fortune.

• 18 Tips for Saving Money on Gasoline

  Gas prices are on the rise again! Here are some tips to help you conserve gas and save money as we approach summer gas prices.

• A Painful Grocery Bill

  Many people buy non-food items at the grocery store. And even think of them as part of their grocery budget. With the rise of ‘supercenters’ more people are combining their grocery shopping with their ‘other’ shopping. Often it is more convenient to buy everything in one stop. But it’s often not the cheapest solution.