“Enough” by John Bogle – Review & Introduction
Reading can be broken into 3 levels: skimming, reading, & absorbing. Each level represents an increasing amount of interaction. Ideally, the more thought that’s put into the process – the more you should get out of it in the end.
Although a short read at 250+ pages, John Bogle’s Enough fell under the last category as: each, individual word was read, breaks were taken between sections, and some were even re-read in an effort to fully grasp the concepts.
Following the book’s structure, this review will be segmented throughout the week with one, new post each day and the outline for the week below.
Monday, May 31st – Review & Introduction
Tuesday, June 1st – Money (Ch 1 – 3)
Wednesday, June 2nd – Business (Ch 4 – 7)
Thursday, June 3rd – Life (Ch 8 – 10)
Friday, June 4th – Wrapping Up: What’s Enough?
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Yakezie Weekly Round-up: Memorial Day Edition
Before we begin – make sure to check back here tomorrow for the “Week of Bogle”. Maybe the first of its kind, this will be a week-long book review. Trust me, you’ll enjoy it.
And now for the links… Happy reading & enjoy the holiday!
Here’s the highlights for your reading pleasure:
Wealth Pilgrim gives 7 Unique Ways to Put a Retiree to Work. No – it’s not what you think, this isn’t a tutorial on how to put retirees to work for you 
Especially unique are the “with a twist” ideas. These are things you may already be doing, but for free!
Wealth Artisan explains an important concept that’s often overlooked – Dividend Payout Ratio. If you want to invest in dividend-paying stocks, then you need to know what this means.
Clarifinancial answers one of MY big questions – Why You Need Life Insurance Before Getting Married. He does a fabulous job writing about why you need it, and goes beyond the financial reasons. Definitely gave me something to think about for the rest of the evening.
Sustainable Life Blog [unfortunately] discusses How to Give Up Caffeine. I say unfortunately because I’ve been pushing myself physically all weekend, and needed a fresh brew to do this round-up! Truthfully, I know I’ve got to cut back because I’ve been hitting #5 pretty hard.
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Money Hackers Carnival #117: Wedding & Marriage Edition
If you write about personal finance, you’ve probably heard of Money Hackers. If not, I’d suggest joining the group – here. A collection of PF bloggers, the network promotes each other through a weekly carnival. Talk about strength in numbers, there were over 50 entries for this week alone!
Welcome to the Money Hackers Carnival #117: Wedding & Marriage Edition.
Comfortable with my current financial situation, I can tell you truthfully I’m nervous about all the ways things will change once married.
Should be look at cell phone family plans?
How much life insurance do we need? What should we watch for with taxes? Which accounts will we combine?
There’s this list followed by a few thousand more, so here’s a round-up of how to save money – either before, or after, the wedding. Enjoy!
EDITOR’S CHOICE
- Dink’s Finance hits the nail on the head with a big question – how does martial status affect your taxes? I’ll be making sure to forward the fiance this article. Speaking of name change, her new legal name will be triple alliteration.
- On the horizon, we’ll be having kids but not without plenty of planning. The Sun’s Fiancial Dairy points out A New Child Means Lots of Expenses. Hence why the pre-planning is necessary, you want to anticipate (and prepare for) what you can.
- An unconventional approach to gifting, Budgets Are Sexy explains the theory behind $100 here, $100 there, $100 everywhere! If only I had known earlier, maybe J Money would have been invited to the wedding.
- Jeremy @ Credit Cards could not have been a more perfect (and entertaining) introduction. He explains how Background Check Alerts Me to Surprising Criminal History. Hmm – should I check out my fiance’s record? …or maybe even my own!
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Don’t Buy Your Next Car Before Checking Out These Sites
If you’ve been tracking Kita over at PF Journey, she’s asked her readers to help with her used car purchase and has been documenting the journey (ties nicely into the site name) along the way. Hopefully she’s been reading the material over at Car Negotiation Coach to help with tips & tricks.
My own car, the “Red Baron”, has been getting up in age – 10 years to be exact! So I’ve started the process of looking for replacement vehicles. There’s such a vast amount of information out there, you could spend hours filtering through sites. From everything I’ve seen so far, two in particular stand out.
Provides detailed trending information in a variety of formats. The basic report is a histogram of actual sales data for your area. The best feature has to be the seeing the price swings between the: sticker price, factory invoice, average paid, and dealer cost.
Understanding the true costs of a car purchase are critical to negotiating the best possible price. Referred to as the “Cash Flow Shell Game” (scroll to bottom of page), the site provides a graphic worth checking out explaining how dealer’s make their profits.
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Don’t Be Fooled by Sneaky Labeling!
Blogging about personal finances, I should be on top of my game and living by my mantras. Usually this is the case – but I was duped by clever marketing techniques ending up in a giant facepalm incident. Oh the embarrassment!
Yesterday the fiance and I had a full-day, assembly-line operation preparing the wedding invitations for the upcoming Big Day. If you’ve been through, or are going through, wedding planning then you know costs can add up quickly and unexpectedly.
We opted for doing our own invitations, because frankly, it’s sole purpose is informational. Simply could not justify the cost for something which would most likely be thrown away. Sorry friends, but I practice the 3 R’s of wedding invitations – Read, Retain, Recycle. Read the invite, retain the information until the event, then toss them afterward. I don’t have a memory box preserving all this paper I receive. *Can you tell I’m a practical engineer or what?
Another benefit of private school, I can pass my swooping cursive as handwriting from days of yore. While my dad did the calligraphy for his own wedding invitations and one of the bridesmaids also has the talent, I couldn’t subject either of them to my totalitarian management techniques.
If you’re looking for more ways to reduce costs, Free From Broke had an interview with Anja Winikka from TheKnot on how to have an affordable wedding.
Few guys in tuxes walk into a brewery, Owner says, “you going to a wedding or a funeral?” Guy replies, “depends on what side of the aisle you’re on!” Not a joke, true story from a friend of mine
Next Travel Trip – Ask a Diver or Surfer’s Idea
Photo by FinEngr
Last time we covered how to Slash Your Travel Bill in Half, now we’ll look at another trick to trend-spotting hot spot destinations.
Now, this tip only really applies to tropical destinations since divers and surfers aren’t clamoring to see the interiors of mountainous countries. It’s also limited since there’s a finite amount of places to explore. But that doesn’t mean that new won’t become old and old can’t become new again.
So why did I suggest divers or surfers? Because these two are part of a small group of modern-day explorers. Did you know surfing was apparently imported to SoCal from Hawaii in the early 1900s? If you do either of these, and understand the culture, then you know the only travel concerns you have are:
- Priority #1: great dives/surfs
- Somewhere to repair gear
- Somewhere to sleep
- Somewhere to drink (beer)
- No gimmicky tourists
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