The Best of 2007

Some of my favorite things to read at this time of year are the "Year In Review" articles and "Best of 20XX" lists that start to pop up all over the place. Call me morbid but I even enjoy looking at the 'In Memorium" listings that run in the magazines at the end of every year. Usually I completely forgot that somebody died, I didn't hear that the person died, or I didn't know someone's name and recognize the face when I see it in the magazine. There's usually a minimum of 5 "Oh no!" moments when I see those lists.

Anyway - this post is not about the dead celebrity lists. It's about the ever-growing "Best of 2007" lists that are coming out. Head over to Filmoculous to see a compilation of all the lists - everything from the Top 50 CDs of the year to the Top 10 Most Brilliant Innovations of 2007. Keep going back because the list will grow as more year end lists come out!

More Imitation and Flattery?!

So I'm reading this blog post today about how the city of Copenhagen, Denmark has some huge 'greening' effort underway. Pretty interesting stuff. Then, in the background, I notice some flags and such with the city logo displayed on it. Dang it if there's not more logo ripping off going on in Charlotte. This is getting ridiculous. See for yourself:

COPENHAGEN:











CHARLOTTE:









Apparently we lack original thought in this area!?

Do It Yourself

I've got a confession to make. It's painful and embarassing but it's true and I want to get it off my chest. Here goes. I'm not handy. There - I said it. I don't know how to do things that most guys know how to do. I don't know how it got to this point or why I never learned to change my own oil or fix a blown fuse. I just didn't. I can install a hard drive and I can set up a new TV or stereo but I can't do anything cool if it requires sawing/hammering/etc. and I especially can't do anything if it requires looking under a car hood.

Now that this is out in the open, I must also tell you that in the last two weeks, Britney and I have replaced our kitchen faucent and installed TWO over-the-counter microwave ovens (The first one was completely installed before we realized it was messed up. Anger ensued). Fortunately, my wife is handy and her step-dad, Bill, is uber-handy. Between the two of them, we can usually figure out how to do things that need to get done.

But - what do you do if you don't have Bill on your speed dial like we do and you find yourself needing some help? Fortunately, there are websites available for people like us who weren't born with the handy gene.

eHow.com has been around for a long while and has instructions on how to do almost anything. People post instructions on how to do all kinds of things and then users get to rate how good the instructions were. Lots of tips & categories here - but still a lot of text based instructions which may or may not appeal to you.

Now that they've finally figured out how to make video over the internet watchable (it used to be really bad), sites like ExpertVillage are popping up and thriving. This is a site chocked full of good how-to videos. For those of us that struggle with instructions like "insert carriage bolt and attach to 8/32" hex nut", video instructions and demonstrations are helpful. This site has a ton of them.

Maybe the most useful site of all is Sutree.com. Why? Because this is a site that aggregates video from all over the web and allows you to search multiple sites. If there's video available on YouTube or eHow or a TV network site, you can find it using the search at Sutree.com. Very helpful if you can't find what you want going to eHow.com or ExpertVillage.

One thing I forgot to mention when I started recommending these sites - they're not just for tips and videos on fixing stuff. There are instructions and videos on how to teach your dog tricks, how to do sign language, how to untangle Christmas lights - you name it. So - if you need some help with do-it-yourself like me or you just want to learn a new skill, check out one of these sites and you'll be on your way!!

You Need Disability Insurance

All this talk about financial planning got me thinking about an important lesson that my brother-in-law, Brock, taught me when I first got married. Brock sat me down and made sure that I understood the value of disability insurance. The truth is that prior to that conversation, I'd never given a whole lot of thought to the likelihood of getting disabled or about putting a strategy in place to protect my income in the event that I did get disabled. Consider the following:

• Most people buy life insurance - but you have DOUBLE the chance of getting disabled before retirement as you do of dying


• 30% of twenty year olds will be disabled before retiring
• 1 in 7 Americans will be disabled for 5 years or longer before retiring
• Disability causes 50% of all mortgage foreclosures - compared to only 2% being caused by death of the primary breadwinner

Bottom line - you need disability insurance and you probably need to buy it yourself rather than rely on whatever is provided by your employer. If your employer provides disability coverage (not all do), it's likely that it only covers 60% of your base salary and it is subject to income tax. Say hello to your new life living on 45% of what you earn today. That, for me, is not getting the job done. Plus, if you rely on employer provided insurance, welcome to a career with one company. If you can't take that insurance with you and you get disabled or have the slightest illness, good luck trying to get new coverage when you change jobs. Individual disability insurance (paid for by you) is not subject to income tax since you pay for it with after-tax money and you can purchase coverage for more than 60% of your income (I think it's capped at 75% but I'm not positive).

A quick note on government provided disability. It stinks. Why? Because a majority of claims are initially denied - putting you in financial jeopardy while the appeal works its way through the system (isn't that lovely). There are also qualifications about what it means to be disabled. In other words, if you can't get a job screwing toothpaste caps on with your teeth, get to work you able-bodied person and stop trying to get disability. You want the kind of insurance that kicks in if you can't do the job you're currently doing - not the kind that kicks in if you can't work at all.

More reading can be found in the links below. Add this to the list of topics you and your family need to consider ASAP and talk to your financial advisor about it soon. You never know when accidents will happen or your health might give out!!

Disability insurance: The coverage that most folks never think about

Protect Your Family When Disability Strikes

Holiday Shopping - Part 2

In my last post on holiday shopping, I covered some of the sites I use to find out about good deals. Today I'm going to talk about something I've covered before - rebate/referral sites. I've talked a bit about these sites before (see my earlier post on Ebates) - but when I started researching this stuff for this post, I learned that I'd only covered the tip of the iceberg. Prepare to be enlightened (as I was!).

The name of the game in online retailing is traffic - driving as much traffic to your site as possible. Big retailers like Overstock.com and Amazon.com spend all kinds of money on TV and print ads, etc. Smaller retailers put banner ads up on other sites, etc. Because it's costly to get traffic to your site, online retailers are willing to pay to acquire visitors. That's where these rebate/referral sites fit into the equation. They serve as the middle man in the online transaction, sitting between you the buyer and the online retailer. The online retailer pays the referral site a percentage of the total value of the transaction and the referreal site pays you part of that fee. Best of all, all you have to do is go through one of these referral sites on your way to buy something you were going to buy anyway - it's like free money!

The big 'A-HA' moment I had when looking up information for this posting was realizing that there are sites out there that do more than just give you a cash back rebate. There are referral/rebate/reward (whatever you want to call them) sites that give cash rebates, some that give frequent flyer miles, some that put money in college savings accounts, some that give you US Savings Bonds - there are tons of them and they come in a bunch of varieties. But how do you now which one to use and how do you find them? I'm here to help with that.

If cash rewards - whether they be in the form of cash rebates, savings bonds, college savings, whatever - are what you're interested in, the chart posted at Comparerewards.com is an invaluable resource. You can get it HERE.

What the chart shows you is a breakdown of retailers and rewards/rebates sites - highlighting the best site to use for each retailer you're interested in. So, for example, if you're trying to shop at Buy.com, you'd look at the chart and see that BondRewards.com is paying the highest referral fee for Buy.com - so it makes sense to click through that site on your way to do your shopping. FYI, the chart compares 21 different referral sites:

BabyMint, BondRewards, ClubMom, CreationsRewards.net, Ebates, Extrabux, FatWallet, Freeride, Greenpoints, iBakeSale, Jellyfish, LittleGrad, MedicalRewardsNetwork, Memolink, MrRebates, MyPoints, MyTroops, QuickRewards.net, QuizPoints, SunshineRewards, and uPromise

That's a lot of programs and a lot of info to digest!

If you are interested in other types of rewards (things like airline miles) or aren't into searching through charts listing a bunch of percentages and want something SIMPLE, head over to Evreward.com. This is a new site that does the searching for you. You type in the retailer you're going to shop and it tells you all the different deals/referrals/rebates you can get for that retailer. It's really easy.

So - back to the Buy.com example - I type in Buy.com and the site tells me about all the cash back sites I can use, but it also tells me that I could be getting 2 Delta miles for every dollar spent or 3 AMEX Rewards points for every dollar spent. The site also includes coupon codes and hot deals that are displayed in your search listings. This is a cool site and, if you're just getting started in the referral site game, where I would start.

Happy shopping! Enjoy the free money/rewards!

Imitation - The Sincerest Form of Flattery?

I was riding to work the other day and a billboard caught my eye (yes, I ride the bus). It was advertising the 2007-2008 Charlotte Bobcats - trying to drum up interest in single game tickets. Those of you familiar with Charlotte know that this was, once, big basketball country. When the old Hornets entered the league in 1988, they led the league in attendance. Tickets were the hottest thing in town! The Bobcats - not so much. I follow them because I'm a big sports fan but there's very little interest in town. Maybe it's because they're bad, maybe it's because they have really ugly bright orange uniforms, maybe it's because the name stinks (Bobcats - named after owner Bob Johnson - I'm glad his name isn't Steve or Gary or something).

Anyway - they have a new logo on the billboard and I can't help but think that it's stolen directly from another team in the NBA. It's an improvement over last year's logo (redesigning logos in the team's 4th year?!) - but still a blatant rip off.

This new logo is a really lame rip-off if you ask me. You be the judge.

Finding a Financial Advisor

One of the things I recommended in my post yesterday about International Investments was that you work with a financial advisor. I actually had someone email me a question about how I found my financial advisor (WHOO HOO! A real life reader!!). So - here is what I think you should do to find a financial advisor and what services you should think about asking for when you find one to work with.

The most important thing to look for, in my opinion, when considering a financial advisor is someone that has the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation. CFP is your guarantee that the person you're taking advice from SHOULD know what they're talking about. To get CFP designation, you have to sit for an intense examination that includes all types of planning related concepts - investment planning, risk management, insurance planning, tax planning, wills & trusts, education planning, etc. In addition to sitting for the test, CFPs must meet certain education guidelines, must have experience in the financial industry, etc. Basically the point is that it's not easy to get this designation so people that do it have put a lot of time & energy into knowing what they're doing. You can search for CFPs in your area on the CFP Board of Standards website: http://www.cfp.net/search/

Once you've identified some potential candidates, you'll want to reach out to a few, tell them about your situation (where you are financially, what you're looking to do - retirement planning, insurance planning, etc.) and see what kind of response you get. I'll tell you right now that some of these people only work with high net worth individuals - so don't be upset if you get no response or a response indicating that you're not in their 'target client' demographic. When I reached out to folks, I went ahead and included a note saying "if you're not the right person, could you point me in the right direction or recommend someone that would work with someone with my goals & needs". That seemed to work well.

After you get your list of potential candidates, I'd suggest having meetings and/or phone conversations with them. This individual is going to have a major say in what you do financially so you need to 'click' with them and like their personality. You're interviewing them for a job - the job of managing your money - so ask tough questions and get comfortable with them.

Once you've narrowed your list down to someone that meets the CFP requirement, wants to work with you, and has a personality/style that appeals to you, it's time to consider a really big issue - how this person gets compensated. There are several ways that financial advisors make money and some, to me, are more appealing than others. I don't want to work with someone that gets commissions on my invesment moves. That, to me, creates a motivation for the advisor to move in and out of investments frequently to try to ratchet up the commissions and that doesn't appeal to me. I would much prefer to pay for the financial advice in a pay as you go manner or pay a yearly fee for their services. My advisor gets a yearly fee as well as a small percentage based on the total assets he manages for me. That, in my mind, creates a good scenario - he's motivated to make my assets worth more as he gets paid more when that happens.

A good financial advisor will help you get your financial house in order and can do things for you that you either can't or don't have time to do for yourself. Mine has helped me shop for the best life insurance policy/rate, helped me get an education fund started for Bailey, helped me reallocate my assets based on my specific age and risk tolerance, and given me peace of mind that I'm doing the right things financially. I can't recommend this enough - plan today and you'll have a better tomorrow! Good luck!!

Baylor Football - A Sad State of Affairs

Most of you know that I'm from a family full of Baylor Bears - my mom & dad, my wife, my sister, my brother, one of my aunts, and one of my uncles all went to Baylor (as did Willie Nelson incidentally). You may also know that Baylor is terrible at football. That wasn't always the case. Believe it or not, I was in attendance when Baylor pummelled Clemson in the 1979 Peach Bowl and was also at the 1981 Cotton Bowl when Baylor got smacked 30-2 by Alabama (but hey - there were in the Cotton Bowl!). After another losing year, they fired their coach recently and were, by most accounts, ready to bring back Mike Singletary, one of their all-time greats, to serve as the new head coach. Strangely, however, he recently removed his name from consideration. Rumor has it, however, that Baylor AD Ian McCaw might've removed Singletary because he wasn't willing to just be a yes-man and fund raiser. That's pretty pathetic. If the guy in the video below isn't the right guy for a school like Baylor, I'm not sure there's much hope for a return to glory on the gridiron.

Money Saving Tip: International Investing

Before I get started on my latest money saving/making tip, let me start off by saying that I am not an investment guru. My advice to anyone that does not have significant time to devote to following the investment markets is to hire a professional money manager/advisor to work with. I've tried to manage my own investments and, even with an above average education in all things financial, can't do nearly as good a job as my financial advisor does. That said, what I'm going to discuss is a concept that you can take and discuss with your financial advisor - as they tend to listen to all of your ideas and either validate them or tell you why they're bad ideas given your current state of affairs.

Now that my caveat is out of the way, I want to mention an idea that I've been thinking about for quite a while and have actually seen articles about in recent days. It seems like all we're hearing about these days is the flagging US economy, how we're sliding toward recession, how the dollar's hitting all-time lows, etc. Those things are, for the most part, true. The dollar is down this year against 15 of the 16 major trading currencies (all except the Mexican Peso) and some countries are actively seeking to reduce their holdings in dollars to limit their exposure to the fluctuations we're seeing in our economy. As an investor, the question everyone seems to be asking is this - what can I do to weather this storm and not take a beating?

My answer - buy stocks of companies that derive a majority of their profits overseas. Think about it this way - many economies are doing quite well as our economy suffers. Europe, Latin America, and Asia are all seeing growth while we're seeing declines. If you invest in a company that derives a majority of its profits in those markets, you could actually get a double win - you get the growth that the company experiences in those hot markets AND you get the benefit of the exchange rate as the company takes the profits made in foreign currency and trades that currency for the weak US dollar! Remember - we're talking about companies based in the U.S. that make most of their money elsewhere. Those are the ones that will be seeking to bring their profits back to the U.S. and will need to trade back into dollars.

How do you find companies that fit this profile? Believe it or not, a ton of big name US companies derive a majority of profits overseas. Consider the following list:

• Intel - 85% of profits from overseas
• Coca-Cola - 71% of profits from overseas
• Texas Instruments - 87% of profits from overseas
• Exxon - 69% of profits from overseas

These are household names we're talking here. Next time you talk to your financial advisor (or if, God forbid, you're managing your own money), consider parking some dollars in companies that are making their money outside the U.S. You may be glad you did!

Holiday Shopping - Part 1

I had planned on doing a huge post about the step by step guide to holiday shopping. I realized, however, that most of my readers don't want to read a long, 3 page post on which websites to hit and so forth. So - I've changed my plan. I'll be doing the step by step guide - but I'm breaking it up into smaller posts. You'll have to read the whole sequence to learn my super secret strategies for saving big $$$.

This post is for those of you that don't know exactly what you're shopping for. Often times, particularly when I'm buying for adults, I have no idea what to buy. I could go to Amazon and browse around for an hour and potentially hit on something good - but I don't have the patience for that. What I usually do is try to find something nice that's selling for a good price or is a good 'deal'. How do you do that? You go to one of the sites below:

Dealnews.com is probably the best of the 'deal' sites (in my opinion). Its layout is easy to follow, it ranks the deal from one to five stars based on how good a deal it is, and it gives you the ability to sort deals by category.

Dealcatcher.com is another good 'deal' site. This one has some features that the others do not. It partners with Pricegrabber.com (one of the price comparison sites I recommended last week) - so you can compare prices from here. You can also search a huge list of rebates to find out if what your buying is not only on sale but also has a mail-in or online rebate! This site also has useful links to Sunday paper ads and printable coupons.

What you'll find when you start dealing with these 'deal' sites is that most of them list the same deals. Dealnews and Dealcatcher often have the same deals listed but their user interface makes them worth going to because they're easy to use. Slickdeals.net is not as pretty - but often has deals that other sites don't and often lists deals first. Some of the other sites are what I call 'aggregators' - meaning that they don't break the news, they just collect it and list it. Slickdeals.net breaks the news - so I often start here even though it's not quite as pretty. If you know how to use forums (post questions, converse with other people about deals, etc.), they have good ones!

Finally, if you are super-cheap and/or are desperate for a good deal, go over to FreeAfterRebate.info. This is a site that lists, as the title implies, items that are 100% free (or close to it) after rebate. You can actually get some pretty good stuff here - usually computer software or computer accessories - for free if you're willing to jump through the rebate hoops.

More information to come - stuff like finding the best coupons, using referral sites (yes, more about Ebates), etc. Enjoy Cyber Monday!