One of the biggest expenses owners of smart phones pay each month is the cost of high speed data plan through the carrier they have a contract with. AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint all require data plans for subscribers with iPhones, and the prices start at $20 a month for 300mb of data (on AT&T) and go up from there. Want to tether your iPhone’s data for use with another device, like a wifi iPad or your laptop? That’ll cost you more — to the tune of $25 per month in addition to the higher priced data plan you’ll have to purchase, since a few hundred mb won’t cut it for sharing. What if you go over on your data? It depends on your carrier, but all of them get extra money one way or another due to your overage. Continue reading
In 2009 the business I was working for was practically forced to shut its doors due to the fact that the institutions that back the industry I was in were collapsing. It was a sad day when I helped the owners prepare all of the accounting reports to prepare them to go to an attorney so that bankruptcy could be filed. I spent an entire year unemployed until finally I got a temporary position. After that was up though I was back on the hunt and had to take a retail job and work strange hours just to pay the bills. Continue reading
The 401k is a popular retirement savings product in the United States. Its name comes from subsection 401(k) of the Internal Revenue Code. With a 401(k) plan, a person sets aside a percentage of his income, which will not be taxed until it is withdrawn in the future. This helps workers by reducing their taxable income for each year they are contributing to the account. A contributor becomes eligible to withdraw funds upon reaching the age of 59 1/2 years. Continue reading
Many people feel that it makes no sense to rent the things you want since you can just buy most of it and make a sensible investment. I think this is the attitude of a generation, not of a nation or a financial field. I have a daughter who is currently in college and to her, it makes no sense to buy anything now she has grown up in a world of constantly changing technology that is hard to invest in without losing the “cool” factor very quickly. If she wants to listen to music, she gets a subscription or an app that allows her to play the latest music whenever she wants without having to go out and buy an actual CD that might not be popular in 6 months. Continue reading
