HapiMoney

Answer: It doesn’t matter. I choose Schwab, I’ve got friends who use Scottrade, and still more who use Etrade. For long term investors, you are likely only making a few trades a year, and for those purposes the difference between an $8/trade commission and $12/trade commission is minimal. So who benefits from a different broker [...]

Image via Wikipedia The NY Times has an interesting article on lifetime annuities here. Basically, a retirement annuity is when you give an insurance company an upfront lump sum of cash, and they provide you with smaller guaranteed payouts for life. My favorite part of the article is how commission based financial advisors can no [...]

Image by Getty Images via Daylife How do you decide what stocks to purchase? Which index funds are the best? The problem with finance isn’t the lack of information but rather that there is too much of it. The paradox of choice overwhelms us and in the end, we do nothing, and stick with the [...]

For those of you who haven’t checked out the About section, Hapi is the Egyptian deification of the Nile flooding. I just found this hymn written to Hapi and it made me smile. Lightmaker who comes from the dark Fattener of herds Might that fashions all None can live without him People are clothed with [...]

Image via Wikipedia There are a lot of different ways to do this, and a variety of different results will come because of it. Personally, I choose to stick to more conservative methodologies, but you can be as aggressive as you like. Here’s how I calculate the amount you need to retire: 1. Figure out [...]

Image by thinkpanama via Flickr Those real estate agents are tricky, prone to all sorts of chicanery. They will tell you things like “oh, this home is a great investment!” and fill your head with dreams of your home doubling, or even tripling in value.  Certainly, you will live here and raise a family here, [...]

Image via Wikipedia Here’s my first post on investments to buy that aren’t cash or short term cash equivalents. Read up, it’s important. Index Funds are like a mutual fund, but they are set up to mimic indices like the S&P 500 or Wilshire 5000, etc. Here’ s the definition courtesy of Investopedia: A type [...]

Image by Getty Images via Daylife Credit cards are 1 part genius, 2 parts evil. Credit card companies make their money in 2 ways: 1) They charge stores and merchants for the ability to even accept credit card payments in the first place- between 2% and 5% of every transaction goes through payment processors, payment [...]

Image via Wikipedia MarketWatch just came out with an interesting article analyzing twelve different retirement calculators (courtesy of the Society of Actuaries) and came to the conclusion that they all, in short, sucked. Here are the reasons they listed as the short comings: Longevity- In other words, how long will you live. Average age is [...]

Image via Wikipedia Everyone knows that you should invest your money in the stock market, but not a lot of newbies understand a lot of the rationale.  Thus, here’s a little investing 101 seminar. Risk/Reward To simplify, the riskier something is, the better the payout should be. For instance, winning the lottery is such a [...]