http://www.millionaireorbust.com teaching you how to think about your finances Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:19:02 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 2006-2009 david@millionaireorbust.com (Flying Squirrel Media) david@millionaireorbust.com (Flying Squirrel Media) personal finance 1440 http://www.millionaireorbust.com/images/podcastlogosmall.jpg http://www.millionaireorbust.com 144 144 teaching you how to think about your finances teaching you how to think about your finances personal finance, business news Flying Squirrel Media Flying Squirrel Media david@millionaireorbust.com no no http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0095/ http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0095/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:59:11 +0000 David van Sunder http://www.millionaireorbust.com/?p=126 http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0095/feed/ 3 15:48 In this week's episode of Millionaire or Bust, I talked about saving money by lowering your medical fees. But first I covered the news for ... In this week's episode of Millionaire or Bust, I talked about saving money by lowering your medical fees. But first I covered the news for the week: The coin toss was right again, the Dow was down this week 260 points. It's been right 8 out of 10 times. Oil dropped to 69.15 as of Sunday Night. Gas was at $2.693. It was up 3 cents from a week ago according to AAA's fuelgaugereport. Bank Watch: U.S. regulators closed 3 banks, bringing the total to 40 for the year. Jobless benefit rolls posted their first dip since January. 'Cash for clunkers' coming soon, allowing consumers to get as much as $4,500 to trade in old cars for more fuel efficient vehicles. Then I closed with the main topic. I discussed how you can lower your doctors' fees, hospital charges, etc. This is one area where you can save yourself a ton of money, especially if you're uninsured or self insured. During this, I referenced an article from money.cnn.com. If you enjoy Millionaire or Bust, please head on over to iTunes and give it a nice review. If you have some feedback on how to make the show better, shoot me an email and help me improve the show. I appreciate all your comments. Thanks for listening everyone! podcasts Flying Squirrel Media no no http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0094/ http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0094/#comments Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:00:30 +0000 David van Sunder http://www.millionaireorbust.com/?p=125 http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0094/feed/ 2 23:18 In this week's episode of Millionaire or Bust, I talked about saving money by doing swaps rather than buying everything. But first I covered the ... In this week's episode of Millionaire or Bust, I talked about saving money by doing swaps rather than buying everything. But first I covered the news for the week: The coin toss was right again, the Dow was up! It's been right 7 out of 9 times. 10 banks were cleared to repay the US Treasury $68 Billion in TARP funds. Gas prices were up again. Chrysler and Fiat made it official. The financial crisis spurred a spike in 'suburban survivalists.' Then I got into the main topic, which was swapping. I chose this topic because in a down economy, the best way to have more money in the bank is to save more money. For a lot of people who have lost jobs or taken pay or benefit cuts, that is difficult. This can help them. And for those who want to take this opportunity to invest more cheaply, this gives them an opportunity to have more money to invest. The article mentioned during the topic and some links inside that article are: Squeezed by the economy, shoppers become swappers. Meetup.com Swaptree.com Paperbackswap.com Totsswapshop.com freecycle.org craigslist.org If you enjoy Millionaire or Bust, please head on over to iTunes and give it a nice review. If you have some feedback on how to make the show better, shoot me an email and help me improve the show. I appreciate all your comments. Thanks for listening everyone! podcasts Flying Squirrel Media no no http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0080/ http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0080/#comments Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:00:42 +0000 David van Sunder http://www.millionaireorbust.com/?p=103 http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0080/feed/ 4 20:07 The main topic of this week's episode of Millionaire or Bust is carving some savings out of your budget. But, before I talked about that, ... The main topic of this week's episode of Millionaire or Bust is carving some savings out of your budget. But, before I talked about that, I had to give you this week's news: First off, we had the 17th bank failure of the year, making eight consecutive weeks with at least one bank failure. Then on Sunday, Circuit City closed it's doors for the last time. And while oil and gas prices were going up, the DOW, S&P 500 and NASDAQ were all dropping. To combat that and the horrendous unemployment numbers that were released, the top ranking House Republican called for a spending freeze. Of course since people knew they were on their own to help themselves in this economy, workers started spending less on eating out according to a survey. For those of you looking to save a bit more money, I discussed a few ways to carve a little extra money savings out of your budget that I was thinking about as I poured through my bills while doing my taxes. If you enjoy Millionaire or Bust, please head on over to iTunes and give us a nice review. If you have some feedback on how to make the show better, shoot us an email and help us improve the show. We appreciate all your comments. Thanks for listening everyone! podcasts Flying Squirrel Media no no http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0067/ http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0067/#comments Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:00:30 +0000 David van Sunder http://www.millionaireorbust.com/?p=90 http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0067/feed/ 0 34:57 On this episode of Millionaire or Bust, we dive right in with an update on the state of the recession. And yes we've been in ... On this episode of Millionaire or Bust, we dive right in with an update on the state of the recession. And yes we've been in a recession for a year now according to the announcement by the NBER. Of course, that was obvious to everyone who saw that Georgia Community Bank became the 23rd bank to fail this year and that employers cut 533K jobs in November, which is the most since 1974. Of course, the fact that November auto sales sank to the worst level since 1982 might have been a clue as well. So, we discuss that as well as the UAW's agreement to make concessions to help automakers, which must have been helpful because it preceded President Bush and the Democrats reaching a deal to extend enough aid to tide the automakers over until the next President takes office. Then we discussed Obama revealing his five part job-creation plan. Since the show was feeling a bit too heavy, we discussed PNC Financial Services Group's Index of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas'. Unfortunately the song items' cost rose 10.9% in 2008 and yes we did sing...badly. So if you need a laugh, this might be the part of the show designed for you. Maybe next time we need to practice first. Then we discuss an article that details how you can use this down economy to your advantage, to get the home remodeling that you've put off for cheaper. Then we quickly check in on the dropping prices of oil and gas. Before we end the show, we listen to some feedback from Bill from Ohio about the idled GM workers. If you enjoy Millionaire or Bust, please head on over to iTunes and give us a nice review. If you have some feedback on how to make the show better, shoot us an email and help us improve the show. We appreciate all your comments. Thanks for listening everyone! podcasts Flying Squirrel Media no no http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0064/ http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0064/#comments Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:25:28 +0000 David van Sunder http://www.millionaireorbust.com/?p=87 http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0064/feed/ 4 26:11 On this episode of Millionaire or Bust, we cover the week after the US election (which also happened to be a one week trip up ... On this episode of Millionaire or Bust, we cover the week after the US election (which also happened to be a one week trip up to the Yosemite area for us). The financial markets were pretty volatile again this week. So, we had to discuss that volatility a little bit. We also touched on the current mortgage rates. Of course, we had to mention that GM closed under $3 for the first time since 1946 and had their lowest close since WWII. We talked a little about what they were trying to do about it, what the government is thinking about doing to help them and the stance of the UAW on concessions. Unlike General Motors, not all companies are suffering. Both Walmart and McDonalds reported increases in sales. We discussed why that was and who it was at the expense of. We also discussed how U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Friday that recapitalizing banks would be the most effective use of a $700 billion financial bailout war chest rather than the purchase of "toxic" assets held by the banks. Speaking of the financial bailout, the Fed OK'd American Express being reclassified as a bank holding company in order to make them eligible to receive bailout funds. Then, despite signals from OPEC that it may slash production again, the price of oil continued to decline. That of course has been accompanied by the continued fall of gas prices, which has been welcome to consumers. Finally, we discussed the Commerce Department's Friday report that we had the largest ever October plunge for retail sales and a sharp drop in business inventories. If you enjoy Millionaire or Bust, please head on over to iTunes and give us a nice review. If you have some feedback on how to make the show better, shoot us an email and help us improve the show. We appreciate all your comments. Thanks for listening everyone! podcasts Flying Squirrel Media no no http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0045/ http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0045/#comments Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:00:00 +0000 David van Sunder http://www.millionaireorbust.com/?p=68 http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0045/feed/ 1 27:30 We start off the show by talking about an older man we saw at the park over Labor Day weekend. He was collecting cans ... We start off the show by talking about an older man we saw at the park over Labor Day weekend. He was collecting cans from the garbage to make some extra money. It was a reminder to us of why we need to watch our finances and be prepared for retirement. The first article we discuss is an article by Stephen Gandel from Money Magazine called "Why You Can't Teach Money. " In that article, he interviews law professor Lauren Willis who suggests we give up on financial literacy because it's a waste of time and can get people into trouble. David calls into question her intelligence and the wisdom of publishing such a ridiculous article, while Talli focuses more on the content. After savaging Lauren Willis' interview, we discuss Joan Lowy's article from the AP, via Yahoo! News on how traffic fatalities have been reduced by high gas prices. We talk about how Americans are changing their transportation habits in order to avoid spending more money. Next, we touch on a topic which can never be covered enough, identity theft. We pore over The price of identity theft protection an article from CNN Money. We look at what identity theft is, how to safeguard against it, what some services are that can help you and how you can do it cheaper yourself. To get those credit reports, go to annualcreditreport.com. For the Consumers Union's Guide to Security Freeze Protection lists which lists each state's security freeze laws check out consumersunion.org. In case you're cocky about how well you guard your identity, we discuss one incidence of Best Western blowing all the effort put in by 8 million of its customers to keep their personal information secure by making their personal information available to the Russian Mafia. The story is from Scotland's Sunday Herald, courtesy of Slashdot. To finish up the show, we covered some feedback from Matt from Northern California, who also has the Pizza Go Here podcast. It's a fun familycast. If you're interested, I encourage you to check it out! He discusses how you actually can go over limit on a credit card and how there are fees associated with that as well. Thanks for that info Matt. We really appreciate it. If you're really enjoying the podcast and want to share your love for the show, tell someone else about it and/or write us a nice review on iTunes. Help us to spread the word! podcasts Flying Squirrel Media no no http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0036/ http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0036/#comments Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:00:57 +0000 David van Sunder http://www.millionaireorbust.com/?p=56 http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0036/feed/ 0 25:36 This week we gave the gas price update first: $4.559/gallon Then we jumped into the meat of the show and discussed the article "Bear Market Guide: ... This week we gave the gas price update first: $4.559/gallon Then we jumped into the meat of the show and discussed the article "Bear Market Guide: Relax, Make Money" from Money Magazine. We talked about investing in a down market and why you should do it. Next we looked at the article "What to do now that interest rates are steady" from money.cnn.com. We discussed four things that you should do now that the Fed is keeping interest rates steady. Last we looked at "How much you really pay for advice" from Money Magazine. This article was a great one detailing what the true costs are of having a financial adviser. podcasts Flying Squirrel Media no no http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0035/ http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0035/#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:00:34 +0000 David van Sunder http://www.millionaireorbust.com/?p=55 http://www.millionaireorbust.com/archives/mob0035/feed/ 0 34:13 This week we gave the local price updates that we were experiencing. Gas Price: $4.539/gallon We took a look at Vanguard's week in review with their synopsis ... This week we gave the local price updates that we were experiencing. Gas Price: $4.539/gallon We took a look at Vanguard's week in review with their synopsis of economic indicators and David's small insights into what they might mean. Then we jumped into the meat of the show discussing a Money Magazine article "Life without plastic." We spent some time digging into how living without plastic could be of benefit even to those that pay off their credit card balances at the end of every month. And not mentioned in the show is a bonus story detailing 10 people living without plastic. We had to cut it from the show due to time constraints. So, if you're interested in more inspiration, check it out. Last, we addressed some feedback from Justin regarding Show #31 and make a correction. podcasts Flying Squirrel Media no no