Category: Student/Early Professional
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The Components Of A Consulting Rate
A consultant is a person who provides expert advice professionally. Consultants may charge by the project or by the hour or day. Many struggle to establish a rate that provides the income they want, and covers their expenses. It is important to ensure your consulting rate makes sense for the market. Your market includes the…
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Why Market Price Matters When Setting A Consulting Rate
A number of years ago, my company was interviewing consultants to help with a particular project. I helped with the interviews. The first consultant was a man in his fifties, with a very strong track record in the area we were interested in. His rate was $92/hour. The second consultant was a woman in her…
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How Much Cash we Keep for Emergencies
As we go into the 2nd month of Glen missing his paychecks*, I started thinking about how much money we have traditionally had on hand to pay for emergencies. What we consider an emergency probably differs from others’ definitions. We tend to consider expenses under $1,000 as non-emergency events. On average, we save $2,000/month. We…
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Planning For Retirement When You Know Nothing: Life-Cycle Funds
The only thing I knew about investing at age 24 was that it was important. I could not have told you even 17 words about stocks, bonds, index funds, and real estate if you put a gun to my head and said “start talking.” However, I was determined to have enough money to stop working…
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Financial Management Is A Practice Not A Goal
I have a few vivid memories from preschool. I remember my mother visiting the class; always choosing finger painting as an activity; rest time; and learning to tie shoelaces. To be more exact, I remember not learning to tie shoelaces. Our teachers took time one day to show us how to cross and turn…
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I Picked My Financial Adviser By His Tie, And Other Financial Mistakes
I am old enough to have made quite a few dumb financial moves. It is a good thing to periodically review your decisions. What follows is a description of my various financial follies, and some thoughts on why I do not view mistakes as all that bad. This gave me a rueful laugh, and I…