Tag: Everyday investing
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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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When To Hire Help
If you are busy saving, paying off debt, and investing, you are likely doing many things yourself. In our family, the DIY (do it yourself) personality is strong. Why would you pay someone to do the things you can do on your own? There are a few situations where you would do well to hire…
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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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What Not To Say To Someone Struggling Financially
Most people go through a rough financial period at least once in their lives. You lose your job, there’s a problem with the house, or a major family crisis. A colleague used to say that deaths always came in threes. Whenever she purchased one sympathy card, she bought an extra, because it always seemed at…
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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…