Failing to save is a huge problem in the USA. Spending money you don’t have (taking on personal debt) and not even having emergency savings and retirement savings lead to failed financial futures. Even though those in the USA today are among the richest people ever to live many still seem to have trouble saving. Here is a simple tip to improve that result for yourself.

Anytime you get a raise split the raise between savings, paying off debt (if you have any non-mortgage debt), and increasing the amount you have to spend. I think too many people think financial success is much more complicated than it is. Doing simple things like this (and some of the other things, mentioned in this blog) will help most people do much better than they have been doing.

There are lots of ways to spend money. And many people find ways to spend all or more than all (credit card debt, personal loans…) they have which are sure ways to a failed financial future. So anytime you get a raise (a promotion, new job…) take a portion of that extra money and put it toward your financial future. The proportion can very but I would aim for at least 50% if you have any non-mortgage debt, don’t have a 6 month emergency fund, or are behind in saving for retirement, a house…

Exactly how you calculate if you are behind, I will address in a future post (or you can look around for more information). By taking this fairly simple action you will be setting yourself up for a successful financial future instead of finding yourself falling behind, as so many do. And then when things go badly, as they most likely will sometime during your life, you will have built up a financial position to draw on. Instead of, as so many do now, find that you were living beyond your means when things were going well - which it doesn’t take a genius to see will lead to serious problems when things take a turn for the worse.

So lets say you take a new job and get a raise of $4,000 a year. Instead of spending $4,000 more just put $2,000 away (pay off debt, add to your retirement savings, add to savings for a house, add to your emergency fund…). Then you get a promotion of another $3,000, increase your spending by $1,500 and save the rest. It is such a simple idea and just doing this you can find yourself in the top few percent of those making smart financial decisions. And if you get to the point that you are ahead in all your financial areas then you can take more of each raise you get (but most of the time you will have learned how valuable the extra saving are and figured out the extra toys really are not worth it). But if you want to, once you have created a successful financial life, you can choose to buy more toys.

Related: Retirement Savings Survey Results - Earn more, spend more, want more

There are external risks to your financial health. Many people ruin their financial health even before any external risk can, but lets say you are being responsible then what risks should you seek to protect yourself from?

Another protection is to be financially literate. You can risk your financial health by being fooled in spending money you should save, borrowing too much for your house, failing to buy the right insurance, using too much leverage, investing too much in high risk investments…

Related: credit card tips - personal finance tips - personal loan information

The recent drastic reductions again emphasize (once again) that changes in the federal funds rate are not correlated with changes in the 30 year fixed mortgage rate. In the last 4 months the discount rate has been reduced nearly 200 basis points, while 30 year fixed mortgage rates have fallen 18 basis points.

I have update my article showing the historical comparison of 30 year fixed mortgage rates and the federal funds rate. The chart shows the federal funds rate and the 30 year fixed rate mortgage rate from January 2000 through April 2008 (for more details see the article).

There is not a significant correlation between moves in federal funds rate and 30 year mortgage rates that can be used for those looking to determine short term (over a few days, weeks or months) moves in the 30 year fixed mortgage rates. For example if 30 year rates are at 6% and the federal reserve drops the federal funds rate 50 basis points that tells you little about what the 30 year rate will do. No matter how often those that should know better repeat the belief that there is such a correlation you can look at the actual data in the graph above to see that it is not the case.

Related: real estate articles - Affect of Fed Funds Rates Changes on Mortgage Rates - How Not to Convert Equity - more posts on financial literacy
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Nationalities of the 25 richest people:

11 Richest in order: Warren Buffett, USA $62Billion; Carlos Slim Helu & family, Mexico, $60B; William Gates III, USA $58B; Lakshmi Mittal, $45B; Mukesh Ambani, India, $43B; Anil Ambani, India, $42B; Ingvar Kamprad & family, Sweden, $31B; KP Singh, India, $30B; Oleg Deripaska, Russia, $28B; Karl Albrecht, Germany, $27B; Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong $26.5B.

Data from Forbes 2008 Billionaires List, using country of citizenship. Using stock values on 11 February, 2008.

Related: Best Research University Rankings (2007) - Top 10 Manufacturing Countries (2006) - How Rich Are You?

I am not even expecting good customer service but how about just the absence of customer hostility. The latest from Discover Card. I still have not received the money they said they would send (waiting more than a month now) - this is the amount they overcharged my bank (after they had already been told the charges were invalid, I guess it is acceptable to charge me for charges they new were invalid? But heck even accepting that how about paying that money back as they said they would). Amazingly they did send me a “bill” [with a balance they owe me instead of me owing them so it is not really a bill in the sense of money I owe them] for the account they said didn’t exist which was the reason they claimed that they could not pay the cash back bonus they promised. If people didn’t expect credit card companies to provide outrageously bad customer service wouldn’t this be seen as shockingly bad - so much so that certainly no company would tolerate it if it was brought to their attention. Well, we have evidence that such a thought is not true when dealing with Discover Card.

So according to Discover they don’t owe the money on the cash back bonus they promised because the account is closed. Yet they send me a bill (with a balance owed to me but it is exactly like the bill I would get from them each month including the cashback bonus section where instead of listing the amount they promised to pay me they list $0) that has an new account number on it. Paying what they promised in cash back bonus doesn’t seem like it would be hard (and frankly I can’t imagine not paying it in this circumstance can be acceptable according to the rules but who has the time to try and fight with them). And they don’t send the money that even they agree they owe, but instead just send a bill? What are they thinking?

As I said in a previous post if Discover Card pays the money they owe I will add an equal amount of my own money and lend that amount through Kiva (a charity that arranges loans from individuals to those in need worldwide on the micro-lending model). And I will either continue to roll those loans over for at least 10 years or I will donate the entire amount to a micro-lending charity (if for example Kiva shuts down or I decide that they are not doing a good job or whatever).
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I originally setup the 10 stocks for 10 years portfolio in April of 2005. In order to track performance I setup a marketocracy portfolio but had to make some adjustment to comply with the diversification rules. In December of 2006 I announced a new 11 stocks for the next 10 years (9 are the same, I dropped First Data Corporation, which had split into 2 companies and added Tesco and Yahoo). Now I will add Templeton Emerging Market Fund (EMF) making it 12 stocks for the next 10 years. I like the emerging market area and liked the concentration in China and southeast Asia the Dragon fund offered. I still do, but given the rapid rise in the Chinese market especially other markets look more attractive than previously. EMF will allow for a wider geographic representation.

At this time the stocks in the marketocracy portfolio in order of returns -
Google (134% return, 15% of the marketocracy portfolio, 12% of portfolio if I were buying today)
PetroChina (127%, 7.5%, 8%)
Amazon (92%, 6%, 6%)
Templeton Dragon Fund (73%, 11.5%, 10%)
Toyota (69%, 10%, 10%)
Cisco (54%, 6%, 8%)
Tesco (14% [22.55 purchase price on Dec 11th 2006]*, 0, 10%)
Templeton Emerging Market Fund (EMF) (15%, 2%, 4%)
Intel (6%, 4%, 8%)
Pfizer (-6%, 4%, 8%)
Yahoo (-12%, 4%, 6%)
Dell (-23%, 6%, 10%)
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So I had a Discover Card. They charged me for charges I didn’t authorize. They then force me through their maze of policies telling me that it was not possible to be more customer friendly - their policies couldn’t be any different they were the policy (as if that made any sense). So Discover Card had to shut down my account. I told them if they couldn’t provide better service then I didn’t want a new account after they closed my account which was the only way they wouldn’t charge me for charges I didn’t authorize. They owed me $240 from their cashback bonus program. Now they refuse to pay me the money I earned because they say that it is their policy not to pay the cashback bonus if an account is closed.

After going around on that for awhile and them assuring me it was their policy and it was not possible for it to be done any other way by them or anyone else I asked what happened if someone died. Oh then the account is closed and we pay the money we owe on the cashback bonus. So obviously it isn’t that the account being closed makes it impossible for Discover to pay what was owed. It seems pretty obvious it is just a good way to take money Discover owes and just count on people not wanting to waste their time fighting to get what Discover owed them. Maybe one of their marketing people told them doing this to people that just had a parent/spouse… die might be bad publicity so they decided to actual pay what was owed in those instances. Jeez why can’t credit card companies just provide good service and treat customers well instead of only doing the absolute least they can that won’t spark outrage from the public and legislative action to prohibit such practices (I image not paying what was owed to people that died would spark legislative action if it wasn’t already illegal).

Is it really legal to charge someone for charges they didn’t authorize and when they tell you they didn’t authorize them refuse to do anything about it if they don’t close their account and then say we are not going to pay your cashback bonus because your account is closed? it seems to be yet another instance of credit card companies doing everything they can to take money from customers. Of course they claimed it was impossible to do anything else it was their policy to do it this way and no other credit card company is any different.
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It is difficult to imagine trying to live without the convenience of credit cards. Yet many get into financial trouble in part due to their misuse of credit cards. By following a few simple rules you can avoid the missteps and use credit cards to improve you personal finances instead of falling into the credit card traps.

First, don’t use your credit card for loans. Pay off your balance each month. Pretty obvious advice but way way too many people don’t follow it. If you use your credit card for a loans - 98% of the time that is a mistake and big risk to your personal financial future. Don’t do it. There is a reason pretty much all the advice from financial advisers on credit cards starts with this - it is the most important advice.

Second, if you don’t follow the advise above pay off your loan as soon as possible. Payment the minimum payment is huge mistake. You should not be making any discretionary purchases if you are not paying down your credit card debt substantially each month.

Continue reading credit card tips.

From the official US Federal Trade Commission site:

Viewing your credit report is an important step to financial security. You should review your credit reports annually (at least) to correct and any errors. Also doing so can be a tool to help you spot identity theft. The credit report site also has a large frequently asked question section with answers to questions like: What is a credit score? How do I request a “fraud alert” be placed on my file? Should I order all my credit reports at one time or space them out over 12 months? (I would suggest spreading the requests out during the year myself).

We will be posting messages on various terms and concepts in investing and economics. Here we offer some information on cash flow.

Earnings per share include many adjustments to reflect the standard accounting wisdom, beyond the cash taken in and spent by a company (depreciation, expensing options, expensing long term investments over the expected life, writing off inventory…). Cash flow is a measure that tries to more closely measure the increase (or decrease) in cash for a company over a period of time.

An advantage of looking at cash flow is it is more difficult to distort than earnings per share (though it is still very possible). A disadvantage is that standard accounting practices exist for a reason and often give a better picture than a simple view provided by the cash flow. Therefore cash flow is normally useful in conjunction with the earnings statement - not instead of.

Operating Cash Flow attempts to eliminate such non-operations impacts (like selling or buying stock) and give a cash flow figure for the operation of the business. Free Cash Flow is equal to “operating cash flow” less “net capital expenditures.”

Like many accounting terms, cash flow is more complex in execution than it seems but this gives you a start on understanding cash flow.

More from the Curious Cat Investing Dictionary on Cash Flow