How much is too much when assessing mutual fund fees?
Q You wrote about paying attention to mutual fund expenses but never said what are acceptable expenses or how much is too high. Can you elaborate? A Fund expenses include...
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Don’t disregard past performance when choosing fund
Leafing through newspapers and magazines, I ran into these mutual fund ads: From Janus: "100 percent of Janus equity funds have beaten their benchmarks since inception." From T. Rowe Price:...
Make no mistake about it
Readers — good for them — want to make sure I have my facts right: Q I'm not a tax consultant, but my understanding is that the IRS does not...
Make no mistake about it
Readers — good for them — want to make sure I have my facts right: Q I'm not a tax consultant, but my understanding is that the IRS does not...
Of FICO and credit cards
Trying to make up revenue lost under a new federal law that restricts interest rate charges, many credit card issuers have been slapping new fees on cardholders. Among the highest...
Only thing typical of budgets is their individuality
Q Would you print a sample budget for a married couple? For example, "x" percent on utilities, "x" percent for emergencies, etc. It would be much appreciated and needed. A...
Put long-term care in your retirement plans
Have you and your spouse or partner talked about how you'll handle it if you need help getting in and out of bed, taking a bath, getting dressed, preparing and...
Avoid potential for tax penalty by planning ahead
Estimated taxes, something most working Americans don't have to deal with or may not even be aware of, can be a hidden cost when converting traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs....
Saving for retirement doesn’t come easy
With the economy stabilizing, things appear to be getting back to normal. That's bad news. I'm talking about the results of the latest Retirement Confidence Survey, a comprehensive, long-running study...
A cost basis for mutual funds
Q I often read about avoiding high expenses in mutual funds, but my broker said expenses don't matter because rates of return have to be stated after all expenses and...