Random Thoughts and Links

Here’s an excellent blog post over on the Keener Financial blog from a colleague, Jean Keener, who is a fellow Garrett Planning Network member.  This post is about 10 Tools to Build an Emergency Fund – and contains some very good tips on this important subject.

Also, my friend Helen Maynard over at Affine Financial Services just wrote about a unique way that Bostonians can utilize a grass roots effort to stimulate local business as well as to benefit along in the process.  Her post can be found here.

Along those lines, I recently became aware of a project going on here in Central Illinois, called the Capital Area Independent Business Alliance.  This group is promoting a “Buy Local” initiative, and challenges us during the week of July 1 to 7, to spend at least 50¢ from every dollar at local (truly local, not franchises or chains) businesses.  Interesting campaign, sounds like a good idea!

Reading through some articles recently, this one from Kiplinger caught my eye – Why I Would Avoid Index Funds – by Steven Goldberg, who quite often seems downright sane in his writing, but misses the mark on this one, at least with his first point.  It seems that Mr. Goldberg’s logic is that these funds he’s pushing have already experienced losses over the past year, so from a tax standpoint they should be very good investments.  So far, so good – he’s right, that particular issue would be helpful to a new investor.

However (and there’s always a however in life, right?) apparently if you follow Mr. Goldberg’s advice you’d have already been invested in these same funds (he says so in the very last paragraph) and as such you’d have been paying the extra costs for the dismal return and the tax break would look more like a consolation prize at this point.  Seems like the point would have been taken a little more seriously had that last paragraph been excluded.

Okay, that’s all for now – let me know if you have interesting links to share!

I can learn from you, you can learn from me - please leave your comments and links!

Jim Blankenship, CFP®, EA, is an expert in personal retirement, IRAs, and tax issues, with more than 20 years of experience in the industry.  . Read more from this author