DIY Personal & Retirement Financial Planning
Do-It-Yourself financial and investment planning Excel spreadsheet software
Increase your knowledge and accelerate your ability to take leadership in the management of your own personal finances and lifetime investing. This ten-step personal financial planning process will help you optimize the management of your financial planning and investment management affairs over your lifetime, while greatly reducing the unnecessary waste of your money and your […]
Select mutual funds and ETFs with the most important economic factors that affect long term, diversified, and risk-adjusted investment fund returns Good things are born small and grow over time. Regularly, The Skilled Investor evaluates individual mutual funds and ETFs and adds new articles that use the Fund Authority Score rating system. To be alerted […]
Fund Authority Scores rate mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) on the most important economic factors that influence individual investors’ net long term diversified investment fund performance. The Skilled Investor developed the Fund Authority Score system to provide individual investors with concise and objective summaries of mutual funds and ETFs for comparisons within investment […]
<<– Continued from Part 1 (Where’s Waldo? The illusion of superior professional mutual fund manager performance.) Instead of highlighting dozens or even hundreds of perennially superior mutual fund money managers, the media conversation has become a repetitive chant about Warren Buffett. Personal Financial Planning Software While highly successful and very worthy of respect, it is […]
You are not likely to beat the stock market, despite all the cheer leading from the securities industry and the financial media. When you try to beat the public securities markets, unfortunately you are more likely to trail the market’s return, because of extra costs, taxes, and investment mistakes. The idea that investors can beat […]
Part 3 of the The Never-Do List – 22 Good Ways to Avoid Financial Advisor and Investment Counselor Frauds and Scams This article discusses things that you should “never do” with a financial planner or investment advisor, and it covers unsolicited advice, sales pressure, and account decision-making discretion. You should never do certain things with […]
Part 1 of the The Never-Do List – 22 Good Ways to Avoid Financial Advisor and Investment Counselor Frauds and Scams This article discusses things that you should “never do†with a financial planner or investment advisor, and it covers adviser selection, contracts, signatures, and ownership title of your assets. You should never do certain […]
PIRATES OF THE CREDIT SEA — Part 5: I write to the President of CitiBank Customer Service My saga to recover my credit card treasure continues. Previous articles have covered the particulars of my situation, and I will not repeat them. In summary, for fifteen years I have always done my best to conform to […]
PIRATES OF THE CREDIT SEA – Part 4: Hitting the Citibank Stone Wall in Polite Conversation This article continues my personal saga of trying to get Citibank to fix problems with their management of my credit card account with them. For a summary of the overall situation, go to Part #1: My Treasure Is Taken! […]
PIRATES OF THE CREDIT SEA – Part 2: What are my rights? What are my rights in the situation that I summarized in my previous article: “PIRATES OF THE CREDIT SEA: My Treasure Is Taken!”? Well, the answer is very simple. I have a contractual right to get my treasure back. I also have a […]
PIRATES OF THE CREDIT SEA – Part 1: My Treasure Is Taken! Regular readers of The Skilled Investor have already been warned previously of the general dangers of consumer debt and of the risks associated with credit cards. Now, The Skilled Investor has himself become ensnared. In a series of articles, I will: A) summarize […]
As a financial decision tool, VeriPlan becomes increasingly valuable with the passage of time Summary: While VeriPlan is an genuine bargain because of its low cost, it is an even greater bargain, when you consider that VeriPlan has no built-in obsolescence and that it can be used productively for years. We have engineered VeriPlan, so […]
Your personal earnings, expenditures, and savings are the most important determinants of your family’s long-term financial wealth Summary: How much you earn, spend, and save are by far the most dominant determinants of your long-term financial well-being. Self-control in your decision-making regarding consumption is far more important than clever investing. Expenditure control works, while attempts […]
Using Google Scholar to Find Finance Articles If you want to do some research about financial planning and investing by yourself, try using Google Scholar. Be prepared for a lot of the material you find to be esoteric. Nevertheless, Google Scholar is littered with diamonds that can improve your understanding of personal finance and save […]
Avoid investment funds with higher investment portfolio turnover The problem with high turnover is that higher fund trading adds substantial hidden expenses that drag down returns. Because short-term trading is a zero sum game (before costs) played against other well informed traders, greater turnover is far more likely on average to result in lower fund […]