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Glenn Beck had this video illustrating the real truth behind the printing of all this money. If you don’t understand it, when we “print money” and dump it into the system, it devalues the money already in the system. What our government is doing now is so overboard it’s scary. Get involved, and let’s stop Congress from selling us out! Watch this video and you will understand better what is happening. It is time I did another review of a great product that I found and use. I have 2 boys, (who have now grown to young men) and I have always been concerned about the porn and all the other bad stuff they could get into with an unfiltered connection to the internet. I tried many stand alone products that I had to load onto their computers and nothing was very satisfactory. Finally, I have found something that works, and while it’s a little late for me, maybe you can get a lot of benefit from it. I don’t know how long it will be FREE, but for now it is. So take advantage of Opendns.com. They are free, and I don’t get paid to tell you about them,( just a disclaimer for the suspicious). There is one key thing you need to know about this service and this is what makes them so good for me. This is a router based service. If you don’t know what a router is, you have some homework to do. Most families these days will have a router, heck most everyone with an internet connection in the US probably has a router. If you have more than one computer in your house, and especially if you have ‘wireless’ internet, you have a router. The router takes all of the internet traffic and funnels the requests for webpages to your internet provider. This is where Opendns does the magic. They give you some numbers to insert into your router that cause all the internet traffic to go their site, where they filter it, then send it on. (I am intentionally trying to keep this simple, the numbers are Domain nameservers but you don’t need to worry about that.) It happens very quick and seamlessly for you. I was so impressed with the speed. You won’t see any difference in your web surfing, it can actually be faster with their service. You have to create a free account on their site, then you can decide the ‘amount’ of filtering you want. You can choose to filter only a couple of types of sites, or you can really lock it down and aggressively filter. It is up to you. You must try this service if you are looking for a way to protect your children from the incredibly bad side of the internet. It works so well, that is the word gets out on this, I suppose many of the current suppliers of software you have to pay for will be out of business. And why pay for something when these people are offering such a great free service? That is what is being talked about by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Who knows? With all the stimulus packages we’ve seen lately and with the bailout on Wall Street, I think the politicians have lost their minds. They think they can fix anything by throwing money at it. It is simply a market correction that will pass. Whether we get a new stimulus or not, the markets will come back. I hear the amount being proposed now is about 150 Billion Dollars. That would be about the same amount as the stimulus in the spring where many families got 1200 – 1500 dollars. They are saying it would happen after the election. I guess we will see if this happens. I will post anything I hear about it, you can be sure of that. I really am beginning to think there are no “financial experts” in Washington any more. I am sure if the politicians got out of the way, we could ride this downturn out and come back stronger than ever. Dave Ramsey was talking the other night about the history of these market downturns and he said that since 1973, every time the market fell by 10% in a short period of time, it recovered within 2 years. It will recover again. Just hang in there and don’t do something stupid, like selling out your 401k. Your Roth IRA is going to be fine, in fact if you have any cash, now is a good time to put some more in a Roth IRA. You know you need insurance. Well, maybe you don’t know it , but most of you do need it. The problem comes when you start listening to your brother-in-law, whom we will call Earl, tell you about what type of insurance to get. It is really pretty simple. Don’t listen to Earl! That is the first step. Do you really need life insurance? Most people who have a family do. I say most people because if you live long enough and have a good retirement plan, a good Roth IRA, and no debt, then maybe you don’t need life insurance at that point. But let’s just assume you haven’t reached that point in your life yet. Let’s assume you are married, have 2 kids, owe $200,000 on your home, and have a yearly income of $100,000. Okay, you need life insurance!Now, back to your good ole brother-in-law, Earl. Earl gets his life insurance from a guy he plays golf with who is a ‘financial advisor’. His golf buddy sells all sorts of financial things and seems to make good money doing it. This guy has a huge house and gold rings on each finger and so he “must know what is best for Earl”, so Earl listens and does what he says. This is the wrong approach to life insurance. 9 times out of 10, Earl’s golf buddy will be selling some sort of Cash Value insurance. It goes by many names, such as “whole life”, “universal life”, “investment life”, you get the idea. They all have the same thing going for them. They cost up to 10 times the price of a good term policy and make the guy selling it able to afford his big house. You may have gathered by now that I am totally against these types of policies. There is almost NO REASON to buy them, yet so many people still do. I will try to convince you that all you need is a level TERM Life Insurance policy. I should first say that even within the margins of this article, or some ad within the text here may point you to something other than what I am describing. I cannot control the advertisers here to the extent that only term life insurance advertisers will be here. Just beware. I will provide a link to a company you can try, but there are many, many , term insurance providers and you should just shop around to get the best rate for your circumstances. Some facts about Term Life Insurance. 1. It is about 10 times cheaper than Cash Value life insurance. More or less, but it is very inexpensive compared to cash value polices. 2. Term protects you same as cash value. There is no difference, as the cash value policy has an underlying ‘term’ policy to give you the protection amount. 3. Level term policies can be bought for 10, 15, or 20 years. This means you can buy say a $500,000 term policy that has premiums that are level for the entire period. This is the best value usually. Sure some will argue that the time value of money erodes your real protection level, and that is true. However, the premiums are also going ‘relative’ to the value of money also. If this is too confusing, don’t worry about it. It just means $500,000 dollars won’t buy the same thing 10 years from now as it will today. 4. Some say you should buy about 10 times the amount of your annual income. I think that is a good number, but it really depends on your personal circumstances. For me, my company provides a death benefit, in the form of an annuity, if I should die. This sort of thing has to be factored in. ….to be continued.. In the mean time, you can click the banner ad below and compare a bunch of term insurance policies for free. Just fill out a few simple questions and submit. You will see what I am talking about regarding the low cost of term insurance. ______________________________________________________ This web site offers general information for managing personal finances and does not recommend specific financial actions. For financial advice tailored to your situation, please contact an expert such as a CPA or a personal financial advisor. Are you facing a foreclosure? Are you thinking that would be the best thing for you? There are alternatives. Have you ever heard of a "short sale"?This may be an alternative to a foreclosure. A foreclosure will cause a lot of damage to your credit rating. It can really affect your interest rates in the future and has a long-lasting effect on your credit score. A short sale can reduce some of this damage. A short sale happens when you sell your house
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About Mack
Sometimes counting your change is a great money maker. A play on words - how YOU change is what counts. Helping you make wise financial decisions and helping you keep more of the money you make is what this site is about. |
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