Today the final post in my guest series over on Talk Stock Trading is up. In it, I offer 3 ideas for investing in a down economy:

Value stocks.
Dollar-cost averaging.
Index funds.

Everything seems to sped up these days. That’s why it was refreshing to participate in this month’s B5 Media Business Channel Theme Day: “Elegant simplicity in a sped-up world.”
I wrote about dollar-cost averaging, and how it can help you simplify your investing plan.

This month, for our B5 Media Business Channel Theme Day, we’re doing “elegant simplicity.” My thoughts immediately turned to investing. Many people are intimidated by it, and worried about putting large amounts of money into an investment.
One of the simple ways to participate in investing is to use dollar cost averaging. And, if you have a retirement account, you already employ dollar cost averaging to growth your retirement savings.
What is dollar cost averaging?
Dollar cost averaging is, basically, when you take a certain amount of money and regularly invest it by buying what you can with it — even partial shares. …read more

My Roth IRA lost in value last year. A great deal of it happened in November. I’m sure it was rather rocky last week as well. But I didn’t check. Mainly because I’m not terribly worried about what this bear market is going to do to my retirement portfolio. If were retiring next year, I’d be terrified. I’d make a plan to keep working a little longer until the market recovers (which it almost always does in the long run). But I am decades from retirement, so the bear market isn’t a bad thing for me.
CNN Money points this out …read more

Ah, the New Year. We all make resolutions. And often, we think ahead to what we would like in life. And one of the things many of us wish we had is more money. The good news is that you can get it. But you have to make a resolution to save money this coming year. Here’s how to do it:

Set a goal to save money in an account every month. Make it a manageable amount. Parse it down so that you do it every week, or twice a month when you get paid. This way it’s not such an …read more

One of the great things about writing a personal finance blog (or any blog for that matter) is that you can take questions that people leave on your comments and turn them into questions you can answer in a post. Here’s an example from Mark at Digital Money World:
Have you ever recommended precious metals as a safe place to store wealth? Gold has done very well in the past 5-6 years and I wonder if any has made its way into your Piggy Bank?
Precious metals are a very interesting place to store wealth. And, because I believe in diversification, some …read more

Sometimes when it comes to yielding wealth, you think you’ve heard something a million times. But, with such things, it is often the case because it bears repeating. Saving money is one of those things.
“Pay yourself first”
This is a concept that few people really grasp. But it is still true nevertheless. It is very important that you pay yourself first. Before you spend your money on other things, you need to set it aside for later. Try and arrange your budget so that you are living only on 70% to 80% of your income. If your company offers the option, …read more