Bring your money queries to the table on Thursday, June 14, when Kiplinger.com hosts a live web chat with a trio of experts from the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA).
The session is part of Kiplinger’s “Jump-Start Your Financial Plan” series. Here’s the beauty part: It’s free.
You probably didn’t, either. Although winning tickets were sold in several states, odds are they weren’t yours.
The odds really do stink, you know. That’s why some wags call the lottery “a tax on people who are bad at math.”
Going out on a fiscal limb here, but…I don’t think the lottery is so bad.
It’s not that I think the lottery is “good,” i.e., an important part of a balanced financial portfolio. I just think it’s not-so-bad in the way that potato chips are not-so-bad. An occasional handful won’t kill you. If you focus on chips to the exclusion of anything healthy, then you’ve got a problem.
My biweekly gig at Get Rich Slowly took on the pulpy plague of phone-book bundles. What to do with directories you didn’t ask for and won’t use?
Write what you know, right? Thus my most recent post at Get Rich Slowly was called “Prepare to get sick.”
In it I explained how I stay relatively ready year-round for illness or injury, from having basic foods and OTC meds on hand to figuring out a way to telecommute in case of a longish period of immobility. Specifically, I noted that one reason I could have surgery on really short notice was that I already had most of my ducks in a row.
I also got to work in a reference to the exchanging of body fluids. This pained one reader, who left a comment asking if this were truly necessary. My reply: “Yes.” After all, it was Valentine’s Day when I got sick.
Lately it seems that all I publish are giveaways, with relatively little real writing. I blame sudden illness, a new job and some additional freelance opportunities.
Not that I don’t like giving things away. I do. That’s why I have a weekly contest. This week it’s, “Be CentsAble: How to Cut Your Household Budget in Half,” by Chrissy Pate and Kristin McKee
This week’s giveaway is sponsored by Stacy Johnson of Money Talks News, a website that produces a personal finance television news series. You’ve probably seen these pieces on MSN Money (among other places). If you have, you’ve also seen Stacy, who stars in many of these programs. He also writes PF articles to go along with the film work.
Two other important facts about Stacy:
He syndicates my stuff over at Money Talks News. Bless his heart.
He designed a heck of a funny T-shirt — one which you get six chances to win this week, rather than five.
A few nights ago I had what I thought was a really bad case of indigestion and nausea. Zantac couldn’t touch it. It got worse. I tried to make myself vomit and couldn’t.
Eventually I realized that (a) indigestion shouldn’t feel like this and (b) I had eaten a fairly healthy dinner. A doctor’s visit and an ultrasound determined that it was a gall-bladder attack.
I spent six butt-numbing hours at the movies on Saturday, watching the Metropolitan Opera’s live broadcast of “Gotterdammerung.” Spectacle, pageantry, a buff and bitchin’ Siegfried who turned out to have a down-home Texas accent – it was a very successful day.
The only thing better than opera is frugal opera. In fact, the show didn’t cost me anything:
I’ve got a couple of books that will get you started – and I’m giving them away. That means two winners this week.
These two goals are the subjects of my recent work at MSN Money and Get Rich Slowly — and they complement each other.