I’ve added two more health goals to round out to eighteen total this year. 1. Use up the $900 allocated to my Flex Spending Account This is the first time I’ve participated in a flex spending account, where I’m basically given the chance to designate a portion of my healthcare expenses as tax free. After … Read more
I bought a copy of H&R Block At Home to complete my taxes this year. When all was said and done, I owed the IRS close to $4,000. I usually don’t do such a poor job of forecasting my tax liability, but this year was different. After losing my job, starting my own consulting work, … Read more
I didn’t want to switch. I was adamant about it. I even justified why I was sticking with MS Money. But the reason for switching from Money to Quicken came down to one simple fact: Money doesn’t work anymore. You can no longer download your credit card transactions or update your stock prices. At first … Read more
Slideology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations Nancy Duarte 2008 265 pages Slideology is a beautiful book that is truely representative of the design principles that Nancy Duarte preaches. I remember reading this book at coffee shops and trying really hard to keep the book pristine. This is definitely one that will stay … Read more
Slideology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations Nancy Duarte 2008 265 pages p.2 We are all inherently visual communicators. Consider kindergarten: crayons, finger paints, and clay propelled our expression, not word processors or spreadsheets. p.6 …audiences will either listen to what a presenter is saying or read the slides themselves. They won’t do … Read more
First and foremost, I don’t intend to single out MSN, as they do have some great personal finance authors on their website. Despite that fact, some of their articles and writers are simply a joke. Below is a snapshot from an actual article in MSN’s investing section, one that made MSN’s main portal page a … Read more
Here’s a quick Excel 2007 tip I found just by accidentally playing with my mouse. It’s a little clunky at first if you’ve never used it before. But over time, this will make you faster at navigating the Ribbon. Simply place your cursor over the Ribbon and scroll up and down with your middle mouse … Read more
As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I recently made the switch from Microsoft Money to Quicken 2010 Deluxe. While I had expected to go through a personal finance armageddon, it turned out to be a much smoother experience than I originally thought. It really wasn’t as bad as you may have read about in the … Read more
1. It’s coming from CNBC March 11, 2008 – “Bear Stearns is fine. Bear Stearns is not in trouble. Don’t move your money from Bear. That’s just being silly. Don’t be silly.” – Jim Cramer March 16, 2008 – Bear Stearns is sold for $2 a share, representing less than 7% of it’s value two … Read more
Most people who work in consulting have seen the cartoon above being related to both project management and consulting work in general. The picture comes from projectcartoon.com, which even has a feature that lets you create your own swingset analogy cartoon. Besides being extremely funny, the cartoon does illustrate a number of the unfortunate realities … Read more