Prioritizing financial goals is one of the hardest things to do.  And it comes into play in so many different ways. How much would you save for an emergency fund while you’re paying off all your debt? Which debt should you pay off first? Should you pay off all your debt before saving for retirement? […]

The post DR 120: Should You Save for Retirement or a Home? appeared first on The Dough Roller.

One of the most important and confusing decisions retirees must make is how and when to claim social security benefits. There are countless things to consider including age to start taking benefits, whether you’ll continue to work, spousal benefits, and full retirement age. For that reason, I asked Social Security benefits expert Marc Kiner to […]

The post DR 119: Advanced Social Security Benefits Strategies–Interview with Marc Kiner appeared first on The Dough Roller.

It’s advice we hear time and again–stick to your asset allocation plan. Whether the stock market is reaching new highs are new lows, don’t change your investments apart from rebalancing. It’s the kind of advice that is simple to understand, but difficult to follow. In fact, a lot of investors don’t follow this advice. In […]

The post DR 118: 9 Actionable Tips to Help You Stick to Your Investment Plan appeared first on The Dough Roller.

The release of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus raises an important question–is the iPhone 6 worth the cost? While nobody can answer that question for you, I decided to pull together as much information as I could on how to find the best deal on the 6 and 6 Plus. What a headache. […]

The post Cheapest Place to Buy a iPhone 6 appeared first on The Dough Roller.

This is the third article in an ongoing series on dividend investing. In part 1 we started with an introduction to dividends. In part 2 we examined how dividends work in conjunction with mutual funds. Today we are going to look at dividend growth. My goal for this article and podcast is to convince you […]

The post DR 116: Dividend Investing (Part 3)–Dividend Growth appeared first on The Dough Roller.

In many families, one spouse handles the investments. As for the other spouse, he or she often has little interest in understanding mutual funds, ETFs, asset allocation, or retirement accounts. Yet what would happen if the one handling the investments were to die or incapacitated. How would the non-investing spouse handle this important responsibility? The […]

The post DR 115: How to Prepare Your Spouse to Invest When You Are Gone appeared first on The Dough Roller.

Tracking your net worth is an essential step to managing your finances. In a single number your net worth can measure your financial progress, whether you are climbing out of debt, building an investment portfolio, or both. We’ve covered how to track your net worth in the past. Recently I received an email from a […]

The post DR 114: 3 Tools to Track Your Net Worth appeared first on The Dough Roller.

How should you invest money in a 529 plan? These college savings plans present some unique investing challenges. On the one hand you want the money to grow to at least keep up with the rising cost of college. On the other hand, there is a limited time horizon. Assume too much risk and the […]

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Have you ever paid off a debt only to find that it caused your credit score to drop? That’s exactly what happened to Lakisher, a listener who graciously sent me the following email: “I have a question. I think I know the basics of my credit and credit report but I recently paid off my […]

The post 7 Things that Cause Your Credit Score to Fluctuate from Month-to-Month appeared first on The Dough Roller.