Finance Gourmet Site

The Truth About Stock

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One if the most frequent questions I get from people is what kind of [tag]insider tips[/tag] and tricks do I know as a financial planner. Of course, most people don’t want to hear it, and sometimes it can take a while to explain. Today, one of those secrets is revealed over at What Is A Stock – It’s Not What You Think on the main Finance Gourmet web site. Check it out. Then, subscribe our feed so you can get the next article which will reveal the secret about the [tag]stock[/tag] market and how stocks are priced.

How to Get a Bonus On Your Tax Rebate!

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Tax Graphic Ok, it’s official. Pretty much everyone in America is getting a [tag]tax rebate[/tag] this summer. The IRS says they’ll start mailing checks in May. So how would you like to get a nice tax-free bonus on your tax rebate? Here’s how.

Your tax-rebate is part of the [tag]economic stimulus[/tag] package recently passed by Congress and signed by the President. You will get up to $600 per person or up to $1200 per joint couple. You also will get up to $300 per child. That money will be a tax free payment from the government. So how do you collect your bonus?

If you qualify for a deductible traditional [tag]IRA[/tag] contribution in 2008 and you put your rebate into a traditional IRA then you will get to deduct the amount of the contribution. So, if you are in the 30% tax bracket, it’s like getting a 30% bonus in the form of a deduction on your 2008 taxes (which you will file in 2009). If you are self-employed you can accomplish the same thing using your SEP or SIMPLE IRAs.

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Do You Need a Financial Planner or Financial Advisor?

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On the Finance Gourmet website, the first part of our latest article has been posted. It covers that tough topic of whether or not you need a financial advisor or financial planner. It is unbiased, and subsequent sections will give you all the details you never got so you won’t have to ask the question again.

Want the one question quiz?

1) What are you doing right now to protect your retirement portfolio from the coming recession, and what did you do last time to protect if from the falling housing market and the sub-prime mortgage crisis?

Write it down. Seriously. You are only cheating yourself if you don’t. Writing it down will help you make a fair analysis.

The answer on the next page will let you know if you need a financial advisor or financial planner.

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About

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About Finance Gourmet The person behind Finance Gourmet is a former real-life financial planner with real life clients. Why is this such a big deal? Because virtually no one else you are reading can say that. Those articles in the newspaper? Professional journalists. Those other websites? Professional writers and web designers. Those books? Professional speakers mostly, with some supposedly successful (or formerly successful) investors thrown in, and maybe a former financial advisor or two. Of course, it might all be ChatGPT financial advice these days. Why Am I Doing This? Have you ever noticed that the column in your Sunday paper business section each week always takes up the same amount of space? Do you really believe that all the financial issues out there take exactly the same amount of explanation? Are capital gains taxes and mutual fund expenses both completely understandable in the same number of words? (Wow! Sunday paper?! This page is OLD. I’m going to leave it though because the point still stands. I guess you spend 20 years as a professional in the finance industry, some of your stuff will age.) In real life, some topics are more complex than others. Some topics are understandable by …

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Welcome to Finance Gourmet

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With so many good domain names already taken it can be a bit of a challenge to find a good, reasonable name for your home on the web. Hopefully, I’ve done ok. My main concern will be how many people know how to spell “gourmet” :). Although I won’t be taking the food theme to an extreme, the new website name fits pretty well. The Finance Gourmet will be unlike the hundreds or thousands of other financial websites out there. How? Well, in lots of ways, but the most important one will be our depth. The world has become obsessed with the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) concept. That, plus the limited space available in many printed publications has led to a world where despite there being literally millions of financial articles, there are virtually none that contain enough information for you to read them, and then take real meaningful action. This will be different. The Gourmet isn’t content to just know the basics. The recipe on the back of a bag of Nestle Chocolate Chips may indeed produce chocolate chip cookies, but there is so much more. How would you make them softer, chewier, fluffier? Can you just add …

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