Money Listens

Do you read the newspaper on Monday? You should. If you don’t know how an IRA works, or what an ARM is, chances are you’re going to make some poor decisions with your money. It’s not always your fault– after all, you weren’t taught this stuff in school. But if you want to start making good decisions you’ll need a financial education. One of the easiest and least expensive ways is by reading the newspaper every Monday.

For most major newspapers Monday is “personal finance” day. The newspapers don’t have the usual stock market and corporation news since companies are closed on the weekend. So they focus on news for you.

Last Monday my newspaper had an article titled “Frugal Strategies Counter Rising Costs.” It had some good tips on saving money on food and fuel. A financial planner said, “It really doesn’t matter what you make. It matters what you spend.”

Columnist Scott Burns answered the question of whether buying a big house is a good hedge against rising inflation. (It’s not.) Humberto Cruz discussed how taxpayers can know if they’re eligible to contribute to an IRA. (You can if you’re under age 70 and have income from work.)

Jeanie Wyatt shared bits of wisdom from a dinner with Ben Stein. “My take-away from his remarks? That those 78 million baby boomers approaching retirement should accelerate their savings drastically and prod their kids and grandkids to learn economics.”

If you go on-line, you can read the Wall Street Journal’s excellent Monday business section for free. It, too, is all about you. Get in the habit of making Mondays “educate me day.” Just by reading the newspaper you can end up with a pretty good financial education.

Here’s a bonus. The “Science” page is on the back of the business section. Did you learn much science in school? It’s Monday, so dig up your newspaper and continue your financial education today.

This entry (Permalink) was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 4:00 am and is filed under Educate Yourself. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.