Interestingly, the mainstream media is starting to pick up on a few trends that I’ve been talking about for years: namely that the 20-somethings coming out of college are going to be in big trouble. The reasons for this are:
1. College degrees are becoming not much more than a piece of paper that says you’re slightly better than someone who didn’t goto college.
In other words, they don’t mean as much as they used to.
Why? Because college has turned into so much more than education. Now obviously there are exceptions to …

There is no “get out of jail free” card, but there are programs set in place to make this process far less restrictive and burdensome. It’s important to know that you do have options with how and how much you pay back:

Fear has re-entered the markets and the economy as Americans are overwhelmingly responding to polls that they fear the economy is getting worse and possibly headed back into a recession. Meanwhile we have record long-term unemployed which speaks to the structural nature of our economic woes (versus cyclical). Yes, it’s by no means easy to get ahead in today’s economy, but we’re here to deliver the financial survival guide for those of you in your 20s (or 30s for that matter). Let’s jump in…
Income
Nothing at this stage is more important …

Continuing our series of the 20smoney Personal Finance rules, we get to big number three. This rule has more to do with investing and retirement saving versus the traditional personal finance topics of budgeting, saving, getting out of debt, etc.

This principle is sort of a two-for-one principle.  It has two parts that are related.  They are as follows: 1) you will never get rich off a salary, unless you are in the .001% that are executives for gigantic companies and make salaries in the millions, and 2) the key to wealth is rate of return.
Let’s start with the first part. With very few exceptions, you will not get very wealthy from being a salaried employee.  Now there are high paying jobs, and you can be very frugal and do …

We’re going to go through a list of personal finance rules that I believe are necessary to get ahead financially. Some of these may not necessarily be in line with what we’re taught generally, but hey, most people are terrible with money, so let’s not get too worried about that. Today is rule #1.

Housing numbers have weakened in recent weeks and months (from an already weakened state). Most homeowners now are numb to the fact that they’re getting killed on their home values and it only gets worse. I believe that housing will drop likely another 5-20% from current levels, but possibly even more demoralizing is that I think it might take place over a span of 2-4 years. Such a prolonged period of decline is definitely hard to stomach for most homeowners.

We are living in arguably the best time to purchase cash flowing rental property. Areas that didn’t pencil out 3-5 years ago are providing a steady monthly cash flow of $300-500 a month for savvy investors. Another factor to consider is that inflation is beginning to rear its ugly head in our everyday lives (just visit your nearest grocery store), and a 30-year fixed rate mortgage is a great way to hedge against the declining value of the dollar.