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WalletPop:

Filed under: Debt, Extracurriculars, Saving

In an entertaining column in the New York Times, M.P. Dunleavy describes her family’s effort to “go medieval” on that last few thousand dollars worth of credit card debt accumulated prior to their marriage.

To help eliminate the last bit and break free from debt hell, the couple has temporarily suspended retirement savings. Was this a good decision? She’s not really sure. The credit card debt only has an interest rate of 6% and given the tax deduction that comes from funding a traditional IRA, there’s an argument to be made that she should have continued her retirement saving, even at the expense of paying off debt.

But that’s all beside the point, according to Dunleavy: “There are a dozen ways to crunch the numbers, but the ultimate gain wasn’t financial, it was peace of mind.”

There’s a good message here for financial decisions: ultimately, it’s about improving your quality of life, and nothing is more important than peace of mind. If a financial move will make you feel secure and comfortable, it might be a good one: in spite of what any online calculator says.

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This is Money | Mortgages & homes: Will investing in room-to-let catch on, or will it go the way of the saturated city centre flats market?

This is Money | Mortgages & homes: Bungalows may be much maligned and the butt of many jokes, but when it comes to holding their value and attracting buyers they are hard to beat

WalletPop:

Filed under: Tax, Transportation

The truth is that there is no conspiracy against Americans when it comes to gas prices. No one is purposely making you pay more, and our government can’t really help. Anything our government would try to do would probably backfire royally, so they’re better off staying out of the gas problem.

The below video shows us exactly what goes into the cost of a gallon of gas. And it’s no surprise that the price is most dependent on the price of crude oil. He who holds the crude oil can set the price, and short of drilling our own oil reserves (which the environmentalists won’t let us do), we have no control over the price of a barrel of oil. And yes, oil speculators have made that situation a little worse, but they’re part of the market and that’s how the market works.

Don’t forget that one of the biggest hands in your pocket when it comes to gas prices is our government. The federal and state governments take huge amounts of money from you for every gallon of gas, and they do nothing to earn that money!

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

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