How To Avoid Fraud When Booking Your Next Trip Online

 
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The following is a guest post by Amy Johnson. If you’d like to have your own guest post featured on The First Million is the Hardest see my guest posting guidelines and send me an email! Avoid Credit Fraud when Booking Your Plane Tickets Online Buying travel tickets online is no different from online shopping. Experts remind travelers that the risk of credit card fraud is always present. They strongly advocate for safe computing habits and considerable amounts of common sense. And these measures need to take effect from day one that travel plans are set in motion.                               Safe Online Booking Tips for Your Vacation Travel Plans Online booking of airline tickets is essentially online shopping. Internet security experts strongly recommend the adherence to the same measures to protect consumers from becoming victims of credit fraud. The rule of thumb is to trust only reputable service providers and to … Continue reading →

A Beginners Guide To Bitcoin

 
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what you need to know about bitcoin, bitcoin for beginners, what is bitcoin, intro to bitcoin

I’ve been hearing a lot about Bitcoin how it’s exploding in popularity lately, but until recently I had absolutely no clue what a Bitcoin was, how it worked or why anyone would ever want them. So I dug in, did some research, and found that Bitcoin is actually a pretty fascinating concept. What is Bitcoin? Simply: Bitcoin is a new, experimental, purely digital form of currency that could forever change how business is conducted online. Bitcoin is a decentralized currency, meaning there is no central bank or government controlling the currency. Instead, everything to do with Bitcoin operates completely over a peer-to-peer network.  The below video probably explains the concept much better than I can, so check it out: When you think of currency you traditionally think of physical bills and coins, be they US Dollars, Euros, etc… However currency in its most basic form is simply a medium of exchange. When you hold a … Continue reading →

February 2013 Portfolio Review

 
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http://thefirstmillionisthehardest.net

Two months are in the books for 2013. It would be pretty near impossible for February to be as good to me as January was. Mr. Market was up only slightly over the past month so there wasn’t much help to be had outside of my regular contributions. I won’t bore you with too much preamble so lets just get to the good stuff, eh? Roth IRA: $19,350 (+2.65%) Traditional IRA: $9,960 (+1.63%) Slow and steady wins the race, right? My automatic contributions keep funneling into my IRA’s and the market does it’s part to push things higher. Rinse and repeat! 401(k): $4,085 (+5.83%) My employer decided to take our 401(k) match away, but was able to provide us with our yearly profit sharing bonus which gave my 401(k) a needed boost in February. How they can afford one and not the other is anyone’s guess, but I’ll take it … Continue reading →

Five Dumb Ways To Spend Your Tax Refund

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I filed my taxes this weekend, and like the majority of Americans I’ll be getting a refund from Uncle Sam. In 2012 the average tax refund was around $2900. You may remember that I’m not a fan of getting a big tax refund, and my refund this year is well below that average. Even still, I haven’t gotten a tax refund in a few years and it is exciting to consider the possibilities of what can be done with that money. I could drone on and on about how you should pay down your debt, build up an emergency fund or invest your tax refund. But what fun is that?! Instead, let’s look at the dumbest ways to spend your refund check! 1. Throw a Party – Believe it or not, I had a friend who did this. He threw a huge party after getting his check and spent it … Continue reading →

Alternatives To Paying Income Tax

 
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flat tax, consumption tax, national sales tax, simple tax code

73,608 73,608…what is the significance of that number? If you answered “the number of pages in the 2012 US federal tax code” congratulations, you win! The federal tax code is bloated and over complicated. Every election it seems a new set of politicians from each party pledge to make simplifying the tax code a top priority, yet it never happens. Judging from the feedback on my post about preparing your own taxes it seems more and more people are opting to have a professional do their taxes for them. Really, who can blame them? Its gotten to the point where even those of us that do prepare our own tax returns can’t do it without the aid of complex tax software. Instead of tinkering with our current system and making it even more complex as we strive for fairness, why not throw the entire thing out the window and explore … Continue reading →

The Case For A Higher Minimum Wage

 
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Last week during the annual State of the Union address, President Obama laid out his case for raising the national minimum wage. He said: “…Today, a full-time worker making the minimum wage earns $14,500 a year. Even with the tax relief we’ve put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong. That’s why, since the last time this Congress raised the minimum wage, nineteen states have chosen to bump theirs even higher. Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour. This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families…” Raising the minimum wage always sparks an intense debate. In the days since the State of the Union address I’ve seen numerous blog … Continue reading →