There are approximately 55 shopping days left until Christmas. The stores are already displaying Christmas trees and decorations and in about ten days, the holiday commercials will start airing on TV and radio. Are you ready? According to recent polls, this year about one third of Americans say they plan to spend less on Christmas this year than last. For those of you with kids, you will be excited to know that this year’s hot toy is Kota an animated dinosaur that will go for $300! Take a look at the video below. In all seriousness, many people suggest that... Read more →

I would have to say that this is probably within the top five questions that come in each day to Christian Money.com. So, today you are not going to get some useless generic advice, but I am going to give you the real story on what you should do when you fall behind on your auto and credit card payments. I am not going to address mortgages in this article, since that has been done in a variety of other blog articles I have written in recent months. OK, the usual disclaimers so I don’t get those “Jim, I thought... Read more →

The price of an ounce of gold in 1973 was $60 Recently, in March of this year gold sky-rocketed to more than $1,000 an ounce. In recent days, the price of gold has been just above $800. Over the past several weeks, I have been inundated with questions about how to invest in gold. In more rational times, one might dismiss these questions as investor panic. Buying gold might be something reasonable to consider now, and for that reason I have chosen to make it the topic of this week’s blog. Most traditional financial planners would agree with the idea... Read more →

This past Friday, the 700 billion dollar financial bailout was signed into law. The bill, sold as a ‘cure all’ for America’s flailing economy, may not be the final answer to our problems. Early reaction by the stock market seems worse than before the deal was signed into law. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has now dropped below 10,000 for the first time since 2004. While the economy and the stock market are not one in the same, the Dow Jones is off nearly 30% year to date. There is no doubt that this loss of wealth will certainly affect... Read more →