This is a guest post from Michael of Financial Ramblings.

Editor’s Note: I was chatting with Michael the other day when he told me his story about buying a suit at a major men’s retailer. He told me how he walked in expecting it to be your typical retail experience, that is you pay what’s listed, but discovered that it was closer to buying a car. There’s a lot of wheeling and dealing involved and I was surprised so I asked him to share his story – being able to negotiate the price of a suit is something the stores probably don’t want you to know!

A couple of weeks ago I had to dress for success. Actually, I had to dress because of success. I was receiving a work-related award and I was expected to wear business attire.

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The job market is improving lately, but it can still be tough to get a raise.

There aren’t that many jobs yet, and a lot of employers are overcome with cost cutting fever.  That means smaller raises, or no raise at all.

How can you work around that situation and still get a raise?

Editor’s Note: The suggestions that Glen makes in this post are very good but he misses one big one – get another job offer. The unfortunate reality, and this is especially the case with large companies, is that oftentimes a business can’t give you a mid-season raise (budget reasons? no process to do so?) unless there is a compelling reason – such as you’re going to leave for more money. The plus side is you can get paid more, the downside is that they’ll thank you for your time… either way, you get paid more.

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Kurt’s post yesterday made some good points, and I suspect he was hoping for a worthy counter. So, never one to disappoint his fellow blogger, I offered Jim a counterpoint and he said that sounds like fun, so here goes…

Years ago in grad school I met Branco, a visiting professor from Yugoslavia, and a dyed in the wool communist (yep, that long ago). He hated America with a passion. Many mornings our walk to class became long protracted debates. Branco couldn’t talk and walk at the same time, so many students passed us, staring at the spit flying and arm waving on the sidewalk. I can regale you on the fun stories, but let’s cut to the chase.

“Branco, if you hate this place so much, what the dickens are you doing here? Who at the Politburo did you tick off?”

Branco may have been misguided, but he was not stupid.

“Listen,” he said, “The American education system is the worst in the world; we all know that. But… how come it produces more Nobel prizes than the rest of the world put together?”

What you see depends on what you look at and how you look at it.

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Jim Wang’s recent Bargaineering post “Why Fewer People Trust the Stock Market” inspired from me an “and-I’m-one-of-them” comment. Jim—a savvy guy who probably detected the prospect of one of those cranks who can really drive engagement—invited me to expand here on my reaction. I’m pleased to oblige.

We Do Own Stocks

First, disclosure: Stocks comprise about 15% of our (my wife and I) financial assets—far less than the “experts” would recommend for our situation. And nearly all the stocks we own meet two criteria:

1. Based on the price we paid, their current dividend yields are 4-7%.
2. The underlying businesses are mostly resource-based and operate in well-regulated industries. (In my opinion, regulation reduces risk.)

I’m not blindly or ideologically opposed to stock investing, but I stick with relatively safe, income generating stocks, and I actively manage stop loss orders as appropriate.

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Thirty-one hours on a westbound train with three kids, ages thirteen to four, might never have originally entered my mind as a recipe for the perfect family vacation until I did it (and survived!)

My husband and I were on a mission to find a way to take the family to Arizona to see Grandma over spring break. I’m the daughter of a commercial airline pilot, so I’ve never really considered other means of travel, but the price of airfare was too expensive and we have been working hard to pay down debt promised ourselves that we’d find a way to get out there that fit our budget.

We crunched the numbers comparing air travel, train travel, taking our own car, and renting a car. Air travel to Arizona during spring break for us was ridiculously expensive. Accounting for hotels, wear and tear on the car, and gas, or miles and car rental fees driving would have been our next best option, but hands down, taking the Amtrak train was our best-bet budget wise, coming in at $907 round-trip for our family of five.

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This post is from Elle at Couple Money.

Last summer my husband and I had a beautiful baby girl and everything changed (for the better). In preparation for her arrival, we’ve created a baby fund, changed the guest room into her nursery, and increased our life insurance coverage should something happen to use. We still have some items on our to do list that we need to complete this year to give us some peace of mind.

One item on our list that we hope to cross off in the next few weeks is buying a family car. Our current cars have served us well over the years. However, neither one of them can accommodate everybody (plus baby gear) comfortably. We were planning on buying another car before the baby arrived, but postponed it to take care of more directly baby related financial goals. Now we’re ready to go with our car replacement fund full and we’re looking for a deal!

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by Larry Chiang

Treasure management is something business school neglects to teach.

I am able to get results that are in the category between legendary and awesome. This is because I hacked treasure management. I read and applied, “Richest Man in Babylon”, “Millionaire Next Door”, ‘Ultimate Credit Handbok’ and of course the legendary tome, “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School”. Here is the result in four categories you may feel free to copy-paste. Yes, Copy-Paste is Chapter 3 of my NY Times best selling book, “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School”.

-1- Don’t Rev You Life Engine CONSTANTLY at the Red Line

Have you seen people that are forty that look fifty.

Those are people that keep their engines in the 7000 RPM (revolutions per minute). In life, the church teaches the 70-20-10 rule of treasure management under the concept called tithing. I wont address money’s treasure management but I will focus on time treasure management.

Just like money, time should be divvy’d up 70-20-10 with 70% your necessary work, 20% is invested time and 10% is donated. If you’re at the red line, you’re 110% core work, -5% invested, -5% donated. You know why presidents and Coach Mike D’Antoni age five years per year in office?! THEY are 130/-15/-15!

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At last count there are about 23,000 mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) available to investors in the U.S. Picking from among them for your portfolio can seem daunting. Do you pay attention to past performance? fund management? or something else to find a suitable growth vehicle for your money?

When picking funds, all else being equal (i.e. you’ve already decided on an asset class and investment account), the most important factor for actual returns is expense ratio. This is the annual fund operating expenses fee charged as a percentage of invested amounts in the fund.

Let’s look at how this affects your portfolio in detail.

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