Showing results by author "Dale C. Maley" in All Categories

Unfortunately, our U.S. educational system teaches Americans nothing about investing. Many people struggle for years to develop an optimum investment plan. This short story recounts the author's journey to a diversified portfolio of low-cost index funds. I hope the story of my journey to a diversified portfolio of low cost index funds will inspire other investors to further explore the advantages of index fund investing.

This short story explains the basic concepts of financial planning and provides a conceptual roadmap for planning your retirement. By using a conceptual roadmap approach, you can quickly grasp the general concepts of retirement planning in a very short amount of reading time.

Millions of Americans are saving and investing in an effort to fulfill their long term goals including college education for their children and retirement. One proven method of increasing the probability of achieving your goals is to put them in writing. This short story explores how writing an Investment Policy Statement can help you meet your financial goals.

In the years immediately preceding 2008, the rage in financial planning was diversification. By not putting all your eggs into one basket, some asset classes would do poorly.......but other asset classes would do well. The theory was that investors should find asset classes which are not correlated to each other. The financial planning industry and Wall Street advocated investing in many asset classes including diversified U.S. stocks, diversified developed international stocks, emerging market stocks, commodities, timber, and bonds. Unfortunately, in the Crash of 2008, all asset classes ...

Young homeowners often wonder if they should pay off their mortgage early. The 76 million Baby Boomers heading into retirement also face the key question on whether or not pay off their mortgage early. Financial experts differ in opinion on the mortgage early pay off decision. This short story explores the many aspects of the mortgage early pay off decision. This story will provide you with enough information to make your own well informed decision regarding your specific early mortage pay off situation.

This short story explains the theory of behavioral finance and helps to explain how you can use these theories to help achieve your financial goals.

Bogleheads® are people who are very interested in investing. They meet and share their ideas about investing and personal finance on their online forum. Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard, is one of their heroes. The typical Boglehead lives below their means so they can save and invest. They typically invest in low-cost Vanguard index funds in a well diversified portfolio. Over half of the Bogleheads are already millionaires. After reading this short story about the Bogleheads, you may decide to improve your own financial situation by joining their online forum.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb popularized the term Black Swan through his books and interviews. Taleb’s Black Swan Theory refers only to unexpected events of large magnitude and consequence and their dominant role in history. Such events, considered extreme outliers, collectively play vastly larger roles than regular occurrences. This short story explores whether or not Black Swan events are really important to Main Street investors versus Wall Street traders.

Many new investors are shocked to discover there are over 8,000 different mutual funds to choose from! How do you know which fund to pick? Once you pick a fund, how do you know how well it is performing? Do you have to spend a lot of time learning about investing? This book answers all of these questions and more. It shows how regular people can simplify their investment life and beat the pro's results. Jill is a new investor who knows she must start investing for her daughter's education and her retirement. Jill turns to her nephew, a Business Major, and to William the friendly Finance ...

Fairbury is a small town located in Central Illinois. It is 100 miles south of Chicago and 60 miles east of Peoria. It was founded in 1857 when the railroad first crossed Central Illinois. Fairbury was home to one of great horse importers of Illinois, John Virgin. He was named by the Governor of Illinois to be on the planning commission of the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition. The Keeley Institute was founded in 1891 as an alcoholic treatment center in Dwight, Illinois, 30 miles north of Fairbury. Many Fairbury citizens worked at the Keeley institute during the years it was open from 1891 ...

Millions of American Baby Boomers are reaching retirement age. Many of them have set up estate plans using either wills or trusts. One additional document that can save their heirs a great deal of time is a Letter of Instruction. This short story explores how writing a Letter of Instruction can greatly ease the burden on your heirs of settling your estate.

One of the key decisions an investor has to make is what level of portfolio risk to assume. If the stock allocation is too low, the investor runs the risk of inflation diminishing the portfolio value. If the stock allocation is too high, the investor may panic and sell-out every eight years when we have a Bear stock market. This short story explores the issue of portfolio risk. After reading this short story, you will have enough information to make your own well-informed asset allocation decision.

As the 67 million Baby Boomers enter retirement, they face a key question. What is the optimum method of converting their retirement portfolio into cash during retirement? This short story explores several alternative methods for converting a retirement portfolio into cash. Reading this short story will allow you to make your own well-informed decision on how to optimize the conversion of your retirement portfolio.

Financial bubbles have been occurring for hundreds of years. Most of us have lived through the Tech Wreck of 2000 and the Sub-Prime Crash of 2008. This short story examines and identifies the common characteristics of financial bubbles. Reading this short story might help you identify the next time we find ourselves in a financial bubble.

78 million Baby Boomers start to turn age 65 in 2011. Many of these Boomers will be seeking investments that have low risk and high returns. Equity indexed annuities are often promoted as low risk investments with high returns. This short story explores the complexities and hidden costs of equity indexed annuities.

Fairbury is a small town located in Central Illinois. It is 100 miles south of Chicago and 60 miles east of Peoria. It was founded in 1857 when the railroad first crossed Central Illinois. In 1861, John Marsh, and son Henry Marsh, dug 180 feet down just west of Fairbury and found coal. Their discovery of coal in the Illinois prairie, prompted the discovery of more coal through-out Central Illinois. Fairbury quickly had three main operating coal mines. These mines created jobs that attracted miners all the way from Europe. The population of Fairbury exploded from 269 in 1860 to 2,324 in 1890...

Fairbury is a small town located in Central Illinois. It is 100 miles south of Chicago and 60 miles east of Peoria. It was founded in 1857 when the railroad first crossed Central Illinois. The author developed an outline for broadcasting twenty-one short stories about Fairbury history on the local radio station. This short story converts the outline for the radio audio history segments into this written short story. It is hoped this book helps to inform current Fairbury residents about the colorful history of Fairbury. It is hoped this short story will help to educate future historians who ...

William Walton and Elizabeth Gehman had a large family of 12 children in Ohio. They both died at relatively young ages, leaving several of their younger children as orphans.Four of these 12 children moved to the Fairbury area. Mary Ann Walton married prominent Belle Prairie Township farmer David Steele Crum. They provided a home for young orphan Isaac Walton after the parents died.Benjamin Walton was a pioneer settler of the Fairbury area. He established a large elevator and grain mill at the southwest corner of First and Locust.Orphan Isaac Walton served in the Civil War, then returned to ...

Circa 1922, the book titled Livingston County, Illinois in the World War was published. It contains the names of all the people from Livingston County who served in World War I. If submitted, it also contains a brief service record for each person. Circa 1947, the book titled Service Record Book of Men and Women of Fairbury, Illinois and Community was published. It contains a photo and short biography of each person that served in World War II. Unfortunately, there is no published book containing the names of the Fairbury area people who served in the Civil War. This book utilizes numerous ...

Since it's founding in 1857, Fairbury has had eight murders committed. This book reviews the history behind each of these eight murders. If you are interested in Fairbury history, this book contains almost 200 pictures and sketches of Fairbury history.