There’s a good post today at Wise Bread making the argument that going to college just for the learning doesn’t make sense. In a nutshell, the post makes the case that, with only some peculiar exceptions, a person can learn 
stuff just as well and a lot more cost effectively on their own. I couldn’t agree more.
Of course, a person should probably go to college anyway. It’s just that learning things is not, per se, reason enough to spend four years and a modest fortune in tuition. There are good dollars and cents motivations for college and keeping a clear head about them is important.
(I haven’t researched this, but I write this blog under the assumption that my readership amongst high schoolers is zero. So to a certain extent this discussion is, you will pardon the expression, academic. Perhaps there are parents of high schoolers reading.)
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Sometimes topics crop up in the PF blogosphere, seemingly out of nowhere, and rattle around from blog to blog for a while. Dollar cost averaging is a recent example. The Digerati Life brought it up on September 23, Lazy Man and Money responded the next day, and The Sun’s Financial Diary shared its 
thoughts on the 28th. There are probably several other mentions out there I missed.
Before I add my voice to the echo chamber, I’ll define the term. Dollar cost averaging refers to buying an investment, usually a stock or stock fund, over time in installments of equal dollar value.
It is often confused with the laudable and similar idea of regularly saving. Setting aside a certain amount of your pay every week or month may look like dollar cost averaging, but it’s not exactly the same thing. Implicit in the question "is dollar cost averaging a good idea" is the premise that there is an alternative, that you could have invested it all at once rather than slowly as you earned it.
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There was a pretty good post over at WiseBread yesterday on how if a credit card company forgives some of what you owe, what was forgiven is income 
you have to pay taxes on.
On the one hand, this is a point worth repeating because it seems to surprise most people. On the other hand, the post neglects to mention an important exception, and, moreover, feeds into the belief that this is an irrational fluke of the tax code. It isn’t. It makes sense.
You owe Credit Card Corporation (CCC) $5000. Realizing you are unlikely to pay them back in full, and now regretting lending you the money to begin with, CCC agrees to settle the debt for $2000 cash. You sell your PEZ dispenser collection on eBay and send them a check.
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It is time once again to check up on the wonderful world of personal finance bloggers, conveniently packaged into this week’s edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance. Hosted by Taking Charge, a CreditCards.com blog, and edited by one person with an introduction by another, this week certainly gets points for production value.
Narrow Bridge Adventures offered up a primer on trading stocks on margin 
which was about 75% correct. At least the author makes it clear that he has never done this and doesn’t ever intend to. But I am growing tired of bloggers writing posts on topics they don’t know much about as if they did. Other novices are likely to be misled into doing something foolish.
On the other hand, a blogger who claims to be an amateur, Kyle at Amateur Asset Allocator, posted on How To Invest In A Low-Return Environment, i.e. the environment we are in now and expect to be in for a while. Besides the basics of watching out for fees and taxes, Kyle hits the nail on the head with what may be the most important investing advice of the year: "lower your expectations."
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Last week Fivecentnickel had a post on how to Avoid Lifestyle Inflation: Create an Artificial Sense of Scarcity. Basically, the idea is that you need to hide your money from yourself so you won’t spend it.
Out of sight, out of mind. If you don’t see the money sitting there every time you check your accounts, you won’t be constantly reminded of its presence, and you won’t be tempted to spend it.
This is a fairly common idea. The Automatic Millionaire series, for example, is based around it. But very little has been written, until now, on how to find that money again when you really need it.
For some people, the "hiding" of money is merely notional. They just open a so-called "savings" account at the same bank that has their checking account. But for many of us, that kind of hidden is not hidden enough. We need the money to be truly out of sight and mind. For us, the money must not be merely well hidden, but in a place we would never think to look.
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stuff just as well and a lot more cost effectively on their own. I couldn’t agree more.
College, PF Blogs | Frank Curmudgeon | 
October 6, 2009 11:59 am | 
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