I’ve been reading a lot of books about normal and early retirement lately and I’m realizing how important it is to decide early when to retire.  This doesn’t mean that you should necessarily decide to retire young, just that you should make a plan for when you’d like to retire as soon as possible.  Anyone asking “When Can I Retire” would be well served to keep reading.

The main reason why you should decide early when to retire is that you’ll have the most options available to you.  While you may ultimately decide to retire at the “normal” age or work until the day you die, those default choices will probably not be what a majority of people choose to do.  If you’re young,

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Lending is back at Lending Club, but there are some new restrictions that I noticed when trying to lend:

First,  you must satisfy the Financial Suitability Standards and Investment Limits.  Those terms are as follows:

“I confirm that I (a) have an annual gross income of at least $70,000 and a net worth (exclusive of home, home furnishings and automobile) of at least $70,000; or (b) have a net worth (determined with the same exclusions) of at least $250,000. In addition, I agree that I will not purchase notes in an amount in excess of 10% of my net worth, determined exclusive of my home, home furnishings and automobile.”

Second, you must satisfy the state condition by living in one of the fifteen approved states.  Those terms are as follows:

“The Notes are presently being offered and sold solely to residents of the states of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New York, Rhode Island, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, and are not presently being offered or sold to residents of any other state, the District of Columbia, any other territory or possession of the United States, or any foreign country.”

I meet the first criteria, but the second one prevents me from Lending.  I suspect that more states will be added over time, much as they were when Lending Club first began.  Until I’m eligible to lend again, I’ll be monitoring the situation very closely.

Early this morning, Lending Club announced that their quiet period has ended.  Lenders can once again make P2P loans, though the mechanics of the process have changed slightly.  Investors will now purchase notes, with interest rates between 6.69% and 18.63%, that correspond to portions of loans made to borrower members.

The major change is that lenders who become customers of FOLIOfn Investments, Inc. (Lending Club’s new partner) can resell their notes through a trading platform.  This is the first of its kind trading system in the social lending community.  It really changes everything.  Now lenders at Lending Club will have the one thing that has always been missing in P2P lending, liquidity.  If you need to cash out of the loans you hold, you can sell them in FOLIOfn’s market rather than wait for your monthly payments to come in.  This will also offer new trading opportunities for people looking to buy or sell debts, both good and bad.

I am certainly excited about these changes and hope expect Lending Club to become the P2P lending platform of choice for borrowers and lenders.  Welcome back, Lending Club!

Contrary to popular belief, the stock market is not closed for Columbus Day.  Here are the NYSE holidays for 2008-2009:

2008
Thanksgiving Day, November 27
Christmas, December 25

2009
New Year’s Day, January 1
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, January 19
Presidents’ Day, February 16
Good Friday, April 10
Memorial Day, May 25
Independence Day, July 3 (observed)
Labor Day, September 7
Thanksgiving Day, November 26
Christmas, December 25

 The latest book review here at Richer by the Day is Passion Saving by Rob Bennett.

Note to Readers: I was given a complimentary copy of the book by the author, but believe that my review was not influenced by the fact in any way.

Passion Saving is billed as an alternative to the way many of us traditionally try to save, which author Rob Bennett refers to as the Sacrifice Saving method.  He contends that the spending urge is simply too great to overcome.  Rather than fight this urge, we are supposed to redirect it towards saving to achieve more desirable results.  The goal is to transform saving into as emotionally satisfying experience as spending.  Passion Saving is basically about motivation.  If you can’t get motivated to save following traditional methods, then following the Passion Saving method

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TheLadders.com, the job site for positions in the $100K per year range, ran an interesting experiment.  They placed $100,000 in a glass box and left it out in public to see the response.  Hidden cameras captured what unfolded.

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This post is part of my Freaky Financial Fridays series, where I argue a case from an opposing view, generally in contradiction to my own philosophy or conventional financial advice.

Interest only mortgages are often associated with the sub-prime meltdown and generally dismissed by responsible financial advisers.  While interest only loans are often poor vehicles for potential homeowners, there is one type of buyer who could stand to gain from their use.

Interest only mortgages are just that, only the interest portion of the loan is paid each month.  At the end of the term you’d owe just as much as when you started because no principal payments had been applied.  Unless the house appreciated, which is of course possible but less likely in today’s market, you would have zero equity in the home.  The one upside to that huge downside is that your monthly payment will be lower.  This fact has caused

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Following the House’s recent defeat of the bailout bill and heading into tonight’s US Senate vote, speculation has been building that FDIC insurance limits will be raised to $250,000 from $100,000.  While I’m strongly in favor of such a measure, and it will certainly improve consumer confidence in the banking system, I have to ask whether raising the limits should really change anything.

In my mind, banking customers fall into three basic categories: those with deposits significantly less than the current limits, those near (slightly above or below) the limits, and those significantly above the limits.  Lets look at how each of those will be affected by the raising of the limit.

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