Pro athletes often seem uniquely poised for epic declarations of bankruptcy, but baseball legend Lenny Dykstra is giving other sports figures a run for their money (so to speak). Former Mets and Phillies slugger Dykstra filed for bankruptcy last week with reported assets totaling $50,000, despite claiming in April that he was worth $60 million. According [...]
Wall Street Journal columnist James Stewart has a great piece this week, about how fleeting good fortune can be, and how important it is to manage your money responsibly. I really recommend reading the whole thing, but here’s a few highlights (emphasis added): Our culture often glorifies financial success, but it is an illusion to [...]
Michael Jackson’s will was filed today in the Los Angeles Superior Court, and the settlement of his estate is sure to generate plenty of media coverage. His fortune and his debts both total roughly $500 million, according to the New York Times, so there’s a lot of money at stake. While most of us will [...]
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s personal finances were a hot topic last week, after disclosure forms revealed that she has nearly $16,000 in credit card debt, and owes another $15,000 to her dentist. There’s no shortage of discussions in the blogosphere about whether having that kind of debt is responsible behavior (see positive, negative). But [...]
immy Johnson is pitching an organization called “Better Trades” which vows to teach people how to make money fast (WARNING SIREN!) by day trading in the stock market.
The housing crisis just keeps going and going, and no one, not even celebrities or politicians, is immune: Nice house you got there, hate to see something bad happen to it: Victoria Gotti’s Westbury, NY mansion may soon be repossessed by her bank. Why? She apparently hasn’t been paying the $25,000 monthly mortgage, and still [...]
April 15th has come and gone, but taxes are still very much in the news these days. The passage of a new $3.5 trillion budget (and the projected $1.75 trillion deficit) has a lot of people talking about the taxes we’ll need to pay all of this money back. In that vein, I was checking [...]
March 19, 2009 – 11:30 am
Are you ready for the monthly total? $6,528! This translates into $78,336 annually. That figure doesn’t include saving for the kids’ education, or the extra costs associated with having more than a baker’s dozen of little ones like nannies, a bigger vehicle (try a bus!) or therapy.
February 24, 2009 – 10:59 am
We have movies on the mind at Econ4u following Sunday’s Academy Awards. Watching everyone from the uber-wealthy Brangelina, to the resurgent Mickey Rourke, to the first-time stars of Slumdog Millionaire, I was left wondering how much of their mega-salaries actually end up in their bank account. Let’s look for example at Mickey Rourke. Following his [...]
February 2, 2009 – 6:49 pm
MC Hammer and Ed McMahon appeared in a Super Bowl ad for Cash4Gold, a service that, as their name suggests, gives you money for jewelry. But when it comes to figuring out how to pay the bills, why would anyone listen to two people who notoriously squandered their fortunes? As we pointed out in our [...]
