Talk:Personal finance

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[edit] Developing countries section

This area will need some work, but has the potential to become very problematic in terms of maintaining a neutral point of view. It would be interesting to see some diverse approaches discussed, ranging from Grameen Bank and microcredit solutions, to proposals such as those of Robert Shiller (The New Financial Order) and Hernando de Soto (The Mystery of Capital). These could be set against the wider backdrop of macroeconomic stresses like structural adjustment and currency crises, and struggles over ideology. It would also be good to have some discussion of the variability in producer prices, and limitations on trade policy, along with attempts to remedy those factors with initiatives like the Lome Conventions and AGOA.

  • It sounds like you have a good idea of what you want, so why not add it? KellyCoinGuy 14:49, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Topic should be found under "Business and Economics"

I was looking for something on author Stephen Pollan. Not finding any, I went to "request article," only to see "personal finance" was not listed among the categories of "Business and Economics"!

[edit] Recent edits by Chuck Marean

I think the lead sentence should include a link to financial economics. I also removed this paragraph by User:Chuck Marean as it appears to be WP:OR and of little encyclopedic value [1]. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 11:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I reverted Chuck's inclusion of this "welfare" paragraph again as it doesn't seem appropriate for this article. Chuck: make your case here for its inclusion rather than just re-inserting it.
I also reverted his simplification of the introduction (this is not the Simple Wikipedia). --MichaelZimmer (talk) 16:53, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Chuck, why do you insist on including a mention of welfare on this article? It is not central to the concept of personal finance. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 19:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Personal finance is your personal financial records. Welfare is one form of income, which is what that subtopic was about, income.--Chuck Marean 01:08, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Chuck, please discuss these changes here rather than waging an edit war. In response to your recent changes:

  • Regarding this edit [2], what do you mean when you say that including a link to financial economics in the introduction is "not encyclopedic enough"? How is it not encyclopedic?
I already answered this, but somehow you reverted my answer. I said that I clicked the link and read the article. It's about stocks and bonds, a minor part of the subject of personal finance. It is therefore not comprehensive enough for the introduction.--Chuck Marean 00:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
While there might be a better article to link to describing the financial elements at play, stocks and bonds are frequently a component of personal finance. That said, I still don't understand your meaning by stating is is "not encyclopedic enough". --MichaelZimmer (talk) 01:48, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
encyclopedic means comprehensive. Stocks and bonds have little to do with personal financial records--Chuck Marean 02:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Please explain what was "wrong" about the introductory sentence that required this edit: [3]. Your new version is a drastic simplification of what personal finance entails, and detracts from the type of encyclopedic information we are trying to present for readers.
My response to this also disappeared. Again,it was because of the article, financial economics --Chuck Marean 00:55, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Nothing is disappearing - your edit summaries are in the history. It is just better to discuss here rather than rely solely on edit summaries to make yoru case. MichaelZimmer (talk) 01:48, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes it did. I had to type a response again after I pressed save.--Chuck Marean 02:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Regarding this edit [4], I must first note that your edit summary is a tad deceptive, since you weren't just changing wording, but reinserting a deleted section. That said, I still fail to understand why such a paragraph is necessary. Personal income is just one component of a person's financial situation (including borrowed funds). Your note on whether personal income should be "earned" and the existence of a "welfare state" is irrelevant for this article (and appears to be original research.
The paragraph is about personal finances because it mentions income being from the government.--Chuck Marean 00:55, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but what you're saying doesn't make any sense to me at all. This really doesn't have anything specific to do with personal finance in such a way that needs to be noted in an encyclopedia article. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 01:48, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
It's within the subject of income, which is part of personal finance.--Chuck Marean 02:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I am reverting these changes, and ask that you don't insert them again without providing justification and making an attempt to arrive at consensus. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 23:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The justification is that personal finance is keeping household finances separate from business finances and not buying stocks and bonds. Without an income, you've got no finances, or assets.--Chuck Marean 00:55, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
No, personal finance is not simply keeping household finances separate from business finances. For example, one might have no business finances (not own a business), yet still engage in personal finance. Further, one might have little personal income, but still engage in personal finance (managing debt, borrowing, personal bankruptcy etc). You are over-simplifying this way too much. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 01:48, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I left your sentence in. --Chuck Marean 02:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] General comments on article

Much of the article seems to be written as if copied from a book or something, and seem much more about financial planning than personal finance. Particularly, the "Question of Time" subsection appears to be WP:OR, or perhaps even copied from some other text. I'm questioning its value overall. Cleanup is necessary. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 12:06, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

According to Oxford dictionary, Personal finance has to do with keeping personal finances separate from business finances. The word finance is used to mean finances, and not borrowing money. It also has to do with raising money, which again is not borrowing money. Not that I know anything about how to get money. I just know borrowing money is not raising money. It's owing money.--Chuck Marean 01:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Just to be clear, borrowing money (obtaining a loan, using credit cards, etc) is a part of one's personal finance, as well as a means of "raising money." Yes, it does create debt, but the other side of the balance sheet is an increase in assets. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 02:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
You're not allowed to keep any of the money you borrow, and when you give it back you are also required to pay interest, which is of course impossible so the whole system makes no sense at all.--Chuck Marean 08:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, you must pay back the money borrowed, but there is nothing "impossible" about paying interest on borrowed funds. Millions of people do it all the time (see, for example, Consumer debt, Credit (finance) or Interest). You've admitted here and elsewhere [5] that you really don't understand this topic. If so, perhaps attempting to contribute to the content of the article isn't such a good idea. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 11:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] financial economics

I clicked the link to financial economics in the first sentence. I read the article. It's about stocks and bonds. It makes the first sentence mean that personal finance is mainly about stocks and bonds, which it is not. Personal finance has very little to do with stocks and bonds for most people. In order to buy stocks, you need and extra $5,000 to open a account at a brokerage firm. Personal finance, according to Oxford dictionary is short for personal finances. In accounting, you're supposed to keep you personal finances separate from those of you business. That in my opinion is the most comprehensive--the most encyclopedic--meaning of personal finance. Personal finance is your household financial records. If you own a business, you're supposed to keep them separate. I really don't get why anyone would think personal finance has to do with stocks and bonds. Maybe the writer of the sentence meant financial economy or thrift rather than economics. However, I think it's appropriate to point out that personal finance means a person's finances, and that those are supposed to be kept separate from the person's business records.--Chuck Marean 02:07, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

The original editor probably included it because ownership & management of stocks & bonds is often a part of one's personal finance. Regardless, I've already removed that link and replaced it with the more general finance. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 02:38, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] chuck marean's contributions

I found this article. I'm reading a book not journals to improve it, so am not using footnotes. My notes aren't longer, and I don't use a thesaurus, because I have other things to do. Also, what I've read on writing says just write the way you write. --Chuck Marean 15:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Cool. Just keep in mind that this is an encyclopedia, and that we should strive to maintain encyclopedic standards for articles. So don't be alarmed if changes are made to strengthen the tone & content in the article. If you are concerned about lack of footnotes or sophistication with your edits, you might want to check out the Wikipedia:Simple English Wikipedia. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 15:43, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Rather than just adding sections on Income, Stock Market, etc as you proceed to read your book about personal finance (as you note here [6]), I am just going to create a section on "Components of personal finance" that should cover each of the major parts. We don't need paragraphs, like this one [7], that explains how each of these works. They already have their own articles (many of which are already linked to in the See Also section) --MichaelZimmer (talk) 11:12, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] attention from an expert

The article says "set goals," but that doesn't explain how to get money, etc. Since the article hasn't helped me, I'm reading a book on the subject and plan on posting my notes. If an expert worked on this article, it would probably be more informative of how to stay alive.--Chuck Marean 16:28, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

When making edits, please keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a how-to guide. This article isn't necessarly meant to tell you how to engage in personal finance, just explain what it is. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 16:39, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Budget section

Budget section is needed because it's a part of Personal finance.

--Chuck Marean 19:39, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

There is an extensive article about personal budgets, which is linked to in the lead section. That is sufficient. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 19:55, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Budget section is needed because it's a part of the subject of Personal finance.--Chuck Marean 20:17, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
You are repeating yourself. Your simplified addition regarding a budget does not add to the article, and the beauty of wikilinks is that readers can click on the budget link provided and read all they want. Do not revert without gaining consensus (see WP:BRD), and do not leave an edit summary indicating my change was vandalism, because it was not. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 20:25, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm working on this page. I'll put what I write under components, to keep the table of contents from being too long.--Chuck Marean 21:06, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with MichaelZimmer, the link to personal budget is sufficient. The current definition is clearly wrong: "A budget is a spending plan. Its first page lists income sources. Its second page lists expenditures including savings. Its third page lists what's being saved for. It's to prevent running our of money." First even in the context of personal finances a budget is not just a spending plan, its also an accounting of income. Second a budget can have more or fewer than three pages and their content varies. Its not credible to describe one specific budget and claim that all budgets are laid out that way. Finally the goal of a budget is not as simple as "to prevent running out of money". It may be to promote saving, for example. I've removed the section. Please do not replace it until you have at least a source Gwernol 21:25, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I've also removed the majority of the other "Components" since they are clearly original research. Gwernol 21:27, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

And I think the lead paragraph in my earlier version [8] is preferable to the current single sentence. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 21:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree. I don't know that describing personal finance as a "science" is at all accurate. Gwernol 21:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chuck's notes

I'm reading a book on the topic of this article, since it didn't tell me how to make money. I'll post my notes on this page too. Hopefully we'll find some answers, since I notice there are plenty of people with plenty of money.

Personal Income Personal income is the basis of personal finances and does not include borrowed money in any form. Where personal income should come from has been controversial since money was first invented. Some feel personal income should be earned; others conclude that would be impossible. As a result, modern nations are to a greater or lesser degree welfare states.

Budget A budget is a spending plan. Its first page lists income sources. Its second page lists expenditures including savings. Its third page lists what's being saved for. It's to prevent running our of money.

The Stock Market Some people budget a certain amount of their income to buy stocks with every month. Shares of stock are bought with money the investor is willing to risk losing. Corporations sell shares of stock to raise money. People buy those stocks from stock brokers. If the company is earning money, people who keep informed about the company buy its stock. If it isn't earning money, some people get worried and sell its stock before it goes out of business. This causes the price of shares to change. Other people buy because the price has gone down. They are willing to risk the money to sell if the price goes up.

Taxes Income gets taxed in the United States. The federal government taxes income and the state governments do also. Anyone with an income pays the taxes four times a year. On April 15 taxpayers file yearly income reports called tax returns also. If it turns out a taxpayer qualifies for tax deductions allowed that year, the taxpayer might get some money back. Taxpayers are sometimes audited. They have to bring their financial records to the tax office to prove they've been telling the truth. Taxpayers or their employers budget a percentage of their incomes to pay the income taxes.

Could you provide the name and author of the book? These definitions seems fairly far from accepted wisdom (see my comment above). By the way, it wouldn't be appropriate for this article to tell you how to make money, as that's really a different subject. Thanks, Gwernol 22:31, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
The book turned out not to be helpful. It was addressed to a minority, i.e. people with salaries and large ones. It was about saving up for your kids college and saving up for for retirement, a fantasy world. It included nothing at all about how to get money, except the false assumption that it's possible to earn. It was filled with the sort of post-Nixon free-market "wisdom" heard on my television. I don't recommend the book, although I assumed good faith while I was reading it. -- Chuck Marean 00:09, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Chuck, please don't simply paste your reading notes into the article [9]. Unfortunately these contributions lack encyclopedic depth and tone, and simply linking to related articles is preferred. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 11:09, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] principles of finance

I don't already know what they are, so you're not communicating here. It seems more like something you should say in a conclusion, after you've explained well what they are. Reading the words "principles of finance" without already knowing what they are is not impressive; it's just boring. --Chuck Marean 04:00, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I reverted your addition of a link to this talk page (piped to be a ?); it was an inappropriate self-reference that served no purpose. FWIW, perhaps some expansion of finance is necessary elsewhere in the article, but the lead is appropriate per WP:LEAD and inasmuch as there is a link to finance. Consider President of the United States, the first sentence of which one, under your formulation, would view as tautologous and/or incomplete, since it fails to define the United States; instead, United States is, appropriately, linked, in order that the lead should not be cluttered with a complex definition. Joe 04:12, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Readers, such as yourself, Chuck, should simply click on the link to finance if they don't understand what the "principles of finance" is referring to. That's the beauty of wikilinks. I reverted the lead paragraph back to the much more informative and comprehensive (read: encyclopedic) version I have worked on, which 2 other editors have also noted that is preferred. Please don't change it back unless you work to build consensus for why your version (which, IMO, is more fitting for Simple Wikipedia) is better. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 11:12, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] application of the principles of finance

The statement "Personal finance is the application of the principles of finance" is simply without meaning. Defining the word finance by the word finance is boring. The reader should be told what the word means. Instead, it basically says "well, finance means finance." Does anywhere else in the paragraph tell me what finance means. No. There's no place in the paragraph where it say "finance is..." Also, it doesn't tell what the "principles of finance" are either. Therefore, I'm editing out the "application of the principles of finance" part of the sentence, because that part of the sentence is boring enough to quit reading the article.--Chuck Marean 12:20, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Chuck, that statement is not "without meaning". The reader is told what finance means. That's the whole purpose of wikilinks. We do not redefine every term in every article. We have one article that defines what finance means and where we need to use that term we link to the definition. This is how Wikipedia works everywhere. So the opening paragraph does not say "finance means finance" at all. I'm sorry you are struggling to understand that, but its the way Wikipedia works. Please don't remove that section again. Gwernol 12:34, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Financial Planning section

I re-wrote the section on Financial Planning to avoid the second person and general cleanup for brevity & clarity, although I'm not fully comfortable with its current form. I'm also worried that it is borderline original research. If you have suggestions on how to improve it, please offer them here. --MichaelZimmer (talk) 13:33, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Finance

I would like to know how to finance my life. I'm using the word, finance, in the sense of "get enough income for." According to my original research, "get a job" is not the answer. I would like to know what is the answer. I think there's people who could answer, because there's plenty of people who own houses with yards. People who build apartment builds probably don't know the answer, so it would be appropriate information for an encyclopedia. It would help stop the building of the rental property that clutters our cities. -- Chuck Marean 15:31, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Chuck, an encyclopedia is not the place to get that information. You do go out and get a job, just like everyone. That is how we organize our society (I'm assuming you live somewhere in America or Europe). That's the answer. That's how people afford to buy homes, because they have a job that pays them money. Renting an apartment building is a good way to get a home and a lot of people like them. I don't see what this has to do with the Personal finances article, though. Gwernol 16:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Links to blogs

Do these really need to be here? Shouldn't they be linked to WP articles about those blogs not to the blogs themselves? Smells like spam to me... --clpo13 04:44, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suspected copyright violation

This text, particularly the five numbered paragraphs, seems to copy directly from a blog. Unless we can determine that this text is allowed to be here it should be removed - forthwith. See Desicritics personal finance blog.--Gregalton 14:53, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Popular Tools Section

The popular tools section contains only software downloads. There are a number of free finance applications now available (mint.com, wesabe, geezeo, etc) online. Should these be added here? 05runner (talk) 08:00, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, this whole article is pretty short for a fairly broad topic. Should consider expanding. --05runner (talk) 08:01, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Added three of the more popular free online personal finance applications: Mint.com, Geezeo, and Wesabe. The later two do not have wikipedia entries created. --05runner (talk) 08:10, 28 December 2007 (UTC)