Fine-tuning the household budget

One of the best ways to find extra money isn't necessarily to increase your earnings. Sure, that's good, but you may not have time to work any more than you already do. Before you take a second job, look hard at your spending. This article on Yahoo! Finance outlines how to save at the grocery store, and lists ways that you can save almost $500 per month. Keep this in mind when you're planning the family budget for the month.


http://bit.ly/a6AeD

Another great way to look for deals is this blog, written by a dedicated home economist. She keeps up with e-coupons, sales and other information that savvy consumers can use to cut the grocery bill. She posts often. Find it here:


http://www.wickedcooldeals.com/

Presentation gives valuable stock-picking tips

By Jason White, Ph.D.

Family Investment Center recently hosted the latest installment in its investor education series. The event was held at the East Hills Public Library rotunda classroom at 7 p.m.

Jason Votruba, CFA and portfolio manager for the UMB Scout Small Cap Fund (UMBHX), shared his philosophy of stock-picking in the small company investment universe. Votruba currently hold about 120 different positions in his small company fund. Since Votruba took over management of the fund on January 1, 2001, he has earned a total return of 24 percent, soundly outperforming both the Russell 2000 (2 percent) and the S&P 500 (-21 percent) benchmark indexes.

Votruba's strategy is to invest in stocks that have the highest probability of going higher, and sell those that are likely to decline. His philosophy involves studying the biggest winners in the stock market to find common shared characteristics of company's prior to a big upside move. He describes his approach as 80 percent fundamental analysis and 20 percent technical.

Attendance at the event was good for a beautiful summer evening in St. Joseph. Several investors in the crowd asked thought-provoking questions. Overall, the event was viewed as quite positive.

The next Family Investment Center education evening will be held in mid-summer.

Pay attention to your credit score

Credit scores are a crucial factor that helps determine many things in the world of finances. This story, written by Janene Mascarella and posted on the AOL site Walletpop.com today, explains how what you do contributes toward boosting your credit score - or drags it down. Nice piece, and I'm happy to be quoted in it.

http://www.walletpop.com/credit/experian/make-or-break-your-credit-score

Near the bottom?

By Jason T. White, ph.D.

On Friday, May 8th, the Labor Department announced that the United States lost another 539,000 jobs in April, with the national unemployment rate rising to 8.9 percent. Certainly, this is a concern for another half-million families adversely affected by job loss in this recession. But, from an economic perspective, I can see some "green shoots" appearing in the labor market.

Unemployment is considered a lagging economic indicator. The typical recessionary pattern is that the general economy, as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other indicators like the stock market, improve before unemployment reacts positively. I believe we are seeing the beginnings of a recessionary bottom based on the following unemployment data.

The goods news is the trend; 741,000 jobs were lost in January, another 681,000 in February, and 699,000 in March. While losing 539,000 jobs in April is bad, the trend appears to be thatjob loss is slowing - a bullish sign!

The link below is a very interesting visual look at the loss of jobs since the beginning of the recession. While the map looks a little like a "war zone" of unemployment explosion, I can see improvement and growth on the horizon. I hope you find this information educational and useful. We continue to monitor economic and investment activity on a daily basis and will provide relevant data whenever possible. Enjoy!

http://www.slate.com/id/2216238/