The end of 2006 is upon us, and hopefully looking back you’ve had a good year.

The end of the fiscal year marks the deadline for any tax maneuvers you may have had in place, and stocks that you’re planning on for tax purposes must have cleared by the end of business on Friday.

As for me, I wrote myself a check for reimbursements from my oil company, which will hopefully drive down the profit I’ll have to pay taxes on.

On that note, it’s important to start gathering all your receipts, collecting mileage logs and organizing all your financial information for your tax preparer. The more organized you are, …

An interesting thought struck me the other day: Take an economist and a politician and put them both in a room (should probably make it a padded room…) and tell them to discuss the following topics:

Iran

Nuclear energy

Oil

Nuclear weapons

Economics

From a purely political point of view, and certainly a global security point of view, the thought of Iran developing and maintaining a nuclear infrastructure is daunting to say the least.

President Ahmadinejad is still maintaining his story that he wants nuclear energy capabilities for his country. Naturally this would be an easier story to swallow if it weren’t followed by: “…and I think Israel should be …

Ford (F: chart, web, Y!) CEO Alan Mulally has a lot of work ahead to turn the auto maker around. Work that he’s done before with Boeing Commercial Aircraft.

A no nonsense kind of guy, but a man with an understanding of the sacrifices that must be made for the good (and longevity) of the company.

I like Mulally. Partially because he and I both come from similar backgrounds, with the same alma mater and career path. While my resume doesn’t stand up to his, I’d like to think that in 25 or thirty years I will have many similar credentials.

I’m …

There are times I love my insurance company, and other times I’m not quite as fond.

However, whenever your insurance company sends you money for no apparent reason, it’s always a good thing. Today I received my yearly USAA dividend check to the total amount of $58.91. Last year is was just shy of $100 and in previous years it has been upwards of $150.

Overall, USAA will return more than $6.4 billion to its members in 2006 in the form of dividends, claims payments, distributions and other monetary benefits. This adds up to almost half of the total revenue USAA brought …

After I finally got my American Funds retirement rolled over to my T. Rowe Price 401(k), there have been a few more decisions to make. For starters, how do I distribute the money between assets? After I pick how many ways I want to split my retirement, then I have to pick what assets to acquire with the funds.

I’ve always been told that having four, solid holdings is a good way to go, at least initially. Any more and you’re spreading your money too thin, any less and you’re putting too much in one basket. Once you’ve got more money to play with, it may …

It appears competition is starting to influence Comcast and other cable providers. It’s about time!

For years, telephone companies have been fighting to retain market share by lowering prices to remain competitive. New technology like voice over IP (VOIP) has put the heat on companies like AT&T, providing the same service at better rates through internet connectivity.

Comcast has come out and said they will raise rates next year by an average of 4.5%, which sure beats the 6% they raised my rate last year. While they are closing in on the rate of inflation, they still have a ways to go …

I used to think that mortgage lenders where behind our current debt problems in America, but after listening to a taped call to Verizon Wireless customer service, maybe mortgage lenders are taking advantage of a lack of basic math skills.

To set the scene, a guy named George Vaccaro went to Canada and used his cell phone to transfer data. He has an unlimited usage plan in the U.S., but Verizon charges him 0.002 cents per kilobyte when he transfers data in Canada. Unfortunately, Verizon charged him 0.002 dollars on his phone bill.

George called up Verizon to clear a simple math error …

Back at the beginning of 2005 I bought a ‘98 F-150 to stomp around in the oil patch with. Being used with no maintenance history, I wasn’t sure what I was up against, especially when the check-engine light illuminated on the drive home from the dealership.

Someone once told me that you can tell a lot about your vehicles health from the mileage it gets, so I figured I’d keep track of this data. Every time I filled up the tank, I kept the receipt and wrote the overall mileage as well as the trip mileage right on the receipt. After a few …

A little over 3 weeks since T. Rowe Price “misplaced” over $9,000 worth of my retirement roll over, I’ve finally received word that they’ve deposited the balance into my account and backdated all purchases to the original roll over date.

So we’re square. Irritated, but square.

This is my first experience with target-date retirement funds, but I like the concept. You pick a fund with a target date close to that which you expect to retire. Over time, the funds allocation between stocks and bonds shift to a less aggressive portfolio and lower risk structure.

Since I’ve got a few …

It has become readily apparent to my wife and I that her Honda Accord is on its last legs. We figure that it has about 3 months to live, maybe longer, but be both agree that we don’t want to put any more money into fixing it.

We have made a couple trips to the local dealerships in an effort to find out what we want. Right now, we’re leaning towards a 2006 Honda Accord with a V6 engine. Since we typically keep our cars until the wheels fall off (that’s a long time for a Honda), we’d like to get …