Lynn O'Shaughnessy

Lynn O'Shaughnessy

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Finding Advisers You Can Trust

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jun 26, 2007)

Too many people who portray themselves as financial experts aren't. The threshold to get into this business is too low to cull out the knuckleheads, but you can eliminate... more

Retirement Takes Planning

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jun 19, 2007)

It's a harsh reality that nobody is going to lend you money once you reach the age where your daily routine no longer includes breakfast on the go, office intrigue and... more

Time in the Kitchen Can Cook Up Some Savings

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jun 12, 2007)

Growing up in a family of seven posed all sorts of culinary challenges. It was impossible, for instance, to divide a 12-pack of Popsicles evenly, or a cherry pie, without... more

50 years and counting for S&P's index of measuring growth

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jun 05, 2007)

Fifty years ago, millions of Americans were petrified at the prospect of being surpassed by the Communist Darth Vader when the Soviets launched Sputnik into the abyss. In the... more

Where To Find The Fairest Prices For Student Loans

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (May 26, 2007)

Can you imagine someone ripping you off for a Payday candy bar? Something close to that apparently has been happening at the University of Texas, where the financial aid... more

Flexibility is key to finding affordable universities

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (May 22, 2007)

When teenagers start shopping for colleges, the price is often not something they dwell upon. Which is why I wasn't surprised when a mother recently told me about the... more

Getting past prestige names when searching for a college

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (May 15, 2007)

When my daughter was preparing to retake the SAT last fall, she asked me to help her with some sample questions that she'd missed. She was supposed to pick out the mistakes... more

'Bank of Dad' proves to be a valuable institution

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (May 07, 2007)

Even if your toddler's vocabulary is not yet as large as a parrot's, you may already know what billions of other moms and dads understand all too well: Kids want... more

Money and You

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Apr 30, 2007)

How much do I need to save for retirement? Some variation of these words has been uttered by millions of Americans. People keep asking the question because the answers have... more

Stockbrokers' legal role in giving advice is up in the air

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Apr 23, 2007)

In 1999, the Securities and Exchange Commission tossed out a proposal that anyone with just a left or right brain could have found alarming. The SEC suggested that... more

How you can get a higher grade on your credit report

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Apr 09, 2007)

When we graduated from high school or college, most of us assumed that we wouldn't have to worry about a report card again. But anybody who carries a credit card is... more

Readers offer their own stories of frugal living

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Apr 03, 2007)

Recently, I was delighted by the tremendous number of e-mails that I received from readers reacting to my column. Maybe it was my confession that I once couldn't afford a can... more

Live below your means, no matter what your means may be

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Mar 28, 2007)

During much of the 1980s, I didn't have to wait until the yearly sale to buy a cute dress at Nordstrom. In my office, I was the person whom colleagues would ask for... more

Money and You

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Mar 20, 2007)

Nobody likes to talk about their credit card debt. If you're addicted to plastic, you certainly don't want anyone to discover your secret. But strangely enough, some... more

When markets head south, don't hit the panic button

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Mar 12, 2007)

Ouch. Feb. 27 was one of those days when a pinched nerve would have felt like a relief compared with the pain felt by millions of investors. In just a few hours of trading,... more

Questions still pouring in about IRAs, taxes, refunds

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Mar 06, 2007)

Individual Retirement Accounts may be simple, but they continue to befuddle investors. My recent column on IRAs prompted lots of questions. In fact, I get almost as many... more

Money and You

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Feb 27, 2007)

In so many ways, the Individual Retirement Account is exquisitely simple. If you can recite your ABC's without hesitating, or even if you can unfold a napkin, you have enough... more

The guy factor: Overconfidence make for risky investments

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Feb 17, 2007)

Do you know how to invest? Do you enjoy the kind of financial success that would make you an obvious candidate to write a book about it? Do you sometimes wonder why you're... more

New laws help employees figure out 401(k) plans

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Feb 12, 2007)

Right about the time last summer when stores were discounting their beach umbrellas to make room for back-to-school stuff, Congress heaved a fat slab of legislation at the... more

What to do with your retirement account

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Feb 06, 2007)

Last week, I heard from a Navy retiree who wondered what he should do with the money he built up in his Thrift Savings Plan, the federal government retirement plan that looks... more

Fee or no-fee, advice isn't free

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jan 29, 2007)

If you are bewildered by the number of mutual funds on the shelves, selecting a financial adviser has got to be an even more excruciating process. The nation's inventory of... more

Money and You

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jan 23, 2007)

About a year ago, Smith Barney, the brokerage giant, announced that it would start calling its stockbrokers "financial advisers." Most Smith Barney clients, if they heard... more

Advisers make worse choices than independent investors, study says

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jan 16, 2007)

I've received thousands of e-mails since I began writing this column 2 1/2 years ago and, by far, the most frequent SOS I get is from readers who want to know where they... more

Make useful, doable financial goals for new year

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jan 09, 2007)

Instead of preaching to people about what kind of financial resolutions they should be embracing for the New Year, I decided to ask people to share their own financial goals.... more

Talk about inspirational: Raising cash raised spirits

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jan 02, 2007)

Even though the holidays have just passed, I'd like to share an inspirational tale that I've been sitting on for several months. This is a story about some kindhearted souls,... more