Dolan's Guide To Mutual Funds

We wrote this Special Report to take the worry and headaches out of choosing the right mutual for you. We are going to show you how to:

Discover the right types of funds to help you reach your goals
Find top funds by understanding their returns, expenses, tax implications and more
Avoid the 3 common mistakes made by many investors that could cause thousands of dollars in losses
Build a bigger nest egg over time by taking advantage of this major benefit of mutual fund investing
Make sense of confusing IRS regs. Plus, you’ll get Daria’s famous Mutual Fund Record-Keeper to make record-keeping a snap.
And more!

Let's jump right in with a look at the pros and cons of mutual funds so you know exactly what you're getting into.

The 4 Things We Really Like About Mutual Funds

There's a lot to like about mutual funds. That's why they're so popular! Here are the four biggest benefits you get when you invest in a mutual fund:

Diversification. Our mothers used to say, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" — implying that spreading our wealth around would reduce our risk. As usual, Mom was right. That old adage is precisely the definition of diversification. By buying scores of stocks and/or bonds from different companies, a mutual fund manager is effectively spreading the risk around, eliminating too much reliance on any one investment.

Professional portfolio management. When you invest in a mutual fund, you are also buying professional money management — not only a portfolio manager, but often a whole staff of investment analysts. These folks are in the trenches, talking with company management and poring over financial statements; in short, doing the research that you just don't have the time for, or don't want to do.

Liquidity. With many mutual funds, it's a snap to buy or sell because they issue new shares and redeem existing shares on demand. These are called "open-end" funds, and you can buy or sell their shares on any business day. The price you pay equals the current market value of the fund's investments, divided by the number of shares outstanding. This gives you what's called the "net asset value" (NAV) per share, based on that day's closing prices. If you buy a mutual fund that charges a sales commission (called a "load"), you pay the closing price per share plus the sales charge.

Convenience. Most mutual funds have automatic investment plans. That makes it easy to make regular contributions to your fund by having money automatically withdrawn from your bank account and invested. They also offer automatic reinvestment plans so you can have your dividends and capital gains distributions poured right back into the fund to buy new shares. It doesn't get much easier than that!

What We Don't Like About Mutual Funds

So far, so good, right? What's not to love about an investment that's easy to use and gives you built-in diversification, expertise and convenience, right? But as with any investment, mutual funds have some shortcomings that can prove very costly in the long run if you don't know what to look for.

What Exactly Is a
Mutual Fund?

One of the great things about mutual funds is that they give you the same diversification that well-heeled, big-time investors get from the stock and bond markets. With a mutual fund, you can invest in hundreds of stocks or bonds without a lot of money.

A mutual fund is a pool of money managed by a professional money manager, known as the fund manager or portfolio manager. The fund manager invests your money — along with money from thousands (maybe millions) of other investors — in stocks, bonds and other securities, depending on the fund you choose.

The fund manager buys investments with a specific, stated objective in mind. For example, some mutual funds invest in stocks for dividends, capital appreciation, or both. Some funds invest in bonds for steady income and some invest in a mixture of stocks and bonds for growth and income.

As a shareholder of the fund, you reap your proportionate share of any gains (or losses) on investments held by the fund. Every investor gets the same return per share, whether you invest $1,000 or $100,000!

Here are the four biggest negatives you need to be aware of before you invest in any fund.

1. Costs and fees. You can end up paying fairly hefty fees for the services you get. Some mutual funds charge several types of fees: management fees, marketing fees and even fees to buy and redeem shares. These costs can range from 0.35% to more than 8% of the fund's assets per year, and are taken off the top of the fund's profits. You can see how high fees substantially reduce even the highest of returns, so it's imperative that you know exactly what fees you'll be paying before you buy. Don't worry; we'll show you exactly how to easily find this information in just a few minutes.

2. Capital gains taxes. None of us likes to pay taxes, but if you owe them, you must be making money, right? Not necessarily! You might find yourself saddled with a capital gains tax bill at the end of the year — even if your fund loses money! Why? Because the manager is constantly selling holdings, and every time he or she sells at a gain, you are taxed. We have got some tips on this, too, which we'll talk about a little bit later.

3. The portfolio manager is playing with other people's money. Time for some Dolan straight talk on how the mutual fund industry really works: Most portfolio managers receive compensation and retain their jobs based on how well their fund performs in comparison to other funds in the same category — period. This pressure leads many of them to take all kinds of risks to keep their returns high. They might do a ton of buying and selling and hedging that they'd never do with their personal portfolio.

This can be an especially serious problem when the market starts going against a mutual fund. Some managers panic and dump stocks to try to keep the rate of return from falling. That creates a couple of problems: 1) It forces you to take losses that you might have avoided; and 2) Every time you buy and sell (and you know the manager will be buying something to replace the sold securities), you incur more fees.

4. Remember the diversification that we talked about? You may not be getting it after all! Although there are thousands of publicly traded companies, too many mutual fund managers are as guilty as individual investors of chasing popular stocks. Result: A lot of funds end up owning the same stocks. Here's why that's a big problem: If you own three mutual funds, you would naturally think you're diversified, when in fact you may be investing in the same stocks in three different funds — and paying three sets of fees!

To prevent this problem, make sure you take a look at the 10 top holdings in all of your funds. The easiest way to find this information is online, through the specific mutual fund company's web site or by getting a quote at one of the financial web sites like www.morningstar.com (enter the symbol, click on "Portfolio," and then click on the "Top 25 Holdings"). Once you compare the top holdings of your funds, you may find a lot of overlap!

Even if you own different kinds of funds — say one maximum capital appreciation fund, one equity income fund and one growth fund — the managers could be buying the same darlings of Wall Street to keep their returns looking good. The problem is, once these darlings become dogs (as often happens), you're going to lose more money if you own those stocks in several different funds.

This is exactly what happened to a friend of ours as he was retiring and ready to roll over his 401(k) plan to an IRA. He went to see his broker, who made a number of recommendations. Then he asked us to review those recommendations.

The broker had put together a brightly colored, eye-catching binder with a review of four recommended mutual funds, all of which were "growth and income." The top 10 holdings of all four funds were listed, and guess what? All four funds contained the same 10 stocks (in different percentages), most of which paid no dividends! These were supposed to be growth and INCOME funds, yet their top 10 holdings did not pay dividends!

We think that's scandalous, and it's more proof that you have to watch out for your investments and every other part of your financial life. We started Dolans.com to help you do just that.

Now, we don't mean to scare you away from investing in mutual funds; we just want you to be realistic — and cautious. The ease and convenience of mutual fund investing is hard to beat. That's why they appeal to so many investors!

In addition, funds come in all shapes and sizes. You can invest in stocks, bonds, both stocks and bonds, domestic, international, specific sectors, natural resources — just about anything you can think of. If you would like to learn more about the key types of mutual funds you have to choose from (growth, international, bonds, etc.), please click here to read "A Fund for Every Investor" at www.Dolans.com.

Now, before we get into picking the right funds for you, let's take a minute to talk about the two main types of mutual funds. They behave very differently — one is more like a stock — so every investor needs to know this information. Otherwise, you might end up with something entirely different than you were expecting!

Open-End Funds vs. Closed-End Funds

Open-end funds are the traditional mutual funds we've been talking about up to now. The fund is called "open-end" because there is no fixed number of shares issued.

The price you pay for a mutual fund share of an open-end mutual fund is based on the market value of all the fund's investments, minus costs, and then divided by the number of mutual fund shares owned by the fund's shareholders. That price is called the Net Asset Value (NAV) per share, and the NAV is set daily, after the market closes.

As with stocks and bonds, the price of an open-end mutual fund rises or falls every day, depending on what happens to the investments that are owned by the fund. Every time an investor buys shares, the mutual fund issues more shares. Higher demand for the fund does not mean a higher share price, as it does with stocks. Each day, a mutual fund must determine both the value of its portfolio and how many shares are outstanding.

Sometimes an open-end fund will close its doors and no longer accept any money from new investors. There are a couple of reasons for this. The primary cause is simply that the fund gets so large its managers can no longer follow their initial strategy and the fund's performance begins to suffer. For example, a fund dedicated to buying small-cap stocks may find itself with so much money that it "outgrows" that sector.

Or, a fund may close if management thinks it has attracted too much "hot" money due to its stellar performance. That money could rush back out the door if its returns temporarily falter, thus hurting existing shareholders, so sometimes the decision is made to close for a short period of time.

Yes, there are also occasions in which the fund may no longer accept any new money from existing shareholders either. However, if you already own shares of the open-end fund before it closes, you still have all the investment and redemption privileges that you had when the fund was open to new investors.

Closed-end funds are a different animal. In fact, they're much more similar to stocks. A closed-end mutual fund sells a fixed number of shares and invests the proceeds. The number of shares doesn't change. As with stocks, closed-end mutual funds are listed on a stock exchange, and the only way to buy shares of a closed-end fund is through a broker (who will charge you commissions, of course, whether you do it in person or online).

Contrary to open-end funds, the value of a closed-end fund is not based on the net asset value (NAV, the underlying value of the portfolio), but, rather, on the market's perception of how the fund is doing. Consequently, the shares of a closed-end fund typically trade above or below the fund's NAV.

When the market value of the fund's shares is less than the NAV of the investments that the fund owns, the fund is trading at a discount. This means you can buy the fund's share for less than its assets are worth. When the market value of the fund's shares is greater than the NAV of the investments, the fund is trading at a premium. This means you're paying more than the investments are worth on the open market.

There are no hard and fast rules as to why a particular fund trades at a discount or premium. For example, as we write this, the India Fund (NYSE: IFN) trades at $54.30, with a NAV of $59.61. As you can see, it is obviously trading at a discount.

You may be interested to know that U.S. closed-end funds commonly sell at an average 5% discount to NAV. But it's important for you to know that there are investors who will purchase shares at either level. We prefer buying closed-end funds at a discount. After all, why pay more than you need to?

There's a third kind of fund that has become increasingly popular in recent years called an exchange-traded fund, or ETF. These funds typically mimic a stock exchange or index and have very low fees because the holdings are determined by what's in the index instead of a professional manager. (Click here for more advice on ETFs at Dolans.com.)

3 Ways to Earn Money Through Mutual Funds

Whether you buy an open- or closed-end fund, there are three ways you make money in mutual funds:

Dividends and interest. Whenever an investment inside the mutual fund declares a dividend or pays interest, you receive a pro rata share of that dividend or interest.
Capital gains distributions. You also receive your share of any net profits from the sale of investments. These profits are called distributions of capital gains; and
Increased share value as the value (NAV) of the investments that are held by the fund increases or, in a closed-end fund, as the share price increases.

Dividends and distributions may be paid monthly, quarterly or annually. In the case of fixed-income mutual funds, distributions may be declared daily but only paid out monthly or quarterly.

You can choose to collect them as you go, or you can have them automatically reinvested to buy more shares. But as rabid long-term investors, we always recommend that you reinvest them. You won't miss them, and they will give your portfolio an added boost through the incredible power of compounding. The more money you put in, the more you will have when you are ready to take it out!

For tax purposes, you'll get a year-end statement from the fund showing what part of the money you've earned represents ordinary income and what part represents long-term capital gains. This distinction is important. With the advent of the long-needed tax changes in the Jobs & Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, dividends and long-term capital gains are taxed at a maximum rate of 15%, while ordinary income can be taxed at up to 28% (depending on your tax bracket). In addition, you can offset your capital gains with any capital losses you have for the year (or that you carried from previous years).

Dolan Ah-ha!

Some fund companies have become so desperate for new business they have offered brokers an extra commission to push their funds on you, the investor. Even major fund families have been known to do this.

The amount of dividends, interest or capital gain distributions you get from a mutual fund depends on the kinds of investments the fund owns. Funds invested in high-rated corporate bonds may pay you dividends of 5%–10%, based on the income from the bonds. A fund investing in small growth companies may have little or no income from dividends. Your profit from this fund would be due to any appreciation in the stocks owned by the fund. Or a balanced fund made up of stocks and bonds may pay you a combination of dividends and appreciation. (Reminder: You can read our primer on the ins and outs of different types of funds at Dolans.com now — just click here.)

How to Choose the Right Mutual Fund for You

So let's get to the all-important question: With so many mutual funds available, how do you choose the right one for you?

We'd like to begin our answer to that question with some very interesting and helpful information from Charles Jaffe, author of the syndicated column "Your Funds," which appears in more than 50 newspapers nationwide.

Charles wrote a column for The Boston Globe that really caught our eye. It was titled, "Putting Your Funds to the Test." He stated at the beginning of the article that if you can't answer the six basic questions below, you should plow into a prospectus, head to your fund company's website or revisit your portfolio-building strategy for a refresher course. And we heartily agree.

Here are the six questions you should ask — whether you already own a fund or are thinking of purchasing one:

What is the fund's investment strategy, market-capitalization or bond-duration profile? For example, if you are looking for income, it would make no sense to buy a small-cap fund, which would typically invest in riskier, growth stocks. Or if you want to cash in your fund next year, you probably don't want to buy a fund that holds mostly 30-year corporate bonds.
Who is the manager, and what is the investment style? You want to know the manager's experience and track record. Often, mutual funds change their managers as often as you may change your clothes, and the track record they are ballyhooing doesn't even belong to the current manager. And style is important too — if you are a buy-and-hold investor, you won't want a fund with a high turnover ratio (that just means it buys and sells a lot).
What is the fund's expense ratio? (We'll talk more in-depth about that in a few moments.)
How is the fund rated by independent experts (like Morningstar, Lipper, or Value Line)? You can go to these web sites to find out: www.morningstar.com, www.lipperweb.com, and www.valueline.com.
What is the fund's role in your portfolio? Is it part of your conservative or speculative strategies? What percentage of your portfolio will it represent?
Does it match (or, if you've owned it for some time, still match) your investment objectives? Are you looking for income, growth, a combination of income and growth, international exposure, sector exposure, etc.?

Those six questions are a great starting point. Combine them with just a few more steps we're about to walk you through, and you'll have the tools you need to find the best funds for you.

Three Simple Steps to Selecting the Right Funds

1. Carefully analyze the fund's long-term performance. Funds of the same type can have widely different performances, depending on their managers' success in choosing investments. While it's true that past performance is no guarantee of future results, it can still be a darn good way to measure the quality of funds. And while performance should never be the only reason you invest in a fund, it is extremely important, because after all, the goal of investing is to make money! Just keep in mind, as you peruse the fund's returns, performance over a one-year period is pretty meaningless. Any investment can have an excellent or a terrible year. To effectively gauge a fund's real performance, it's essential that you look at its returns over a period of time — preferably over the last 5, 7 and 10 years.

Think of it this way: No doctor is right 100% of the time. But wouldn't you feel more comfortable going to a doctor you knew had been right 99% of the time in the past? We would, too! The same is true of mutual fund managers.

You can find a lot of this information simply by looking up quotes (using the fund's trading symbol). You can do it right at Dolans.com. Just click on the "Invest Wisely" tab, and you'll see the box in which to enter the fund's symbol. You can also check on other websites like AOL Money (http://money.aol.com), Yahoo finance (http://finance.yahoo.com), etc.

For our money, the best place to look for up-to-date information about a mutual fund's performance, as well as news and analysts' research, is the site run by Morningstar, www.morningstar.com. Most of the information on the site is free, but with a premium membership ($15.95 a month, $145 a year, or $245 for two years) you will get access to the most advanced research, news and rankings of funds as well as individual stocks.

Here's a tip for you: Morningstar will let you try the premium membership for 30 days free. If you invest with mutual funds, try it for a month and see if it's worth the investment for you.

When you are checking a fund's performance, look at the tables that show how it has fared over the last one, three, five and ten years. Look for steady performers that have consistently been among the top five funds in their category. And make sure that the performance of the funds you have selected is the performance under the fund's current management team.

2. Read the all-important prospectus: When you buy shares in a mutual fund, by law, the fund must give you a prospectus. That's all well and good, but getting the prospectus after you've invested in the fund is backwards. You need to read it before you put your first dollar into the fund. Make sure you get one by calling the fund's toll-free number and asking it be mailed to you, or the quickest way to find one is on the fund family's own web site.

Dolan Ah-ha!

In 2002, Morningstar Inc., the mutual fund-rating company, changed its system so that funds are rated not in the fund universe at large, but only against other funds with similar investment styles, based on more than 50 separate fund categories. While this system is designed to give each fund a better chance of showing how it compares to others in its particular investment category, it also means that some funds that have been terrible performers could rank at the top of a badly performing category. Caveat emptor.

We know; prospectuses look complicated and scary. The type is small, they are filled with legal mumbo-jumbo, and they seem to have a lot of numbers in them. In reality — just as with almost any other type of financial document — once you've read a couple, you will see that they follow a standard format and can actually be scanned pretty quickly for the information that you need.

Think of the prospectus as a trail of clues that will tell you what's really going on in those plush offices where the fund's managers make their decisions.

There are two things you absolutely must look at in a prospectus:

Investment Objective: You'll find the investment objective listed in its own section of the prospectus. The investment objective explains the goal of the fund. As we've talked about, the three most common goals are growth, income, and growth with income. If you're looking for more income from your investments and the fund's objective is growth, you're in the wrong ballpark. The objective also tells you how the fund manager proposes to meet that goal ("aggressively", "moderately" or "with as little risk as possible").
The Expense Ratio: The expense ratio is listed in the fund's fee table, which shows you all the fees and expenses the fund subtracts from the fund's performance (and your investment) each year. The lower the expense ratio the better, because more profits will go to you!

In a diversified stock fund, we don't like any expense ratio that is over 1%. For an index stock fund, we recommend you look for 0.3% or less, and no more than 0.5% – 0.6% for a bond fund. We'll give you the full skinny on mutual fund fees in just a second.

The prospectus will also tell you about the fund's management (who are the advisers, and what is their background and track record?), the services provided (does the fund offer an automatic investment plan or IRA accounts?), and tax consequences (what is the likely tax impact on an investor in your tax bracket?).

3. Go beyond the prospectus and dig into the annual report. Another important document to look at before you buy a mutual fund is the annual report. When you request any prospectus, ask for a copy of the annual report as well. The annual report tells you what the portfolio manager has invested in during the year. If you compare 2–3 years' worth of annual reports, you will get a very good idea of the manager's primary long-term strategies and objectives.

Take a close look at the stocks and/or bonds that are listed. If the entire annual report lists companies you've never heard of, or companies whose business practices you dislike, this fund won't suit your needs.

The prospectus should also include information on minimum bond ratings for the bonds in which it invests. You may need to do some digging to find out the ratings, but it's easy on the web. Just go to www.bonds-online.com/Bond_Ratings_Definitions.php. If most of the bonds listed in the portfolio have a Standard & Poor's rating of BB or below, don't buy that fund.

Making Sense of Mutual Fund Fees

As we've mentioned, mutual fund companies may charge a host of management, marketing and administrative fees in return for their services — costs that often take investors completely unaware and nibble away at your returns. All of these fees are assessed as a percentage of your total invested assets.

The money comes out of the fund's profits before you are paid, so excessive fees eat away at your initial investment as well as future profits. Here's what you need to know about fees before you invest:

Every fund charges a fee to pay the fund manager and cover the overhead charges of running a mutual fund. These management fees, known as the expense ratio, commonly range from 0.35% to 2% of assets per year. The fees — which include 12b-1 fees, management expenses, and trading commissions — are taken off the top of the fund's profits.

The 12b-1 Fee — named for the SEC provision that allows it — is the annual fee charged for advertising and marketing. This fee is taken out of the fund's gross profits to help it attract new investors. These fees range from 0.25% to 1.0%. To confuse matters, some funds have inactive 12b-1 fees. They have installed the fee just in case they want to impose it in the future, but they aren't using it right now. Carefully read the prospectus to ferret out 12b-1 fees. Funds that don't charge 12b-1 fees use money from their management fees to pay for advertising and marketing — that's why management expenses vary so widely. We don't usually recommend funds that have a 12b-1 fee.

If you're not careful, mutual funds can "fee" you to death. Hefty operating expenses are handicaps that a fund may not overcome for years. Before you invest in any fund, look carefully at its fees (these costs must appear in the fund's prospectus — usually on page 2 or 3 — in a standard format that is dictated by the government). You should also check the prospectus about other charges the fund may have. For example, the fund may charge a load for re-investing your dividends.

Dolan Ah-ha!

Anytime you withdraw money from a mutual fund, or transfer money from one fund to another fund, the sale of shares and/or subsequent purchase of new shares is a taxable event unless the funds are in an IRA or other tax-deferred retirement account. Remember to keep careful records of your transactions.

Front-end load: Many mutual funds have what they call "loads," a fancy word for sales charges or commissions. Most mutual funds that impose a sales charge do so up front, when you buy the fund. This front-end load can range from 2.5% to 8.5%(!), which is the maximum the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) allows but is not very common.

How exactly does a load work? Well, if you send $10,000 to a fund, the amount of your money that will actually be invested to build your wealth will range from $9,150 to $9,750. The rest of your money goes to the salesman and the mutual fund company.

That means you are already in the hole before you even get started! Your fund will have to work twice (or maybe three times!) as hard to grow. And since we already recommended that you keep your expenses to 1% or less, we suggest that you stay away from these unnecessary high loads.

Back-end load: Another way funds hit you with a load is by charging a redemption fee — also known as a back-end load. This is a commission that is charged against your account when you sell your fund.

There are three ways funds can charge a back-end load:

As a set percentage of your original investment (not on the balance after it's grown)
As a set percentage of your fund's total value (including your investment and any growth)
As a declining percentage that disappears over time (usually after five years).

With such hits to your bottom-line profit, you may ask, "Does it ever make sense to buy a fund with a load?"

99.9% of the time, the answer is no! There are an awful lot of excellent no-load funds out there, and chances are you will be able to find one with a good long-term track record that matches your investment objectives, so why pay a load? For example, a fund that has had superior returns for the last 5 years (54.3%) is BlackRock Latin America A (MDLTX). But, the fund charges a load of 5.25%. Investors could find a very similar fund, paying almost-comparable returns (50.77%), in the Fidelity Advisor Latin America A LW (FLTAX.lw) fund, which has no load.

Say you invested $10,000 in each fund. After five years, here's what you'd have:

BlackRock Latin America: $14,620
Fidelity Advisor Latin America: $15,077

As you can clearly see, you come out ahead in the fund with a lower return because the fees are significantly less — meaning you keep more of YOUR money!

But be careful! "No load" doesn't mean "no fees"! That's why it's so important that you do the research we've just talked about. Be sure to look into not only sales fees (if any), but also the cost of continuing management of both kinds of funds and how often the portfolio manager trades in and out of holdings. All of this affects the fees you pay, which in turn affects how much money you make off your investment. You might be surprised when you do the math!

And if you already own a mutual fund that charges front-end or back-end loads, don't feel you have to sell it just because of the load if you are happy with its performance. But try to avoid putting new money into a high-load and/or high-fee fund.

Information You Don't Need

More than 9,000 funds to choose from, hundreds of websites, the prospectus, annual reports...we realize that it's easy to feel you're being bombarded with too much information when choosing a mutual fund.

To make your life simpler, we've put together a short list of what you don't need to look at when you buy a mutual fund:

Hot market sectors: Today's hot fund is often tomorrow's loser. Just ask anyone who invested in tech and biotech funds early in the new century. What goes up usually comes down.
New funds: Our recommendation? Never invest in 'em. An untried mutual fund hasn't been tested in bad markets, and we don't want some new fund experimenting with your money! We recommend that you don't invest in any fund that's less than five years old. It just won't have the track record you are looking for to ensure long-term performance.
Quarterly results: Don't choose a fund because it was the top performer for a three-month period. One quarter's express train to profits often becomes a derailment in the next quarter. What counts: a fund's long-term (1-, 3-, 5- and 10-year) performance record
A funds "yield": Bond funds are notorious for selling you their yield. But yield is not the true measure of a fund's worth. To choose wisely, check the fund's total return, which is plus or minus the gain or loss of capital, best researched over a 5, 7 or 10-year period. This is very important!

Making Your Money Work Harder for You!

We've covered a lot of ground! We hope that you now feel like you have the guidance you need to choose the best mutual funds for your situation — whether it's for your retirement, a college savings plan, regular investing account, and so on.

Even if you work with a broker or a financial planner, please go to him or her with this information and be an active participant in your financial well-being. Ask questions. Demand explanations. If there's one thing we've learned in our decades of helping people with their money, it's that the best advice of all is to get involved and stay involved. Nobody looks out for your money they way you do.

It's our mission to help you with all of your money matters, and this Special Report is just one small sampling of the advice you now have at your fingertips on www.Dolans.com — our new web site that is already a huge hit with thousands of people like you!

Here's a look at some of the other FREE investment advice you'll find on Dolans.com today:

And that's just in the Invest Wisely center!

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Welcome to the Dolans.com family! For more than 40 years combined, we've been helping people like you with real-life solutions to your most pressing money concerns — concerns that we've also shared in our lives.

Anytime you have a question, just point and click, and we will be there to help!

Not with just "information." Or stuff that's "nice to know." And not all the general — and frankly, not very helpful — "stuff" you'll find elsewhere on the Internet.

We promise to bring you straight talk. No confusing mumbo-jumbo, no company lines, no sugar-coated fluff. We'll give you the timely advice, inside tips, techniques and more than a few "secrets" that will help you make smarter, more confident, successful money decisions every day.

We're thrilled you are part of the Dolans.com family! We look forward to getting to know you better, helping you however we can. And anyone who knows us will tell you we promise to have lots of fun doing it!

P.S. There are some major issues facing your finances this year and we want you to be prepared for how to deal with them. That’s why we put together a new video of our important money predictions for 2008 that you need to know about. Click here to watch it now.