I’m not one for spending money. It’s actually one of my least favorite things to do. However, there is something to be said for preemptive spending that can help save you time and money.
The CrisisThe story begins like this. I arrived home late yesterday evening after a long, horrible day at work to discover the [...]
I’ve been extremely busy the past couple of days. Last night, I was home from work for about an hour before I had to get up and repeat the process again. What’s been keeping me busy? There’s a word deadline Monday, leading me to work more than usual. However, the [...]
I am a big fan of small-cap funds. At one time, I had several small-cap funds, both value and growth, in my taxable investment accounts. Though I have trimmed the number to two, they are still a significant portion of my portfolio as small-cap is nearly a quarter of my taxable mutual fund investments.
The reason [...]
A few months ago, there was a great discussion on this blog about what readers have against personal finance bloggers. Recently, a reader added some extra dimensions to the topic. Here is what she had to say:
[Updated note: Here is a response from the author of this comment. I encourage you to read it [...]
My Retirement Blog has posted the 120th Carnival of Personal Finance, which featured these great carnival picks:
Personal Goals and Financial Life @ Exjackly
Making A Major Life Change: Is It Time For Kathy To Abandon The City? @ The Simple Dollar
Don’t Let Pride Ruin Your Life @ Clever Dude
For more money-saving tips, you can head [...]
Although we haven’t even seen Halloween yet, let alone Thanksgiving, it’s not too early to start budgeting for Christmas.
Make It Easier To SaveAre you paid twice a month? Then you have 6 paydays between now and Christmas. If your paycheck only comes once a month there are just three money days before the end of the year!
If [...]
Thanks to everyone who’ve made the past month a good one for us here! It’s the first month I’ve installed the Top Commentators plugin so I thought I’d capture the September stats here since the numbers reset. My gratitude to all those in the blog community who keep helping us along week after [...]
It seems to me that Zecco doesn’t have a clear plan on how to run their business.
First, they asked a ton of paperwork to open an account, then ran a promotion with a lowered minimum requirement that didn’t want anybody to know, shortly after the secret promotion, they decided to get rid of all the [...]
According to the Associated Press, a woman is suing Apple for $1 million over a $200 price cut. The article doesn’t call her stupid, but I gladly will. If you recall, only a few months after Apple’s mega-hyped iPhone release, they decided to cut the price of the new product by $200 in addition [...]
In September, the five readers with the most comments are highlighted below. Again, thanks for your continued support and insight, as it is the thoughtful discussion that makes the site great. Also, don’t forget that the clock started fresh again yesterday, so you have the entire month of October to climb the comment ranks.
Steve Austin [...]
Today I have a couple of seemingly unrelated money stories, but I hope to tie them together in the end.
I have mentioned a few times that my wife is the breadwinner in our family. A couple of weeks ago, she had found that she had a fair amount of extra money at the [...]
One of the best tips for building financial assets is to start early. Some people are fortunate enough to have family give us some seed money when we’re born. Others of us are lucky to have money savvy parents that start saving for us when we’re young and pass that money sense on.
Of course, there are [...]
It all started with these lines from the movie Rush Hour, which we watched over this weekend for the umpteenth time:
Carter: …My daddy once saved five crackheads from a burnin’ building, by himself.
Lee: My daddy once caught a bullet with his bare hand.
One thing led to another and we (me and my wife) [...]
How a family of seven is able to live on $35,000 a year after taxes.
I’ve read about America’s Cheapest Family in various articles and posts but haven’t really seen them in action till I caught a repackaged episode of 20/20 where they were once more featured. I cannot believe how a family of seven [...]
When the stock markets had the best September in 34 years, it’s hard not to make money, big money and that was indeed what happened to us last month. In fact, we saw so far the biggest jump in our net worth since I started the tracking in August 2006. For the month, the Dow [...]
It’s been a full year since I started tracking my alternative income. I look back on that post and remember how excited I was that I had made $17 that month. I was amazed that I had set up something that would essentially pay my phone bill. I closed out that [...]
Remember the high school cafeteria where all the coolest kids sat at their own table? You wouldn’t likely sit there without an invitation, what some people wouldn’t give for an invite like that. Hopefully we’ve all grown up some since high school but everyone likes to feel special and a preferred customer invitation can still be hard to [...]
