Personal Finance Advice

My sister, her husband and their one-year-old girl who have been living in San Francisco are all moving to Canada (Victoria on Vancouver Island) in October. It has been an extremely busy week as I have spent a lot of time helping them get packed for the move. Some observations that are pretty obvious, but [...]

For those that have them, pets and babies can have a huge impact on your personal finances. For those that are looking for ways to reduce the costs associated with either or both, there are two good articles over at Grocery Coupon Guide on how to contact manufacturer’s directly and get on their member lists [...]

Welcome to all those who made it here by way of Forbes. Dan Frommer put together a nice piece over at Forbes called Cut Your Tech Bills where he quoted me and mentioned a few of the posts that I’ve made here on cutting Cable TV costs. For those of you searching for them, you [...]

The Transportation Security Administration has announced they plan to lower the price from $200 to $110 a year the cost of getting fast-tracked through airport security. The reduction comes after companies argued the $200 fee was too high and “could deter millions of people and some airports from signing up for the Registered Traveler program.” [...]

It seems that lately I have come across people that are extreme when it comes to their credit score. I’ve met several people that are obsessed with their credit score and how their financial decisions will effect it. This got me to thinking about how understanding the entire picture is important when dealing with your [...]

**Warning: there is some foul language in this video** This video is a classic example how not to invest in a business (in this case a roller skating party). While studying the correct ways to invest your money is helpful, it can also be just as helpful to see examples of the incorrect way to [...]

Here’s a little video I came across that gives the numbers on why it’s important to start investing early and the power of compound interest – since I know people learn in different ways, I thought a visual might be helpful for those that have a hard time grasping the explanation in written form. For [...]

Some more support for my contention that most people are better off concentrating their time on learning how to save money rather than learning how to pick stocks. But are you good enough at it to make it worth your while? To come out ahead buying individual stocks, you must have some special insight that [...]

Kind of hard to believe that I have been blogging here for an entire year. As with a lot of this, time has just flown by. As I seem to do with most anniversaries, I’ve taken a bit of time to sit back and reflect on what was good and what wasn’t so good over [...]

There are a lot of things that keep people from getting their personal finances in order. One of the issues that I struggle with most is paralysis by analysis. For me, it’s a two part problem. First, I always want to get the best deal out there. Second is that I read so much about [...]

I was reading an article the other day stating that the Dutch have become the tallest people in the world. While this may be an intriguing fact to you, you’re probably wondering what the heck this has to do with personal finance? One of the quotes in the article caught my eye: “Buying clothes and [...]

I was thinking as I took my walk the other day about personal finances (yet another indication of what a personal finance geek I am). I think one of the biggest problems that people have when it comes to personal finances is that when they first start to look at them, they want a quick [...]

While 529 plans had their federal tax deduction permanently extended recently, Coverdell Education saving accounts lost some of their appeal. A nice advantage of the Coverdell saving accounts was that the money in the accounts could be used for private elementary, jr high school and high school expenses. Beginning in 2011, however, this will no [...]

One way that I exercise is to go to a community park land in the hills a few miles away from my house. There are a lot of hiking trails back there and it is a great way for me to get away from the computer and get in a bit of exercise while also [...]

I’ll raise a beer to that A new study by economists Bethany Peters and Edward Stringham has found that those who drink socially earn 10% or more than than those who don’t. The study found that social drinking helped people with their “social capital” – anything from a person’s charisma to the number of people [...]

Only from Consumer Reports would you find a shopping magazine that has no advertisements in it (No Hype + No Ads + Just Great Buys). In fact, as Editor Lisa Lee Freeman says in her column, “To put it bluntly, we blow our money on all kinds of crappy products so you don’t have to.” [...]

I got into a heated discussion with one of my friends over credit cards. He has concluded that his current financial problems are due to credit card companies and they have driven him to debt. He likes to shout to anyone that will listen that credit card companies are evil and all the things they [...]

I was looking at the back yard today and thinking about lawn mowers. I started thinking about this because our neighbor across the street has a riding lawn mower. Now we live in the suburbs and while he has a large house, his lawn area is minimal. He obviously doesn’t need a riding lawn mower [...]

I had an interesting conversation with a friend this evening. He had read an article that suggested that instead of signing the back of your credit card, you instead place “Check ID” in place of the signature. The theory goes that if someone got hold of your credit card, when they purchased something and the [...]