Personal Finance Advice

In the below video, the smaller, older houses are selling for about $800,000 while the bigger houses are selling for over $1 million – crazy. The skinny lot at the beginning of the video is on the corner of Pasadena and Olive and has a value of $882K while the other is on the corner [...]

For those of you that have an interest about how the brain affects our decisions in regard to money, you’ll want to take some time and read a thorough (but rather long) article on neuroeconomics in the New Yorker. A few of the observations from the piece: On people’s dislike of losing money: During the [...]

Bloggers put together a wonderful tribute to all those that lost their lives in the September 11 attacks that is well worth a visit today. 3,412 volunteer bloggers honored the memories of those who died in the September 11 attacks by each writing a tribute about one of those that died in the September 11 [...]

A little humor to start off the week stolen from the forums: If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00. With Enron, you would have $16.50 left of the original $1,000.00. With WorldCom, you would have less than $5.00 left. BUT, if you had purchased $1,000.00 [...]

One of the biggest reasons I chose to quit selling on eBay where I had built up a good clientele and was making a decent income was time. Unless you hire people to keep eBay listings going while you aren’t around, it is difficult to take time off because a week’s vacation can mean losing [...]

This is a first for us and I would be interested in anyone’s opinion on what they would do in this situation. I had a lot of good content on saving money on car insurance and have been looking for a good domain name for it for quite a while. The problem is that the [...]

Some good news for those that are saving money for your kids using 529 plans or who have been considering beginning college savings with them. One sticky point for many people was that the federal tax deduction for the 529 plans was set to expire in 2010. Most people felt that this deduction would be [...]

People often ask me how I came to write about personal finances. It kind of fell into my lap, but I get ahead of myself… I graduated from Colorado College with a degree in Sociology. If you ever want to graduate with a completely worthless degree, choose Sociology. While the actual required readings and courses [...]

So what information do you have stored on your cell phone? Are there secrets or financial information that you wouldn’t want anyone else to know about? If there are, you might want to think twice before selling or recycling you phone. Even if you take the precaution to erase all the information on your cell [...]

I like finding the hidden costs in personal finances. Hidden costs are those costs that are not readily apparent when you are looking at your finances and usually when you leave out the hidden costs, the true cost is nowhere near what you assumed. the problem is that hidden costs are hidden because they are [...]

I have mentioned in the past that I am always amazed at the creativity that people come up with in ways to earn money. When I was still living in Japan, I mentioned about how a friend’s child had taken his words and turned it into a money making venture: Apparently one week his son [...]

I spent a good portion of today painting the balcony which gave me time to think. Now having the time to think would usually be thought of as a good opportunity – a time to relax and possibly think about all those vacations that I want to take in the future. I, on the other [...]

One thing that I have learned over the years is that if you try to do something that is beyond your skill level, it will likely cost you money in the long run. That being said, you probably can do a lot more than you think you can. I am by no means a handyman, [...]

September is National Coupon Month and to celebrate, Flash (who manages our Grocery Coupon Guide satellite site) is giving away her stash of coupons including her free product ones. She has some pretty incredible stuff. If you have ever wondered how people save so much at the grocery store because you can’t seem to manage [...]

If you paid long distance telephone tax (after Feb. 28, 2003 and before Aug. 1, 2006), you will qualify for a $30 to $60 tax refund on your 2006 tax return. The IRS has announced standard amounts for the refund meaning that people won’t have to sort through their old telephone bills to figure out [...]

August continued along the lines of July and it was another good month overall. Both Nate and I will be pleased if we can continue building at the pace we have over the last 2 months, but also know that things seem to slow down some during the Holiday season which is just around the [...]

There are certain areas that I talk about quite a bit in this blog, but there are other areas that I don’t mention as often. Tim over at My Money Forest asked me quite a few questions for his blog about Nate and I and SavingAdvice.com, some of which I have not answered before here. [...]