Personal Finance Advice

VISA buys Game of Life controversy: It really is a sad day when a a credit card company buys their way into a children’s game and tries to spin it that is is some kind of favor. The Game of Life will come with VISA, but no cash. Is that really how you want [...]

This story has nothing to do with personal finance, but I’m going to find a way to make it relate in some way because it’s just that good of a read. It also puts forth the question of why we are trying to earn all that money in the first place…
Joshua Bell, one of [...]

By Wixx, special to pfadvice
Between the time when you are expecting, and continuing up through showing off your new baby as a proud mother or father, you will be bombarded with advertisements, endorsements, plugs, and discussions of all of the purchases that you will need to make. It appears that a lot of [...]

Every gardener has some commandments that the hold dear and follow. These are my 10 commandments for frugal gardening:
1. Thou shalt have fun: If you aren’t having fun while gardening, find another hobby
2. Thou shalt save money, not spend money: If you are planting a frugal garden, the bounty you receive should ultimately save you [...]

Extreme Gas Savers: There is conserving gas and there are the extreme gas savers. Forget the 55 miles per gallon that a hybrid is supposed to get. They tinker with the cars in an attempt to reach 115 miles per gallon.
$17,000 in dropped coins: You no when you find a few coins stuck between [...]

One thing that people often fail to realize is that personal finance advice in not cookie cutter information. Everybody’s situation is different and what may be appropriate for 99% of the people may not necessarily be the best for you. You need to take into account all the factors that are specific to you when [...]

It’s been mentioned a number of times on this blog, but worth a quick reminder here: You can save as much as 50% on your cable TV, Internet access and other such services by calling up the service provider with a competing offer in hand and simply asking for a better deal:
1. Call the [...]

One of the most common New Year’s resolutions is to lose weight. Weight loss is also big business — Americans spend tons of money on diet pills, weight loss surgeries, gym memberships, and special diet foods each and every year.
Losing weight when you are medically overweight can go a long way towards saving you money, [...]

Rule 240: Don’t Leave Home Without It!: While you never want things to go wrong when you travel, sometimes things do. When that happens, it’s “Rule 240″ that determines what your rights are as a passenger:
If your flight is delayed or cancelled, or if you’ve missed your flight connection, these policies may give you [...]

I love it when I come across a gem video like this. If you are a musician, one of the goal you probably have is signing with a record label. The problem with this, according to Dick Dale, is that it is the worst financial move you can make:

Dale gives a step by step of [...]

If you’re a potential first time homebuyer, you may be confused about those mysterious closing costs — the expense that means that when you think you’ve finally saved up enough for a down payment, you really haven’t. Closing costs can add 2% to 5% to the purchase price of your home, which is especially painful [...]

When you finally get around to reducing your debt, you want to make sure you go about it in the correct way. There’s more to debt reduction than cutting up credit cards and cutting costs. If you approach debt reduction with a well thought out plan that fits your situation, you’ll find yourself debt free [...]

Why Women Earn Less Than Men: An interesting viewpoint from a woman on the subject:
In truth, I’m the cause of the wage gap — I and hundreds of thousands of women like me. I have a good education and have worked full time for 10 years. Yet throughout my career, I’ve made things other [...]

In the spirit of political correctness, the IRS long ago did away with the old designations of “husband” and “wife” on individual tax returns, and replaced them with “taxpayer” and “spouse.” The result of this change has led to many headaches for tax practitioners.
It seems that every tax season, inevitably one client will come in [...]

I’m usually on a health kick in some form or fashion and regardless of whether my diet works, the one constant is that being healthy is expensive. One of the big areas that I’ve been able to manage costs is with my vitamin purchases. Luckily, with a little planning, consultation with a doctor [...]

Ebay Getting Into Micro-Financing: It appears that Prosper and Zopa are going to be having some competition in the micro financing world. Ebay has purchased a company called MicroPlace:
MicroPlace plans to launch a web-based, eBay-like marketplace to connect “ordinary” people with micro-finance entities that need capital, according to the website. Founder Tracey Pettengill is co-founder [...]

Here is an interesting question brought up by this video: have we forgotten how to earn the Amercian dream?

As April 17th approaches, the inevitable question is, “Have you filed your taxes yet?” Hopefully you are all on the ball and if you had a refund due, you filed back around February 1 and if you owed, you are waiting for April 17th, right? Of course the nice thing about e-file is that you [...]

The Reason You Should Eat Dessert At A Place Other Than At A Restaurant: The first reason I assume that most people reading here would come up with is the price since dessert is one of the items that has a huge mark-up at restaurants. Another reason, of which you may not be aware, [...]

Free Gmail Paper: I need to get me some of this:
Yes. The cost of postage is offset with the help of relevant, targeted, unobtrusive advertisements, which will appear on the back of your Gmail Paper prints in red, bold, 36 pt Helvetica. No pop-ups, no flashy animations–these are physically impossible in the paper medium.
Free [...]