Site Archives

It’s Impossible to “Get Rich Quick”


By Cortni Marrazzo
You’ve seen them advertised, you had friends participate in them and maybe even you’ve been sucked in yourself: Get Rich Quick Schemes. If you buy this book about how to invest in real estate, you’ll be rich! If you join this multi-level marketing program you can quit your day job and have […]

Top Dollar Store Finds


By Cortni Marrazzo
For a store where everything’s a dollar, I’m surprised I don’t shop there more often. I guess I’m a creature of habit so I’m more likely to go to a store that I know will have a particular item in stock. But recently I took a trip to my local dollar […]

Want to Save Money? Stay Home!


By Cortni Marrazzo
I find that usually the weekends are the only time I have to do any sort of shopping, whether it be for groceries, clothes, stuff for the house, or pretty much anything we need (or sometimes don’t need). But the majority of our most recent Saturday was spend lying around the […]

Care Packages: Thanks that Costs Less


By Ann Hartter
I got a letter today from a soldier in Bagdad. She’s bored. She ranted about the perpetuality of her job, and the things she “always” does, and my first instinct is to send her another package. She suggested we send her microwavable add-hot-water foods, and movies. If it wasn’t for the cost […]

21 Days to a Negative Money Habit


By Jennifer Derrick
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how you could create positive new money habits in just twenty-one days. Now for the flip side of that article. I want to show you how easy it is to fall into negative money habits in just twenty-one days. We often think that money problems […]

Leaving the Sale Behind


By Cortni Marrazzo
I am a sucker for sales. I’m the kind of person that will buy something that is deeply discounted even though I don’t really need it. I’ve come to realize that no matter how good of a deal it is, it’s not a deal for me if I don’t need […]

Gas and 9/10 Cent: What Difference Does It Make?


By Shannon Christman
My husband and I often remember prices differently: I think it was $5; he thinks it was $4. Turns out it was $4.99. The difference is how we view the cost — I automatically round up in my mind: $0.89 becomes $0.90, $1.46 becomes $1.50, $1288 becomes $1300. He […]

March Madness is Saving Me Money


By Jennifer Derrick
I confess. I am a basketball junkie and I go mad in March with the other basketball crazies. It’s the one time of year where I drag out the old TV and actually plonk myself down in front of it. This has happened every year since I was a kid, but I never […]

How We Actually Avoided Turning on our Heat This Past Winter


By Cortni Marrazzo
In October, I wrote an article entitled “25 Ways to Avoid Turning on Your Heat This Winter.” I included some helpful advice and some silly ones just for laughs. Well, springtime is here and I can say that we actually avoided turning our heat on this winter. Our lowest temperature […]

Five Tried and True Financial Fundamentals


By Cortni Marrazzo
When my interest in personal finance began to grow, I began to seek out knowledge from sources such as books, the Internet and personal advice, as well as various other sources. But if you’ve ever read more than one finance book, or read more than one personal finance blog, you realize there […]

Taking Extreme Measures to Avoid Overwhelming Temptation To Spend


By Shannon Christman
Every saver knows the internal struggle with the “gimmie monster.” By sticking to our chosen saving strategies, most of us can win most of our bouts with him. But sometimes, the monster wins out too often. For some of us, spending is an addiction, and the gimmie monster devours all […]

Every Financial Decision You Make is a Deal or No Deal Question


By Cortni Marrazzo
I’ve personally never seen this game show, but recently I saw a parody of it that was done at my church when they were talking about finances. It was actually very interesting how they laid it out and made the correlation and it made a lot of sense. They had a […]

The Politics of Frugality?


By Jennifer Derrick
Since when did choosing to live a frugal life become a political issue? I don’t make a huge deal about my frugal lifestyle, but when it “shows” in public, more and more people are feeling perfectly free to slap some sort of political label on me. Maybe it’s because it’s an election year, […]

Is It Worth My Time to Pick Up a Penny?


By Shannon Christman
“If Bill Gates saw $100 lying on the ground, it wouldn’t be worth his time to pick it up,” a friend told me once. She reasoned that he would make more during that time by doing something else. At an estimated salary of $4,000 per minute, every minute of the week, Gates […]

21 Days to Positive Money Habits


By Jennifer Derrick
It is an accepted part of self-help wisdom that it takes twenty-one days to develop a new habit and make it stick. This has been found to be true in weight loss, smoking cessation, reducing alcohol consumption, and many other regimens designed to create positive habits. It can also be applied to your […]

Can You Ever Really Be Financially “Ready” to Have a Baby?


By Cortni Marrazzo
The most common question my husband and I have been asked since we got married a couple of years ago is “When are you guys going to have kids?” Each time, we give the same answer — that were not ready for a baby yet. We’ve often received the following response: […]

Higher Prices Don’t Always Mean More Enjoyment


By Shannon Christman
Trent Hamm at the Simple Dollar wrote a post in January about enjoying the free things in life. On a flight home, he found himself looking forward to taking a hot shower and spending time with his family. Once he realized that these things were free or nearly free, he started listing […]

The Value of an Hour


By Ann Hartter
I’m a tutor by trade. I teach a myriad of students who have a myriad of struggles with a myriad of subjects. I use my position as a former student, writer, and educational professional to get into the annual writing conference for high school students put on by the college. I teach workshops, […]

St. Patrick’s Day and Money


By Ann Hartter
With any luck, St. Patrick’s Day will bring full bellies and full beer mugs. While there are Irish tunes, blessings, drinks, and colors splashed about our dining rooms and bars, there are also fun stories, legends and myths to share among our friends. Being the bookworm that I am, I looked into some […]

Financially Secure People Eat Leftovers


By Jennifer Derrick
This weekend I was reading “You’re Broke Because You Want to Be: How to Stop Getting By and Start Getting Ahead” by Larry Winget. (A pretty good read, by the way. The advice is nothing groundbreaking, but his straight talk and no excuses approach is entertaining.) Anyway, in the book he states that […]