Personal Finance Advice

For nine years I lived in million dollar homes for free and it is something that anyone who is neat and conscientious can easily do. My junior year in college, a professor who I had assisted received a year long sabbatical to live in a foreign country. During that time, he needed someone to housesit [...]

Maybe it’s just where I live or the places I go, but I have noticed in the past several years that, no matter the situation, the level of rudeness has increased. Whether it’s a the grocery store or an athletic event, it seems that more and more people are tossing civility out the window. Some [...]

I used to think that social class was directly tied to wealth — if you were rich, you were upper class; if you were poor, you were lower class. If you were neither rich nor poor, you were middle class. Of course, even then I had a sense that because “rich” and “poor” are such [...]

I’ve officially reached my limit for how much complaining about oil prices I can take. Maybe it’s because I write for Saving Advice, but I suddenly have people coming out of the woodwork complaining to me about high gas and food prices. Today a friend sent along another one of those emails urging me to [...]

I hopped into the craft store for paint supplies and found myself staring at a display across the aisle as I was checking out. “Designer Scrapbooking” said the banner. Little cellophane pockets were filled with cardstock flowers with little glittery plastic jewels nestled in the center, a paper child with joints that moved, and fabric [...]

Weekend reading is a round-up of personal finance reading that has caught our eye that may be of interest to you: Discussions From The Forums These are threads started this past week within the forums which have created quite a bit of discussion: What do rich people invest in? Buying coupons on ebay Anyone have [...]

A few weeks ago I wrote about books that are valuable for every level of financial knowledge. Almost all of those books were “how-to” books or books about developing and implementing investment strategies. This week I’m going to recommend a different type of financial book. These are the books that don’t teach you how to [...]

Some people think using a coupon in public is even more embarrassing than, say, accidentally walking into the wrong restroom. I have done both, and I assure you — the latter is far more embarrassing! Here’s why I am not the least bit embarrassed by coupons: Companies make coupons available; why shouldn’t we use them? [...]

You’ve probably seen the ads for LifeLock, an identity theft protection service, where the CEO gives out his Social Security number and claims that he can do that because he has such confidence in his company’s ability to protect his identity. It turns out that his confidence may have been misplaced. In recent days, stories [...]

Several readers have commented recently that they would like to hear more about how to earn more and less about how to spend less. While earning more is a worthy goal — after all, you can never save more than you earn — I acknowledge that I am biased toward saving over earning in both [...]

Dear Mr. Cheap, You know exactly who you are so I don’t feel a need to name you. While I know that you think that you are being sly and saving yourself a lot of money, let me say that your true nature shows through loud and clear. This would not be an issue except [...]

I once heard Dave Ramsey say that when it comes to getting out of debt and staying out of debt, it is 20% knowledge and 80% behavior. Just look at anyone who’s ever said “I know I shouldn’t (insert bad financial habit here) but I just can’t help it!” Anyone can learn all they want [...]