Personal Finance Advice

The mail comes, you glance at your bills and drop them in the “To Be Paid” pile. Then, on the appointed day, you write out the checks or direct the online bill pay to do its thing and then you forget about it until next month. In the process of paying your bills, do you [...]

By Maureen K. If you had asked me a year ago if I would like being poor, I would have called you crazy. Both my husband and I had just lost our jobs and we were just coming to the realization that we were no longer going to be able to live the life of [...]

What was former congressman and pro baseball player Wilmer Mizell’s nickname? Who played the part of the piano player at Rick’s Cafe American in Casablanca? How did the ancient Egyptians mourn a dead cat? I love questions like this and have spent countless hours over the past four decades reading the backs of baseball cards, [...]

Take a minute and think about how many web sites for which you have passwords and user names set up. Now think about how many of those are financial sites. In our age of online everything, many of us now do most of our banking and investing solely online. We may never even receive paper [...]

I once asked a friend of mine why he had not married his girlfriend of many years. He replied that he had always wanted to be a kept man and that she just did not have enough money to afford him. Another time, back in the dark ages when I was in high school, a [...]

One of the things I’ve noticed about my debt free life is how much less distracted and stressed my mind seems to be than those with a lot of debt. I see many of my peers running around freaked out by bills, or chasing the latest “deal” on some doodad that they just have to [...]

Last week my colleague here at SavingAdvice, David, wrote about the financial benefits of Facebook. His piece contained some valuable information for those looking to join Facebook. However, I’m of a different opinion with regards to Facebook and social networking in general. So, with apologies and respectful disagreement to David, and in the interest of [...]

It’s hard to believe that I have been writing here for the past year. I thank you for visiting these pages and reading my thoughts on money and saving. I hope you have enjoyed what I have had to offer as much as I have enjoyed sharing it with you. Over the past year, I [...]

By Retire@50 It’s the dream of many to retire early. This is how I did it: I had a paradigm shift: It was the early 80s and I was in my early 20s. I was working an entry level job and living paycheck to paycheck. It was difficult to find jobs at the time and [...]

Each of us has a personal reason for saving money. I very much doubt that any of us does so just to be able to brag about having died with the most money in the bank. Whether you are frugal because you need to be frugal in order to make ends meet, or you pursue [...]

If you’re looking to cut your spending in a hurry, one way to do that is to stop buying so many disposable products. Disposables may seem like a good deal because, for example, a pack of paper plates costs $2.00 and a set of durable plates costs $40. However, the durable plates will last you [...]

I know that many people believe that you have to have debt in order to have a high credit score. Many people keep their debt just so they can keep their score up (so they can get more credit later). They fret every time a credit card is closed or the available limit is lowered. [...]

If you live in the middle of nowhere like I do, you may find that being a money saving guru is difficult at times. We don’t have easy access to a lot of grocery stores or big box stores like Wal-Mart and Target and their lower prices. We don’t have a CVS or Walgreens on [...]

It is the middle of August. That means that if you live anywhere in the continental United States, it is probably a lot hotter outside than you would like. With temperatures in the 90′s and 100′s across much of America, staying cool becomes a very serious pursuit. Staying cool without breaking the bank becomes even [...]

By Brad H. Have you ever seen those guys on the side of the road at freeway off-ramps or busy cross streets holding up a sign that reads something like “No Job. Hungry. Will work for food or money” and wondered who they were? At least some of them are like me because I was [...]

A few months ago, I wrote about the death of the DVD as a major delivery platform for movies. At the time, my local video store was charging $5 for five-day movie rentals and its stores were generally not very busy (based on my observations). By contrast, the local library was increasingly busy and even [...]

It’s no secret that I’m a big coupon user. When I mention this to people, I get one of three reactions: 1. “Hey, that’s great, how much do you save?” 2. “You must have a really unhealthy diet because coupons are only for junk food. It’s not worth it.” 3. “You could save so much [...]

Debt free living has one important benefit that many people don’t consider at first. Sure, it makes bill paying easier and it lets you save for vacations and other fun things, but it also lets you save big sums for retirement. When all of your money goes to servicing debt, not only can you not [...]

A friend of mine works for the local newspaper. In the process of writing an article about green home improvements, she stopped by to look around my house since she knows that I am a “greenie.” She wanted me to show her the improvements we’ve made and to give her an estimate of how much [...]

Are you a Facebook user? If not, why not? I would like to think that everyone already has some familiarity with Facebook. Nevertheless, for the three of four readers who have not yet encountered Facebook, it is a social networking site that enjoys more monthly visitors than any of its competitors. In essence, Facebook allows [...]