Archives for September, 2009

Cutting the Cost of Lessons and Coaching


When money gets tight, lessons and coaching for the kids often end up on the chopping block. Whether it’s sports, music, or dance, these extracurricular activities are often costly and expendable in hard times. If your child is already in training to be an Olympic athlete or halfway to Julliard these strategies may not work, [...]

YMCA Membership Benefits


I have successfully completed a month of visiting the gym. More specifically, I have religiously gone to the gym twenty-six times in the past twenty-nine days. I am certainly not remotely close to winning any body building prizes, but I am quite proud of myself. OK. Don’t roll your eyes. I am not going to [...]

Places I Get Free Money


By Terry G. I love free money. I thought that others would also love free money, but that doesn’t always seem to be the case. There is a lot of free money out there that almost anyone can claim with a bit of effort, but most people don’t. Banks: I remember when I was growing [...]

Cashier Mistakes


I’ve known Ben since 1969. In fact, I have it on the best authority that he attended my third birthday party that year. Ben has always been consistent. I could always rely on him to be loyal, genuine and completely scatterbrained at times. Once, when he was about nineteen years old, Ben’s parents ordered pizzas [...]

When Does Frugality Turn Into Theft?


Most of us who like to save money will, at some point, find ourselves faced with a chance to save money that is ethically questionable. Especially in a down economy when people are trying to save on everything, it is easy to fall into frugal ideas that stretch the bounds of legality. I see this [...]

A Life Without Debt: Saying Screw The Budget


A friend of mine who, like me, has always lived a debt free life recently ran into a perfect storm of disasters. He was diagnosed with an illness and, despite having good medical coverage, ended up with bills that threatened to eat up much of his non-retirement savings. As if that weren’t bad enough, he [...]