Personal Finance Advice

Let me say at the outset that I have no hard statistical evidence to back this post up. This is just something I found myself thinking about the other day based on personal observation and experience and I wanted to put it out there to see what others think. So here it is: I found [...]

Americans have a love of cars, so much so that there are 1.17 cars per licensed driver in this country. To talk to most people, a car is an absolute necessity, ranked right up there with food and shelter. To suggest that people go without a car is to incur some strange looks, laughter or [...]

It’s that time of year again. Christmas is past and New Year’s is upon us. With the New Year comes the avalanche of New Year’s resolutions. We claim that this will be the year we lose weight, get our finances in order, and find the path to happiness. We start out all gung-ho in January [...]

If you’ve been to the dentist lately, you know it isn’t cheap. Making matters worse, many employers don’t offer dental insurance to help defray the cost. Those that do rarely offer comprehensive policies. Dental policies are more likely to cover only a small portion of a treatment leaving you to pay the difference. Many peoples’ [...]

Toilet paper makes up a decent sized chunk of many people’s household budgets. It’s not cheap. When you have a big family or people who just reel it off the roll, the costs go even higher. If you want to cut some money from your budget, there are ways to do without traditional toilet paper. [...]

It’s the time of year when we’re all chasing deals. However, if you don’t know basic math it can be hard to figure out when a deal is a deal. This week I was in a store and I overheard the following conversation: “This sweater is thirty percent off,” said the first woman. “But this [...]

Here’s a challenge. Think back to your childhood and try to remember all the toys that you received every year while you were growing up for Christmas. While you probably can remember one or two over the years, chances are you don’t remember each one in detail. Now think back to some of the holiday [...]

Great neighbors are worth their weight in gold. While all of us are likely to be stuck with a jerk for a neighbor at some time during our lives, the number of decent neighbors will probably far outweigh the jerks. If you find yourself fortunate enough to have good neighbors, you can save a lot [...]

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how you could make some extra money by picking up things that people had dropped. If you want to take this a step further, you can take up treasure hunting. Metal detecting, amateur archaeology, and finding other lost treasures can net you anything from a few dollars [...]

I’ve long said that Netflix is one of the best entertainment values out there. The ability to watch what you want with no commercials is wonderful. Internet streaming makes it even better. You can just sit at home and find something to watch. Aside from just providing entertainment, you can also learn a little bit [...]

I came across the results of an interesting survey on vacations. The survey asked respondents in the U.S. and Eu ropean countries how much they wouldspend per person on vacation in 2010. The categories ranged from “Nothing and staying at home” all the way up to “More than $2,472″ per person. In the lowest spending [...]

People spend a lot of money on various sorts of storage containers. Walk through any Wal-Mart or Target and you are confronted with an array of storage containers for everything from food to clothes. There are big containers and small ones in materials ranging from plastic to wicker. They are nice, but the price of [...]