Personal Finance Advice

Places like airports, businesses, theme parks, and even the post office are often stuck with property that cannot be returned or delivered to its proper owner. Baggage turns up at the airport and no one claims it. The mail service has packages that go unclaimed or things that become damaged in handling and separated from [...]

Getting your finances in order is a lot like weight loss. You start off great in the beginning. You drop a lot of debt quickly. It’s almost too easy to cut expenses. You realize that you’ve got lots of things you can cut and you eagerly drop unwanted services, renegotiate bills, stop eating out, and [...]

Last week I wrote about cases where taking a pay cut might make sense. This week I want to give some suggestions for how you can adjust to a decrease in pay. Some pay cuts will require no adjustment, or very little. If you take a pay cut but get a shorter commute, move to [...]

Clothing is expensive. When you’re buying clothes for two adults and a couple of kids, it becomes even more so. Enter the idea of sharing a wardrobe. Or at least parts of a wardrobe. While things like underwear should never be shared, it may be possible to share shirts and pants. How? Elastic and unisex [...]

Over the years I’ve inherited quite a bit of stuff from my relatives. Dishes, jewelry, books, scrapbooks, pictures, clothing, keepsakes, letters, souvenirs from far away places, and even a trunk have all come my way as relatives have passed away or downsized their lives. For the longest time this stuff just sat in various places [...]

We are almost hardwired to pursue ever increasing pay levels. Each job should, ideally, give us a salary bump. Yearly evaluations should result in increased wages. In pursuit of ever higher pay, we sometimes miss out on opportunities in life that require us to take a pay cut or to forego money entirely for a [...]

If you’re in college, you know how hard it can be to find motivation to study. Enter Ultrinsic.com, a website that lets you “bet” on your grades. Here’s how it works: You set a target grade for a single course, multiple courses, or a semester’s GPA and then you lay down money “betting” that you [...]

One of my biggest problems is that I tend to save things for a later time. I buy books and think I’ll save them for a rainy day, sick day, or vacation. I buy or am given “treat foods” and I never seem to find an occasion worthy of eating them. I buy movies or [...]

When I was younger I traveled extensively on very little money. I still travel frequently, but these days I have a little more money and I prefer more comfortable experiences. (It’s just not as comfortable to sleep on the floor or in a tent as it was when I was twenty.) Some of the best [...]

I was heading up to Oregon and made a stop at a fast food restaurant to go to the bathroom and get a drink. As I walked to the door, a young couple sat in the shade on the side of the building. The man caught my eye and asked, “Could you spare some change?” [...]

Many businesses are willing to pay you to refer your friends to them. It’s far cheaper for a company to pay you for a referral than it is for them to advertise and discount in order to recruit new customers. Some companies pay you in cash, while others give you a credit on your bill. [...]

Board games are a great source of entertainment. Unlike movies or other types of entertainment that are one shot deals, games can be played over and over again. New games, however, are often not cheap. They may cost $20 or more. Some games are as high as $50. While a great game may be a [...]

Almost every Monday, someone will ask me what I did over the weekend. For the most part, this is small talk asked just to pass the time. However, there seems to be an expectation that I did something that cost money. When I shrug and say, “Not much,” the asker usually launches into a tale [...]