Personal Finance Advice

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions anymore. I found over time that the pressure to accomplish something ended up defeating any progress. Every time I’d backslide or screw up I’d think, “I’ve blown it.” It was like the very act of making something a resolution made it into a success or failure proposition. Either I [...]

One of my clients (where a friend of mine also works in IT) recently upgraded their office phone system. The phone system they had was perfectly functional but, like so many people and businesses, they wanted something with more bells and whistles (and something that several of their competitors had). After taking bids, forking over [...]

If you’re like many people, you’ll be making a New Year’s resolution to lose weight, save more money, or both. If you’re trying to do both, the good news is that weight loss and saving money often go hand in hand. It’s like accomplishing two resolutions at once. Even if you only choose one, chances [...]

It’s the time of year when many people resolve to get their finances in order. As with dieting, this is also the time of year when all the fads compete for your attention. You start to see ads for everything including computer software, apps for your phone, programs/groups that promise to solve all of your [...]

I was in Las Vegas this past week and wandered into the Wynn Hotel and Casino I was just in time for them to open their new “high roller” slot machine section, apparently the week before Christmas is one of the slowest weeks in Las Vegas so a lot of the casinos use this time [...]

I hate waste. I hate that sometimes I have to throw something away without having gotten maximum use out of it. I hate the waste of money and the waste of resources. Unfortunately, I’ve learned that there are instances where I end up wasting things. For example, I cannot use up an entire head of [...]

When I first started on my frugal journey I had to get past quite a few fears and stereotypes that were holding me back, especially after I moved to a new area. You wouldn’t think that frugality would be a scary thing, but sometimes it can be a little frightening, especially if you’ve never had [...]

We’re slam in the middle of the Christmas nuttiness. Spend, spend, spend is the current motto and I don’t know whether it’s the coming full moon or simply the Christmas insanity, but people are acting crazy. I’ve seen far more people this year yelling at other people, pushing and shoving, flipping others off in parking [...]

I do have a credit card and I use it for a lot of my travel expenses because it provides me with a lot of advantages. I also use cash a lot just because I developed the habit when I lived in Japan and almost all transactions there were done in cash. There are still [...]

By Vicky Oliver I first realized that I was a frugalista a few years ago when I took a favorite black jacket back to the dry cleaners to complain that the garment had started to “pill.” The finely spun black lace had literally unraveled before my eyes –exposing the frayed white boning underneath. “This garment [...]

If you’ve ever read the book by John Grisham or seen the movie, “The Firm,” then you are familiar with the tale of corporate and personal greed that leads one man to almost lose his life and all of the things he values. In the movie/book, Mitchell McDeree takes a job at a law firm [...]

By Steve Repak, CFP® In basic training, a soldier goes through a process of mental and emotional retraining so that they can operate in an environment very different from the civilian world. I figured out I could take some of the same lessons I learned in the Army and apply them to my finances. Once [...]

In the not too distant future I’m going to have to have surgery on my foot and ankle. This is going to mean six to eight weeks of essentially being off my feet except for limited excursions to the bathroom and from the couch to the bed. I’ll be able to do some things, but [...]

In the last six months or so I’ve discovered a new hobby: Board games. I’m not talking about games like Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly, LIFE and the like that are available at the big box stores. I’ve discovered what are commonly called “Euro-games” because they are designed in Europe by European designers. They aren’t generally available [...]

By Jim Camp Do you believe compromise is the best way to get what you want? There’s a better way, and it’s based on a word young children understand even better than adults: “No!” If you’d like to boost your finances in 2012, then learning to say no, invite no, and be comfortable hearing no [...]

Home and personal security is a big part of personal finance. After all, you don’t want to work hard for what you have only to have it taken away by thieves. Neither do you want to be physically injured by someone who is after your stuff. While security is a very serious subject, the movie [...]

I walked out to get my mail yesterday to find an unexpected check in the mail. Of course, I am always thrilled when I get unexpected checks in the mail. Usually they are for rebates that I forgot about and simply mean a few extra bucks in my pocket, but I am never one to [...]

The Tightwad Gazette was a newsletter, published in the early 90′s, by Amy Dacyczyn. It was published in the days before email and the Internet. If you wanted to subscribe, you received your copies through the Postal Service. Eventually those newsletters were compiled into three books and, finally, into The Complete Tightwad Gazette which contains [...]

Two weeks ago I had to make an emergency trip to the home improvement store to buy a replacement part for my toilet. The home improvement store shares a strip mall with another big box store and several smaller stores. I parked between the big box store and the home improvement place since that seemed [...]

I’ve always kept my eyes open and to the ground when I walk and the result is that I usually find at least $100 dollars a year. There’s a lot of money at your feet if you are willing to look, and some people take this looking seriously. In fact, for them the streets are [...]