Personal Finance Advice

When traveling outside the United States, there’s a good chance you’ll need certain vaccinations in order to fully protect yourself from illnesses that are more common in other countries than they are here. These vaccinations may be ones that you would probably never need if you didn’t leave the United States (like typhoid and yellow [...]

If you’re shopping for a house, one of the biggest favors you can do yourself is getting educated about the complicated process of applying for a mortgage. A mortgage is probably the most expensive obligation you’ll ever have, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s easy to get taken advantage of.
Despite [...]

In Investing in Socially Responsible Mutual Funds, I explained that most socially responsible funds provide subpar returns compared to traditional funds. I also talked about how you may not agree with many of these funds’ definition of socially responsible. If you’d like to invest only in companies you support or try to achieve better [...]

You may not be able to sleep at night knowing that you own a tiny piece of Halliburton, nor will you be able to sleep at night in 25 years if you can’t afford to send your kids to college. Investing is essential to your future financial security — even if you manage to [...]

I seem to have inherited the garage sale gene from my grandparents. Every time I went to their house as a kid, they would show off their latest garage sale finds — puzzles, wall art, books, and whatever knickknacks struck their fancy. I never went to many garage sales as a kid, but now that [...]

You’ve probably heard before that it doesn’t always make sense for both adults in a household to work because the second spouse’s income is all taxed at the marginal rate. When childcare costs are factored in, there can be little-to-no financial motivation for both parents to work. But did you know that taking a full-time [...]

If you visit this website regularly, you probably aren’t a novice to the basics of personal finance. You’re already familiar with what you need to do to retire, how to protect yourself through insurance, and what constitutes good debt versus bad debt.
There’s probably at least one person in your life, however, who hasn’t started [...]

In my recent article about how to start an IRA with $1 in 15 minutes, I said that you would be putting your money into a money market fund. I thought I should explain in more detail what this is for those of you who decided to go this route, so that you are informed [...]

Many of us know that a good way to increase net worth is to not start spending more every time we get a raise. For me, this means that in my monthly budget, it says “Income” on one line, and then below that, it says “Raise.” I don’t even consider the raise money to be [...]

I’ve never been “cool” or “popular.” In certain situations with certain people, I can fake it for short periods of time, but the truth always comes out soon enough. Thankfully, I managed to get over this complex at the relatively young age of 16 and I’ve been benefiting from it ever since. In addition to [...]

Bad things can happen in an instant. Last year, while everyone else was celebrating and enjoying the 4th of July, an errant firework burned down an elderly man’s house. Like other depression-era folks who long ago lost faith in financial systems, he liked to hide his money in cash around the house and [...]

A good friend of mine who is an avid DVD collector and very regular customer of Best Buy shared these tips for making sure you get the best deal on all of your Best Buy purchases. Even if you aren’t a Best Buy customer, these tips will give you some ideas for how to [...]

Familiarity breeds contempt, or so the old saying goes. Stay at the same job for too long, and no matter how much you liked it to begin with or how many good qualities it has, eventually the good qualities can start to pale in comparison to your co-workers’ quirks, your boss’s procrastination, and those [...]

While many travel gadgets will do nothing but drain your wallet and take up valuable space in your luggage, there are a few highly practical items that will give you a lot of bang for your buck. No item on this list costs more than $20, and you can purchase every item here for [...]

NOTE: It appears that while the process described in this article originally worked, Fidelity has closed the loophole and you now need the minimums you described to open the account.
Most people have the impression that in order to open a retirement account, you need to do a lot of research, have a large sum of [...]

Many people don’t use temp agencies because they either don’t know what temp agencies are or think they should be able to find a job on their own. In my experience, temp agencies are a great resource for simplifying your job search. They are particularly useful for students, recent grads, people who have [...]

While I’ve said that I think working for a small business can be surprisingly beneficial, it can also have many undeniable drawbacks.
1. Lower pay: Many small businesses simply do not have the resources that large companies do. While you may get more experience, you’ll often get paid less than you would doing the exact same [...]

I recently stayed in a bed and breakfast for the first time. I was a little worried about the experience ahead of time because of all the negative stereotypes about bed and breakfasts having horribly tacky decor and forced socialization with bizarre strangers (Gilmore Girls, anyone?) but the experience was wonderful. Maybe it [...]

Working for a small business can be substantially different from working from a medium sized or large business in ways that many people don’t realize. Personally, I have worked for several small businesses and think it’s an interesting and highly beneficial experience that everyone should have at least once. Here’s why.
1. Ability to [...]

I’m always proud to tell people that my total monthly expenses today are pretty close to what they were when I got my first real job after college. Some things, like my rent, have gone down, while other things, like my discretionary spending, have gone up. All of this has me convinced that [...]