Personal Finance Advice

If you’re on this site, you’re at least going the right direction. If you’ve gone to the library to check out some books, if you’re searching through some weblogs, if you’re talking to your best friends about money instead of your high heels, you’re definitely on the right track. There are a million and one [...]

Mmm.. Organizational shows: watch and drool. Suddenly you find yourself grasped by the impulse to tidy your tiny world. Most of us realize that a a cluttered life can cost us money, but how can an uncluttered home put a hole in your purse? Organization is a window into a world, a world where everything [...]

Children live in a very self-centered world as they focus on learning about themselves and how the world works according to them. As they go along, learning how to mimic parents and other adults, observing behaviors through cause and effect, they learn very early about this thing called money. It seems fitting that this first [...]

Christmas cheer kicked in when I returned from my vacation and decorated my house. I emptied my Post Office box into a bag, then onto my table. Christmas cards (I scribble on a notebook some addresses before the envelopes disappear), bills (none unexpected), a couple of coupons, and junk mail galore. While booting my budget [...]

I became intrigued with collecting sheet music for various instruments, most of which I play, ever since my mom came home from an auction with a box full of sheet music in pristine condition, dated in a range of the past 100 years. She was really pleased with the score, no pun intended; it is [...]

I know many kids who grow up and go to college on their own dime, spending all their own hard earned cash for the next twenty years getting out of that debt. I also know of several kids who had a stockpile of cash they could use for tuition, even if they skipped a couple [...]

My son asked for some bananas for snack, and I started singing something I had a vague recollection of: “Yes, we have no bananas, we have no bananas today!” I got the melody all wrong, and as my husband and I tried to finagle the right tune, I offered banana spread I had made and [...]

Somewhere along my most recent three-week vacation, I started to compare it to last year’s three-week road trip. I began to make a list of the little things that make a big difference when it comes to the price, cost, or value on vacation. Here are 20 lessons that I have learned. 1. If you [...]

“Silver Bells” and “Silver and Gold”, some budgets just don’t allow a gift to all who deserve something for the holidays. You know how hungry animals in cartoons see our hero as a roast bird or some other tasty morsel? Throw open your pantry and see a stack full of sparkling gifts in tidy bows, [...]

While not everyone was happy with my list of things about people and their money that make me angry, I find that my list of these things continues to grow. This is a new list gathered from interviews and personal experiences of the not so intelligent, moral, or legal things people do with their money. [...]

It falls, taunting you, flake after flake, coating everything you see with white wet and cold crystals. It piles up in the corners, and in its complete blinding whiteness, all you can do is fork over your wallet. It’s a beautiful thief. You must turn on your heat. The blanket of whiteness is on your [...]

I get a call, “I’ve just left the third shoe store and I still can’t find what I want!” the voice speaks to me. “Did they have anything close?” I asked. “Nothing!” “Didn’t you call them first?” “Well, no, it’s an obvious thing everybody should have, isn’t it?” Apparently not, but I didn’t say that [...]

At craft shows, a maze of booths show off handcrafted original wares. Some things are common from show to show, like polymer clay jewelry, stained-glass window décor, and beaded designs, but it’s not the medium that matters, it’s the artist’s individuality and handiwork. I go into stores and see things mass produced and refuse to [...]

It’s time for Secret Santas all across the country. You’ll draw someone’s name, get them exactly what they ask for, and that someone will get someone else exactly what they ask for and you will eventually get what you asked for. So goes the long-lived tradition. This year, instead of the same old boring ritual [...]

The forums are buzzing with new money-saving tips and tricks. “We don’t purchase these anymore,” and “we’ve done this ourselves.” “I found a new way to do this,” and “I always wondered why people would pay for that?” For some of us, these ideas are intriguing, but seem a little out of our “do-it-ourselves” reach. [...]

Dear Mom, I’ve been at school for three weeks now, and I still hate the pale green of my dorm room walls. What do they think we are? Prisoners? Classes are going great… As I previously mentioned, many people love art, and as the popularity of shows like Design on a Dime shows, people like [...]

Do you want to know what I dislike more than grocery shopping? Coming home with more grocery bags. Plastic or paper, it doesn’t matter. I just don’t reuse all those bags, and the piles keep stacking up. So I started searching for some clever reusable and recycling grocery bag ideas, and I’m passing this information [...]

I love music. My husband collects CDs like I collect books. We also have a large collection of LPs and of MP3s on our computer. I won’t even go into our magnetic tape collection. Literally, I won’t go into it. Its size frightens me. We have no plans of slowing down the growth of our [...]

When it comes to teaching your kids about money and finances, there is no need to go looking for specific books on these subjects. Your child’s bookself is probably already full of books that can bring financial lessons to life. Here are just a few of the possibilities: Mother Goose Rhymes, traditional: Money themes abound [...]

Studio apartment: unfurnished. Top floor, lots of windows, tall ceilings. New paint. Close to college. Available now. The keys land in your hand. The threshold of your new home is now guarded by your few boxes of stuff. Not long after, you’re unpacked. You look around, and your walls are still bare. Art, you decide, [...]