Personal Finance Advice

By Jeff Apton In today’s healthcare debate nobody seems to be talking much about the high cost of dentistry, or the lack of insurance coverage. Maybe you’re lucky and squeak by with a few cleanings and a filling here and there. For those who are not so lucky, the cost of dentistry can be devastating, [...]

These days you have to be really wise, especially when it comes to your finances. Spending on your car and its insurance coverage is no exception to this. Wouldn’t it be great if you can get the cheapest auto insurance possible? To do this, you must shop around. You can ask for help from people [...]

By C Craig It’s that time of year, when we set down promises to make this — and the coming years — the best yet. “I’ll lose that 10 pounds!” we promise ourselves, “Give up late night snacking, get to the gym, and get organized.” Most of us share a common aspect of New Year’s [...]

By Maggie Ellis It is widely taught in financial education that there are only two kinds of debt that can be considered “good debt”: A mortgage and student loans (as long as they aren’t beyond your ability to repay comfortably). We’re always taught that it’s okay to go into debt to buy a house or [...]

By Rebecka O. Six years, 3 months and 13 days ago my mother died and changed the way that I look at money. She had always been frugal and a constant saver. When she passed away, she had an estate worth more than $1.5 million which had been accumulated on the small wages of being [...]

By Linda W. This is a simple question that I ask myself that helps me stay debt free. It may sound infantile or even stupid to some, but if you take the question seriously each time you ask it as I have, it has saved me from making a lot of poor purchases over the [...]

By Terry G. I love free money. I thought that others would also love free money, but that doesn’t always seem to be the case. There is a lot of free money out there that almost anyone can claim with a bit of effort, but most people don’t. Banks: I remember when I was growing [...]

By Maureen K. If you had asked me a year ago if I would like being poor, I would have called you crazy. Both my husband and I had just lost our jobs and we were just coming to the realization that we were no longer going to be able to live the life of [...]

By Retire@50 It’s the dream of many to retire early. This is how I did it: I had a paradigm shift: It was the early 80s and I was in my early 20s. I was working an entry level job and living paycheck to paycheck. It was difficult to find jobs at the time and [...]

By Brad H. Have you ever seen those guys on the side of the road at freeway off-ramps or busy cross streets holding up a sign that reads something like “No Job. Hungry. Will work for food or money” and wondered who they were? At least some of them are like me because I was [...]

By M Butler It comes as a shock to most people I meet, but I don’t own a car. Three years ago I was thousands of dollars in debt and something had to give. I decided that it would be my car. When I made the decision my friends and family thought that I was [...]

By Leslie R. One of the most difficult things for me to do was build up my emergency fund. It seemed that I lived every two weeks paycheck to paycheck and there was no buffer when emergencies did happen. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to build up an emergency fund. Another [...]

By Dean L. When you read those statistics about Americans not saving money and going into credit card debt, you could place me as the poster child of the movement. Not only do I have a huge amount of credit card debt, I had less than $5 in my bank account a couple of months [...]

Lean economic times breed a kind of desperate rush to do something to save money — right now. While it’s always better to take a breath and think out practical steps to reach personal goals, there are basic changes we can all make immediately to begin to live within our means and to take full [...]

By Dr. Nancy Kay These days people need to be creative thinkers in order to make their dollars stretch further. Not only does this apply to gasoline and groceries, but to pet health needs as well. If you find yourself in a financial pinch as many do these days, here are ten things you can [...]

By Maggie Ellis, guest writer I know many people who are followers of Dave Ramsey’s financial advice. Since the economy has tanked, it seems like I’m seeing even more people joining the Dave bandwagon, looking for a way out of the financial messes that they have gotten themselves into. His “Total Money Makeover” and the [...]

By Maggie Ellis, guest writer It’s that time of year again. The time of year when my spouse and I are punished for our thrifty ways. How are we punished you ask? By being forced to spend the holidays with our families who are, at best, financial half-wits. (Half-wit is probably generous in some cases. [...]

Written by an animal welfare volunteer If you are going through hard times financially, have already cut back on your expenses where you can, and have made efforts to increase your income, but still feel that you can no longer afford to keep your pet(s), you have my compassion. I am a huge animal lover, [...]

By Jason Lancaster of Accurate Auto Advice. As a person who worked in car dealerships for nearly 10 years, I can tell you that a lot of people make expensive mistakes when buying a new or used car. Fortunately, these common mistakes are easy to avoid – here’s what you need to look out for: [...]

By Joseph Ganem Just about every financial decision we make involves comparing numbers. But, often the numbers shown are not the ones you should compare. The sellers of automobiles and related products are masters at leading people down the wrong financial road with misleading numbers. Whether buying a car or a tank of gas, it [...]