Personal Finance Advice

I like to walk and when I walk, I am always on the lookout for coins. I don’t really consciously do this — it has become a habit over the years. What I do know is that most years I add over $100 to my savings (you would need to keep over $10,000 in your [...]

Every so often, hard work and dedication really do pay off in fabulous ways! Recently, Mary Hannaby, a 57 year old English housewife, hit the jackpot while metal detecting in a field that she had searched many times over the years. An avid treasure hunter for the past 7 years, Mrs. Hannaby found [...]

Last week I wrote about trying to find contentment by getting back to a simpler life, one freer from forms of mass entertainment and consumerism. There’s an additional benefit to this than just living a simpler, less hectic life. You are likely to find freedom from the pervasive advertising in our culture. The less advertising [...]

It’s been said in a derogatory way that “talk is cheap.” I suppose it is, but it is also cheap in a wonderful way. There are few things that we can do in just about every environment and every situation to relieve boredom, share companionship and stimulate the mind, but if have a [...]

Last week I wrote a piece about the things that our forefathers never had to include in their budgets and the damage that those items are doing to our finances today. Writing that piece opened my eyes to another problem we have with our finances today. Many of us are no longer content with a [...]

In this day and age of satellite television, home video game systems, iPods and other toys that entertain and often isolate us, it is sometimes difficult to recall that not too long ago, there was a time when there were no expensive electronic toys to keep us occupied. The older I get, the more [...]

I’m making an assumption that you really shouldn’t be reading this post because, well, you’re doing exactly what you shouldn’t be doing. If you were looking for specific information to help you with your finances, you should be reading about that topic rather than this post about why you shouldn’t be reading this post.
One of [...]

Summer is coming. By the time you read this, your kids or grandkids, if you have them, may already be on summer vacation. Back when I was a kid, that meant endless days of hiking in the woods with my friends, playing baseball, shooting baskets and generally trying to make myself scarce so [...]

I’ll admit to loving movies and certain TV series. As a result, I buy a lot of DVD’s. Someone once told me that I was wasting my money on all those DVD’s, since I could rent them for free or watch the same movies on cable. I didn’t think it was a waste of money, [...]

One piece of financial advice that I often see offered is this: If you are part of a couple, give each other a measure of freedom with the money you earn but consult each other on any purchases over $100. In some variations the consultation amount is $50 or even $20. Whatever the amount, the [...]

I had to go to a theme park today. When I say I “had to go,” I mean that my son and I received two free passes to go to the park so that his football team could celebrate its season and participate in the filming of a commercial. We had a great [...]

One of our favorite things to do is travel. There are so many places we want to see, I doubt we’ll ever make it to all of them. However, despite the fact that we want to see so much, we are not willing to incur debt to do it. People ask me how we afford [...]

[Disclaimer: Yes, I know that the characters in books and on TV are fictitious. In this article I'm not trying to say that these people are "real" in any way. I'm merely using them as an example to make a point. So no, I'm not nuts enough to really believe that these people live real [...]

Although my wife and I may not be the most social of couples, our kids more than make up for our willingness to miss parties. My kids have always been popular with their peers and, when they were younger, routinely received one or two birthday party invitations per month. Sometimes, they received invitations from [...]

A couple of months ago, Jennifer Derrick contributed an excellent article When Invitations Become Money Grabs. That article resonated with many readers and there was a lot of fruitful discussion on the subject. I also spent a lot of time considering the article and how my wife and I have handled the cost [...]

I spend a lot of time outside and, if I’m inside working, my desk faces the road. As such, I know a lot about what goes on in my neighbor’s lives. (Disclaimer: I don’t spy on people, but when you’re driving back and forth in front of my house and piling your purchases in the [...]

My wife and I will do just about anything for each other. We have a great relationship and complement each other’s strengths. I fold the laundry. She puts it away. I do the grocery shopping. She puts the groceries away. I clean the bathrooms while she does the floors.
I [...]

Having a hobby (or several) can be a great thing. Hobbies give us a creative outlet or a way to meet new people. We learn new skills through hobbies and some of them can even earn us extra money. Several articles have appeared here at Saving Advice about how to save money on hobby expenses [...]

In my house we’ve had a tough couple of months with deaths, health scares, and general work-related stress. We’ve been tired, sad, and angry. There’s been a definite need in this house to feel better. We’ve needed some cheering up and calming down. In our spendier days we would have gone out to eat, gone [...]

I try to read a lot of newspapers. I read the New York Times and several other papers online and I subscribe to the print versions of the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and our local paper, The Orlando Sentinel. Of course, life often intervenes and prevents me from getting through all of [...]