By Jennifer Derrick
I’m a huge fan of reading. I believe that reading, both fiction and non-fiction, is a great way to learn new things and be exposed to more than you typically see in your daily life. If you want to learn something new, like personal finance, you can’t beat a good book. You can […]

By Cortni Marrazzo
A few weeks ago I heard someone say this when teaching about finances: “When we change the way we think about money, it will change the way we handle money.” This statement made me stop and think because I realized that it is so true. I know that when I changed […]

By Shannon Christman
It’s that time of year again. Some of us know it as spring; others call it the start of yard sale season. Yard sales (also known as garage sales, tag sales, rummage sales, and stoop sales) attract an interesting and diverse subculture of bargain hunters, environmentalists, and treasure hunters; they are […]

By Jennifer Derrick
Now that it’s spring and the government rebate checks are starting to roll in, many people are sounding like that old Super Bowl commercial:
“You’ve just received your rebate check! What are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to Disney World!”
If you decide to go to WDW this summer and you want to […]

By Shannon Christman
It’s been said that when you take free advice, you should remember that you get what you pay for. I agree that it’s important to evaluate any advice — free or not — before following it, but rejecting all free advice because it is free is a really bad idea. (Unless you […]

By Jennifer Derrick
A friend and I were talking the other day about jobs and money (actually, we were whining about our jobs and money) and he brought up the concept of Voluntary Poverty. I’ve never heard of voluntary poverty outside of certain orders like monks and nuns, so I asked him to explain.
Turns out […]

By Shannon Christman
Lehighton Night at Dorney Park was a highlight of each year when I was a young teenager. For $5 anyone in my small town (Lehighton) could buy an advance ticket for evening admission to the amusement park just over 25 miles away. Not only could a carload of my friends and […]

By Jennifer Derrick
When many people today think of frugality they think of a life filled with deprivation and sacrifice. They think of people who are living on the fringe of society; people who make all their own clothes, eschew modern technology, aren’t knowledgeable about popular culture, and mail-order worms for their compost heaps.
While some […]

By Jennifer Derrick
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that gas prices are soaring sky high. As a result, many people are rushing out to trade in their older, larger, inefficient cars for newer smaller, more efficient models. But is this rush to trade really necessary, or even a good thing?
Certainly if you’re […]

By Ann Hartter
I love my blue jeans. They’re a pain to find and when I do, I pay top dollar for something that fits and isn’t too fashionable. I then wear them till they’re holding on by mere threads. I do get good use out of my jeans, but the price I end up paying […]

By Shannon Christman
“Instead of using coupons, I buy things on sale” is a statement I hear often from people who think I waste my time clipping coupons. My response is, “Why not do both? If you use the coupons for things that are on sale, you can save even more.” In most cases, the […]

By Cortni Marrazzo
“No interest and no payments for an entire year!” This statement can stop people in their tracks when shopping and often times is the deciding factor on a particular purchase. But this statement can be a dangerous one if you aren’t careful. No interest = no worries, right? […]

By Cortni Marrazzo
When setting up and running a household budget, the most important thing is that it works for you and your household. There are many good systems and practices that people may recommend, but the ultimate test of such a system is how and if it actually works in your personal finances. […]

By Jennifer Derrick
A neighbor recently announced that she was getting serious about getting out of debt and saving for her family’s future. “Good for you,” I said and meant it, right up until she started detailing her plan for becoming more frugal.
“We need to start staying home more,” she said. “We waste too much […]

By Cortni Marrazzo
I recently discovered a new website that has a wealth of information about saving money on fuel. I’m pretty sure the website itself isn’t new, but it’s new to me and it might be new to you too. The website is Fueleconomy.gov and it run by the US Department of Energy […]

By Shannon Christman
The boxes were gone. My three-year-old was crestfallen. He had looked forward to his regular job of returning the plastic bags from last week’s grocery shopping trip to the recycling boxes just inside the store. But the boxes are no longer there; an employee told us that the store had discontinued its recycling. […]

By Jennifer Derrick
A lot of people ask me: “If you don’t watch TV and you choose to limit movies, clubs, restaurants, etc. in order to save money, what do you do for entertainment? Aren’t you bored?” I usually look at them, dumbfounded, because to me there is too much to do and boredom is never […]

By Cortni Marrazzo
Since I first became interested in personal finance a few years ago, I have been dead set against buying a new car. As a person who likes to save money, the thought of buying something that would depreciate tremendously as soon as I drove it off the lot made me shutter. […]

By Shannon Christman
Printing invitations, photos, shipping labels, and other paper items from a home computer is one do-it-yourself activity many people erroneously adopt in an effort to save money. While printing from home rather than buying in a store can save money in some cases, it may actually cost more in others. Those who […]

By Ann Hartter
I went to the grocery store this morning. My list included four items. I returned with ten. It would seem I had a problem with the impulse buy. That’s not, however, the case. Four of the things I returned with were on sale, so maybe it was sale-blindness. That’s not the case either. […]