Personal Finance Advice

One of the financial phrases that always irks me is “disposable income.” Disposable income is money that has no designated purpose and thus can be blown on anything you want. It’s money that is not “needed” to meet your obligations and thus can be spent on frivolous stuff. The word disposable brings to mind images [...]

Last week I had the misfortune of witnessing a messy exchange in the return line at a local department store. The woman ahead of me was trying to return some items that she bought and had apparently decided that she didn’t like or want. The clerk told her that they could not take them back. [...]

I rarely get the consumer bug. Anyone that knows me well also know that if you want to take me shopping, chances are you’re going to have to drag me screaming and yelling the entire way. I rarely “lust” after any gadgets. Even my computer which I spend most days on is nothing more than [...]

Reality set in today as I received my monthly health insurance bill: a painful $485. That will be nearly $6,000 a year out of the $17,000 budget or about one-third of all the money I have. This makes it very easy to understand why most people on a minimum wage simply choose to go without [...]

I’ve spent the past couple of weeks listening to the bitter complaints over the “loss” of the two percent Social Security tax holiday. In case you’ve missed it (or you aren’t from the U.S. and didn’t follow our “fiscal cliff” debacle), here’s the gist: Two years ago our politicians reduced the Social Security tax rate [...]

When people start throwing around financial advice (and when you’re deciding which advice to take), one of the considerations that often gets ignored is the significance of income level. Advice gets thrown around about what to cut and how to save without realizing that how much money you’re bringing in is the biggest factor in [...]

I hate budgeting. I simply don’t like taking the time out of my day to run through the numbers when I could be doing so many more interesting things. One of the reasons that I think that I am relatively frugal is that by being so, I haven’t needed to budget for years. I don’t [...]

On one of the financial forums I frequent, a woman who was deep in debt posted looking for help. The main problem was that she couldn’t understand how their debt had ballooned because, “We have a budget.” When other posters started asking for more details, it emerged that she had gotten a budget sheet out [...]

By Mitchell D Weiss Budgets are a necessity to keep personal finances in order, but they aren’t necessarily easy to keep.There are plenty of things that can quickly ruin a budget and ruin the best laid financial plans. Here are the top ten things that ruin budgets: Shopping Hungry or without a Plan of Attack [...]

In the last six months or so I’ve discovered a new hobby: Board games. I’m not talking about games like Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly, LIFE and the like that are available at the big box stores. I’ve discovered what are commonly called “Euro-games” because they are designed in Europe by European designers. They aren’t generally available [...]

This is a guest post by Ashley at Money Talks The road to wealth may not be a smooth ride, but the fact remains you are either moving towards wealth, or you are moving towards poverty. Everyone moves along this road in one direction or the other. The path to wealth isn’t overly difficult or [...]

Many people think that becoming wealthy means that they no longer have to budget. The logic goes that if you have enough money, it’s no longer important how much is spent on various categories. When you have extra money, you don’t have to track where it all goes, right? Wrong. Those who want to remain [...]

When I was younger I traveled extensively on very little money. I still travel frequently, but these days I have a little more money and I prefer more comfortable experiences. (It’s just not as comfortable to sleep on the floor or in a tent as it was when I was twenty.) Some of the best [...]

I’ve noticed that when most people think about their finances, they think in terms of their income and expenses. They think about how much they make per week or month and therefore that is how much they have to spend. However, the most financially successful people that I know think of their finances in terms [...]

I have recently read a number of articles about the businesses which are being hit the hardest by the current downturn in US and well as the global economy. This got me thinking about the businesses that should be affected, even though apparently some of them aren’t. Giant Gas Guzzling SUVs: Not only are they [...]

When we shop, most of us are heavily influenced by the purchase price. For example, we see an iPhone in the store and think, “Oh, it’s $300. I have that much in my account, I can afford it.” What we think about less often is the true cost of ownership for that item. The true [...]

I have a friend who recently lost her job. She’s not the only income earner in the household, but she does contribute a good bit to the family’s finances. Fortunately, she has a three month emergency fund saved up. However, her proposed management of that fund leaves me scratching my head. On the day she [...]

Believe it or not, your daily schedule says a lot about your spending habits. Is your schedule packed to the gills with spending opportunities? For example, do you schedule your days around eating out, going to the mall, or going to the movies? Are these the items on your to-do list that are most important? [...]

This is a series of posts about what you will find in Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University course. This is week three (week one and week two) The lesson for this week was cash flow planning, also known as budgeting. You could see everybody approaching this lesson with trepidation. Not only does it mean more [...]

Regardless of whether you are looking to reduce spending for the purposes of debt reduction, or for saving, the first thing that must be done is to identify where you are spending money unwisely. If you are not ready to be honest about a budget breaker, a vice, or a ‘treat,’ then you are not [...]