Personal Finance Advice

Most of us tend to think that more is better, especially when it comes to our “stuff.” If two pairs of shoes is good, ten must be great. If a library of thirty DVD’s is good, a hundred must be better. If having fifteen board games provides a lot of entertainment, a library of fifty [...]

Financial gurus often talk about spending on experiences rather than stuff. The idea is that stuff will break, become obsolete, or never get used in the first place, whereas experiences will stay with you for a lifetime. Experiences are said to be more valuable than stuff. To hear some people talk, you should be able [...]

People spend a fortune trying to “improve” the air quality in their homes. They buy fabric sprays, air fresheners, candles, special vacuum cleaners, and expensive purification machines. Unfortunately, most of the candles, plug-ins, and sprays just make things worse. They don’t eliminate odors; they simply mask them. As for the expensive machines, many don’t work [...]

When it comes to storage units, many people are simply throwing away their hard earned money. Unless you are renting a storage unit for a specific reason with a set time period (for example, you’re moving and there is a three month time gap before you can move into a new place), you are likely [...]

Over the years I’ve inherited quite a bit of stuff from my relatives. Dishes, jewelry, books, scrapbooks, pictures, clothing, keepsakes, letters, souvenirs from far away places, and even a trunk have all come my way as relatives have passed away or downsized their lives. For the longest time this stuff just sat in various places [...]

Recently I was trapped in a hotel on a rainy weekend and I got sucked into a marathon of Clean House. (This is why I don’t keep cable at home. If stuff is on, I just fall into it.) I was mesmerized by the amount of stuff that some of these people had. Stuff was [...]

If you can’t afford the luxury of a professional crew of organizers and designers to organize your clutter and maximize your space, that doesn’t mean you have to keep living in chaos. Those of us on a budget still have plenty of options for getting organized. All you need to get started is some time [...]

Here’s something marketers don’t want you to know: Stuff cannot and will not ever make you happy. In fact, stuff can make your life more complicated and miserable than you can possibly imagine. I learned this lesson a really hard way. I nearly lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. I say nearly because we didn’t know [...]

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 [...]