Personal Finance Advice

Oprah had her annual “Favorite Things” show last week. Since this is her last season on the air, it was actually a two day orgy of consumerism. I don’t generally mind Oprah most of the time, but this episode gets on my nerves every year. It’s great that she wants to give all this stuff [...]

The more I embrace frugality, the more I wonder if a frugal life equals a life detached from society. And then I ask myself: Is that a bad thing? I find myself less and less interested in “mainstream” society as the years go by. I don’t watch TV much, so I couldn’t tell you anything [...]

There is an image that the US has become an nation of shopaholics driven primarily by consumerism. Lee Eisenberg, the author of Shoptimism, believes that this is not truly the case. He sees that the average person still retains some of the frugality on which the US was founded and believes that most people that [...]

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 [...]

I’m growing very tired of the word “consumer.” Every time I turn on the TV, the talking heads are discussing “the consumer.” Consumers aren’t spending as much, consumers are cutting back, consumers are hurting, consumers need to increase their spending to save the economy. It’s as though consumers are the only component of the economy. [...]

The question to get your morning rolling today is, What tricks help you from spending money? I was talking with a friend who is super frugal except when it comes to traveling. It seems that he spends virtually all his extra money on traveling either to new countries or to visit friends. I asked him [...]

The question to get your morning rolling today is, Is more a better deal? This is one of the questions that I truly struggle with on a daily basis. I will give a classic example. I was at a fast food restaurant the other day and made my #3 set order which included a regular [...]

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 paid someone to [...]