Personal Finance Advice

While it’s estimated that some 147 million people will participate in Black Friday, this is not the only choice that people had on how to celebrate. The day after Thanksgiving is also Buy Nothing Day, the biggest no spend day of them all. If you decided to shop on Black Friday, you made a conscious [...]

Many people fail to realize that almost all aspects of our lives are intricately weaved together with our finances, but it’s crucially important to understand that even things that don’t initially seem to have anything to do with finances or money management can have a great impact on these areas. By understanding that almost every [...]

Entertainment is a large category in many people’s budgets. We all want to have fun, after all, with what limited downtime we have after work and chores are completed. The problem is that, “entertainment” money is easy to waste on things that have little lasting value. Now, by lasting value I don’t mean that something [...]

I am a board game nut. I get excited when Christmas rolls around and all the new games show up in the stores. I also love the classics. So why, in a world of electronic entertainment, do I love board games? There’s no single reason. I’ve learned over the years that board games offer a [...]

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 [...]

“When I get a little money I buy books, and if any is left I buy food and clothes,” Desiderius Erasmus has been quoted as saying. If he read like I do (more for fun than for education), he was budgeting for entertainment before necessities. He certainly would not be alone. Today, many people continue [...]

I’ve tossed a couple parties in the direction of my backyard from grilled gourmet, hanging out and birthdays, but none were quite so successful, or quite so affordable, as my no-reason-at-all box party. I entertained for a good hour and a half having only purchased some packing tape. In my happy green world, there are [...]

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 a problem. [...]

Trent Hamm at the Simple Dollar wrote a post in January about enjoying the free things in life. On a flight home, he found himself looking forward to taking a hot shower and spending time with his family. Once he realized that these things were free or nearly free, he started listing activities he enjoyed [...]

I’m not a social butterfly by any means. Never have been; it’s just not in my makeup. I have a very small circle of good friends (like maybe four) that I’ve known most of my adult life and that’s about it. The rest of the people in my circle are acquaintances that come and go [...]