Personal Finance Advice

When many people think about becoming budget-conscious, they cringe because they associate living on a budget with being cheap. They don’t want to be known as, “That cheap SOB.”What they don’t understand is that the two terms are very different. You can live on/within a budget without being cheap. Living on or within a budget [...]

I don’t like to spend money. There, I’ve admitted it. Even when it’s for something that I know I’ll love and can easily afford, something inside me clenches up and I don’t want to spend. (I blame genetics. My father and grandfather were the same way.) That’s good from the standpoint of saving for retirement [...]

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 [...]

I used to be a huge nerd. I was the kid who actually liked school and homework. Somewhere along the line, though, I lost my inner nerd. I conformed in order to fit in during high school. I still studied, but less than I had before. It just wasn’t “cool” to be studious. I carried [...]

When I was first learning how to be frugal and save money, I used to do monthly financial challenges all the time. I’d pick a goal, like cut down or eliminate eating out, and pursue it with gusto for a whole month. At the end of the month I’d tally up my savings. Usually it [...]

On my last trip to a used car lot, I was able to get exactly what I wanted out of the transaction. The salesman, of course, tried to talk me into getting more car than I needed, and more importantly, more car than I could afford. I wanted to trade my car outright and not [...]

Amish people and communities are unique in many ways. To most outsiders, they’re known mostly as soft-spoken people who live a simple life, don’t use electricity and don’t drive cars. They’ve also had just enough bad press to make some people wary. No matter what your opinion of their beliefs, the traditional Amish lifestyle offers [...]

When people start out on the path to better finances, many go overboard and slash their budgets to the bone. (Either that or they cut one tiny thing and claim success). They cut out every little extra expense and leave themselves with nothing but food, utilities, housing, and other essentials. It’s like going on a [...]

Last week, on a nice spring day, I was sitting outside on my porch reading one of my many library books. My neighbor came over to see how I was doing and wanted to know what I was reading. I flipped it over to show her the title and she could clearly see the library [...]

If you’re trying to save money, your efforts usually boil down to two basic approaches: Make more money or cut your expenses. Sometimes you may need to cut your expenses quickly, as in the case of a job loss or some disaster that depletes your funds. If you find yourself needing or wanting to cut [...]

I was pretty young when I got serious about saving money and being more frugal. I didn’t do it with some grand notion of preparing for my old age or anything, I just wanted more money for emergencies and to give me more choices in terms of where I might live and work. Looking back, [...]

You are using far too much of far too many things and you probably don’t even realize it. Most of it is simply out of habit although a good portion of it has it’s roots in commercials. No matter what the cause, becoming aware that you may be needlessly wasting money by using too much [...]

I hate waste. I hate that sometimes I have to throw something away without having gotten maximum use out of it. I hate the waste of money and the waste of resources. Unfortunately, I’ve learned that there are instances where I end up wasting things. For example, I cannot use up an entire head of [...]

When I first started on my frugal journey I had to get past quite a few fears and stereotypes that were holding me back, especially after I moved to a new area. You wouldn’t think that frugality would be a scary thing, but sometimes it can be a little frightening, especially if you’ve never had [...]

Some non-frugal people have a perception that all frugal people are stupid, dumb, backwards, hillbilly housewives, and generally uneducated. I think this stereotype must come from the feeling that the really “smart” people are also very successful and thus don’t need to be frugal. It’s only the uneducated people who aren’t “smart enough” to get [...]

I’ve reached one of those milestone birthdays where you stop and take stock of your life. I’ve been looking at where I’ve been and where I’m going professionally, personally, and financially. In looking at my finances, I’ve realized that there are eleven actions that have contributed directly to my success. These actions have all been [...]

The other day I was reading a post on a message board from someone who was very proud of their money saving efforts. They listed things they’d cut including the house cleaner, the lawn service, eating out, and that they’d dropped premium channels on their cable. They’ve started buying store brands and given up many [...]

When you and all of your friends or family are deeply in debt, you can all be miserable together. You can gripe about your finances, complain about how there’s never enough money for everything, and then go shopping anyway. You can egg each other into further debt by saying things like, “You’re only young once,” [...]

We all know that time is our most finite resource. We all have a set number of days on this planet and we’re not getting any more. We can’t make or buy more time. Since we can’t make more time, it’s important to make the most of the time we do have. I’ve found that, [...]

Now that I pay most of my bills online, have email, a cell phone, and a million other ways to stay in touch, I have very little need for envelopes. I rarely have envelopes in the house anymore and, on the rare occasion I need an envelope, I hate having to go to the store [...]