Personal Finance Advice

The other day I went to lunch with a friend who is working on becoming debt free and simplifying her life overall. I asked her how it was going. “Ugh,” she said. “Well, I told you that Herman took a sabbatical so he could teach for six months, right?” Teaching was, her husband believed, his [...]

You know you need to pay attention to your finances and create some kind of spending plan. So why haven’t you started? Are you just waiting for the right software, book, or moment? Maybe you feel overwhelmed. The reasons for not starting and maintaining your spending plan are endless, but your window of opportunity closes [...]

Dear Mr. CEO of a fiction company that bears no resemblance whatsoever to the author’s current real-life employer: We, your loyal employees, understand money is tight. We know you’re doing everything you can to keep the company running. But morale is down. Your employees think all you care about is meeting a sales number. Do [...]

I’ll be perfectly honest. Even though I make a living writing about personal finances (and enjoy reading and writing about the subject), I have to make a concerted effort to stay financially motivated with my own finances. For those that have little interest in personal finances, but still want to get their finances in order, [...]

While I know you’re probably putting together a list of New Year’s resolutions if you haven’t done so yet, I would ask that you stop. Don’t even bother. Boycott the whole tradition. Refuse to get suckered into a yearly game that gives the impression that it will help, but actually does you more harm than [...]

Probably the most difficult step in getting ones personal finances in order is the step to actually begin working on them. If you have a great adversion to looking at your personal finances, it makes it that much more difficult as this reader knows: I hate personal finance and my finances shows this. They are [...]