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 [...]

With Black Friday just around the corner, you might be wondering if you should take a peak at the advertisements and possibly wade into the crowds to try to score a great deal. Don’t! Seriously, it isn’t worth it. You’re only going to end up spending a lot of time and effort to not get [...]

A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece about how to prevent kids from getting bored. The point was that when kids get bored, they get expensive. It’s tempting to give into the whining and take them to the movies, buy them a new toy, or take them to a paid play space. Well, [...]

One thing that has saved me a ton of money over the years is the fact that I am very ad-averse. Not only do I try to keep as much advertising as possible out of my life, when I do see an ad I don’t buy into the sales pitch. Advertising seems to have the [...]

Many of my friends and family members are single. Some by choice, some because they haven’t yet met the right person, and others are divorced or widowed. With very few exceptions, they turn to shopping to fill a void in their lives. They aren’t comfortable being alone, so hitting the mall allows them to get [...]

What’s in a name? Sometimes a lot. And sometimes not a lot. It all depends on what name is at issue and what associations you have with that name. If someone calls you by your name, you will recognize it. If someone calls you by a friendly nickname or pet name, you will similarly recognize [...]

As I sit at my desk typing this column, it is Sunday afternoon. My newspaper, now read and enjoyed over several cups of tea and a few cups of coffee, lies scattered at my feet. When I have the energy to rise from my office chair, I will be visiting my garage to deposit today’s [...]

The next time you’re in a store shopping for groceries, clothes, household items or anything else, stop and take a long look at your purchases. Then ask yourself this question: Why do I buy this particular brand or product? Knowing why you buy something is important, especially if you want to save money. Here are [...]

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how helpful a shopping list can be when you want to save time and money. I’m a firm believer in lists. I compile pro and con lists when I have to make a decision, I keep lists of places I need to go for errands, and I [...]

A shopping list sounds like such a simple thing to do, but how many times have you arrived at the store with no list and no idea what you really need? It leads to frustration and overspending, doesn’t it? I hear you now: “A list takes too long to get together. When I need to [...]

There are a lot of myths when it comes to shopping, and one of the biggest is that women love to shop while men hate shopping. The truth, according to Lee Eisenberg, author of Shoptimism, is that men and women both love and hate to shop in about the same proportional numbers. The same is [...]

When we get bored or stressed, some of us tend to head for the stores to look for something to do. Maybe we want a new book, a new CD, or a new movie. Maybe we want new clothes so we can jazz up our wardrobe. Maybe a new board or video game will do [...]

What a lot of people don’t realize is that there is a lot of research and planning to get you to spend more when you walk into a store. Lee Eisenberg,the author of “Shoptimism” says that the retail outlets are experts at playing on your emotions, your perceptions and your lack of critical reasoning. What [...]

Editor Note: This is a repost of an article posted last week. David did a live, nationally televised show regarding on ABC Money Matters titled Shop With Your Man: Why husbands should shop with their wives. Although the men I know seem uniformly capable of going to a store, buying a product, and feeling confident [...]

The other day my son managed to lose a pair of pants from his school uniform. How he did this, I am not sure, since he was wearing them at school that day. Nevertheless, somehow between the end of the school day and the end of his bus ride home, he managed to lose his [...]

It’s well known where I work and in my circle of acquaintances that I am, shall we say, financially conservative. I don’t blow money for fun and everyone knows that about me. So it never ceases to amaze me the number of people who still ask me out to pricey restaurants for lunch, or to [...]

Earlier today I had to buy a backpack. I had to buy a backpack because my high school aged son managed to break his current backpack. Now, I am not really sure how one breaks a backpack. Indeed, until today, I did not believe that one could actually break a backpack. It was neither torn [...]

I’m pretty frugal and don’t get my entertainment from hanging out in stores. Actually, I generally hate shopping except on the rare occasions when there is something I really want that I’m excited about. I can shop online for most stuff and save myself a lot of headache and time. Because I don’t like shopping, [...]

Before the days of the Internet, I never really enjoyed shopping for the sake of shopping, especially after the open air “shopping centers” of my youth gave way to the enclosed, artificially lit “shopping malls” of my teenage and early adult years. Shopping meant that I had to get into a car and drive for [...]

I recently finished reading Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Empower America. It’s a very good book if you’re interested in the environment, but it’s also a good read if you ever wonder what a “green economy” might look like. He covers a lot of [...]