Personal Finance Advice

A few years ago, I faced my mortality head on. An unexpected allergic reaction nearly killed me. Up to that point I, like most people, hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about death. Sure, I’d done the unpleasant task of making a will and other estate arrangements, and I’d buried a few relatives. But [...]

Financial gurus often talk about spending on experiences rather than stuff. The idea is that stuff will break, become obsolete, or never get used in the first place, whereas experiences will stay with you for a lifetime. Experiences are said to be more valuable than stuff. To hear some people talk, you should be able [...]

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 [...]

Around here we’ve hit the peak of the fall yard sale season. I headed out this weekend to check out a few and came away flabbergasted by the prices some of the sellers were charging for their stuff. I’m an informed consumer and I generally know the prices of the things I buy. I know [...]

We all love our stuff. We like our clothes, our knick knacks, and our DVD’s. We like our photographs, saved letters, mementos of our childhood (or our children’s childhoods), and the stuff we inherit from others. As much as we like stuff, there are many problems with stuff, ranging from the money it costs to [...]

One of the best ways to become and remain debt free is to simply learn to love what you already have. It’s human nature to be swayed by the glitter and gloss of new items. You drive past a new car lot and think, “Wow, those cars are so great.” Or you walk into Target [...]

Generally, I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I tend to decide to do things throughout the year and then just get on with them. New Year’s resolutions come with to much pressure and they’ve always seemed forced to me. So I tend to avoid them. But this year is different. I have one New Year’s [...]

Here’s something marketers don’t want you to know: Stuff cannot and will not ever make you happy. In fact, stuff can make your life more complicated and miserable than you can possibly imagine. I learned this lesson a really hard way. I nearly lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. I say nearly because we didn’t know [...]