Personal Finance Advice

Now that back to school season is upon us, my state and many others are promoting their upcoming tax free weekends. These are the weekends where you can buy items from certain categories and escape the state and/or local sales taxes on those items. The rules vary by state, but typically the items you can [...]

It seems everything is taxable — even coupons! I never questioned the small print on the coupons I use, at least not the part about the customer paying sales tax. (I don’t understand why a manufacturer can say a coupon shouldn’t be doubled when it’s the retailer that makes a doubling offer, but [...]

“Falling housing market.” “Possible recession.” “Troubled economy.” These phrases have been buzzing around lately in the media. Real estate prices were going up and many people decided to buy more house than they could afford with unconventional mortgage terms. Now the house prices are falling in many areas and people can’t [...]

Before money existed, people exchanged goods and services through bartering. Even after money became the logical solution to the problem of finding someone who could offer what you wanted and wanted what you had to offer, bartering remained a viable alternative way to do business.
Today, as the Internet has enabled more [...]

I recently stumbled upon the idea of a different tax system that some are advocating our country change to called The Fair Tax. I don’t know if my head has been in the sand about this or if many other people have never heard of it as well. It was an interesting concept [...]