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Posted
May 09 2008, 06:52 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. When I first went through my financial meltdown, I was almost obsessive about my various accounts. I checked my credit card and bank balances daily, kept careful notes on every penny I spent, and planned and plotted every single expense. The giant budgets and debt snowballs and investing plans I created were amazing in their detail. I spent hours with Excel, calculating my financial life and seeing the implications of every little move I might make. Over time, though, something fascinating happened.
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Posted
May 08 2008, 05:21 PM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from Xin Lu at partner blog Wise Bread. I think most of us have been asked to lend money to someone we know. No matter how close you are with the potential borrower, there are certain situations when you just have to say no. Here are some of the times I think you should absolutely keep your money for the sake of your relationship with the other person and the well-being of both parties.
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Posted
May 07 2008, 11:02 AM
by
Donna Freedman
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"Dividend" has been using the snowball approach to debt reduction. To do so, the reader treats debt reduction payments as a monthly bill, "as necessary and unavoidable as paying rent."
Dividend started by creating a minimalist yet realistic budget to live on. This includes predictable expenses such as car insurance, gift-giving and "a little bit of play money." Everything left over is officially invisible. "I treat that money like it doesn't exist until the end of the month. Then, out of that, I pay minimums on everything first, and then the remainder gets paid to the next item in the snowball."
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Posted
May 07 2008, 10:58 AM
by
Karen Datko
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The husband of reader "Deezy92" graduated in 2000 with an Ivy League law degree and a whopping $140,000 in student loan debt. It's now 2008, folks, and those student loans have been paid off for a couple of years. How did they do it? Deezy92 writes:
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Posted
May 03 2008, 05:47 PM
by
Karen Datko
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Former baseball star Jose Canseco is walking away from his 7,300-square-foot mansion in a Los Angeles suburb. But did you know he's only the latest celebrity who has faced foreclosure? In fact, the Los Angeles Times blog L.A. Land has an occasional feature called "Celebrity Foreclosures," and so far has written about such notables as Canseco and Marion Jones. The most recent installment includes suggested headlines about Canseco like "Jose walks" and "Canseco took a walk, but was called out at home."
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Posted
May 02 2008, 09:00 AM
by
Donna Freedman
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About six weeks ago I wrote an essay about why getting rid of some of the clutter in your life could help you save money. Yesterday I read an Associated Press article about people who are emptying closets and attics just to keep the wolf from the door.
Online auctions are bristling with family heirlooms, home electronics and designer duds. Craigslist ads are getting increasingly frantic, like the one in which a teen begged on behalf of her unemployed mom for people to "please buy anything you can to help out." One cash-strapped Wisconsin woman put her diamond engagement ring up for grabs.
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Posted
Apr 24 2008, 06:46 PM
by
Karen Datko
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"Frugal Babe" is thinking about quitting her part-time job at the library when her baby is born. That would decrease the family income by $20,000. But through hard work and good planning, she and her husband will continue to run their insurance business, put money in retirement and emergency accounts, pay for health and life insurance, make extra payments on their home, and will set up a college education fund for their child -- all after the baby arrives. "Life is all about choices," she says in this excellent post. "Lucky people tend to make their own luck by the choices they make."
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Posted
Apr 22 2008, 01:44 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Some people are financially sidelined by circumstances beyond their control, while others just poor-mouth -- making excuses for their circumstances with phrases like "The poor man just can't get ahead" or "We struggle just to make ends meet" or "I work hard so I deserve it." "Frugal Dad" calls these folks the "perpetual poor" and explains how you can identify them in this biting and humorous post. For instance, he writes, those who use the "poor man" rant referenced above "can recite the last five winners of American Idle (that's not a typo) from memory, haven't picked up a book since high school," and "never stretched to learn a new skill at work, but complain about being passed over for promotions."
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Posted
Apr 22 2008, 06:30 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. Have you ever gone to the mall and impulsively bought something you hadn't intended to buy? Have you ever gone to the grocery store and walked out with a couple things you didn't plan on getting? Sure, we all have.
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Posted
Apr 21 2008, 10:09 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from Joseph S. Enoch at partner bog ConsumerAffairs.com. Consumers around the country are complaining that Afni Inc., a debt-collection agency, has been calling and mailing, demanding that consumers pay old Verizon telephone debts, some of them as much as 10 years old.
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