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Posted
Jun 09 2008, 02:53 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Those who are serious about paying down debt have crafted their own little devices and mind games. For instance, we use the money we earn from our pet-sitting business to make extra payments on our mortgage principal. FloridaChic was born with a shopping gene, but she's learned to channel that impulse to pay off credit card debt. She explains her mind game in a post at Debt Smack called "The lazy girl's guide to snowflaking." This blogger might think she's lazy, but she has serious mind control.
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Posted
Mar 11 2008, 12:06 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Han Solo has too much debt. Darth Vader "wants it all, now!" Yoda didn't save for a rainy day and certainly didn't anticipate that he'd live to be 900. Why else, Monevator asks, would he be dining on pulped vines in a leaky hut? Monevator goes where another personal-finance blogger we've featured has gone before -- wait, that's another space opera, but you catch our drift -- and writes about personal-finance lessons to be gained from Star Wars. In "Who's your Star Wars money hero?" Monevator examines the financial blunders of our favorite second-trilogy characters, gives them directions for success, and also recommends PF blogs and books to read. (Monevator rightly, we believe, stays away from what he calls "the Trilogy of Shame.")
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Posted
Jan 25 2008, 08:37 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from freelance writer Abby Freedman, daughter of Smart Spending blogger Donna Freedman.
Deep, dark secret time: My mother writes for Smart Spending and I am in credit card debt. Assuming you haven't fainted dead away, let me explain. My fiancé has an inherited calcium deficiency that's been exacerbated by treatment for a couple of other health problems. His teeth were literally crumbling away by the time I met him. Last spring, he made an appointment with an oral surgeon and a denturist.
Since we didn't happen to have the needed $8,500 lying around, we started researching credit card deals. We wound up putting about two-thirds of the cost on a new credit card that offered 0% percent interest for six months. The rest was paid with "convenience checks" from my existing credit card at 3.99% for six months.
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Posted
Jul 01 2008, 05:00 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Blogger Rosalind Mays gave her kids credit cards. What? Is she nuts? They're only in sixth grade or thereabouts. Explaining one of the more interesting methods we've encountered for teaching kids about money, she writes in a post at Real Life Debt: "But the catch was (cause there is always a catch), I became Visa. I've always wanted to be a banking giant."
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Posted
Feb 01 2008, 02:47 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
What happens to people after they lose their homes to foreclosure or a short sale? DebtKid lived in his office for two months until he saved enough cash to rent a place. He showered at a nearby gym every morning before returning to the office for the workday. His employees never suspected. His post, part of a group effort by several personal-finance bloggers on the topic of homeownership, provides several options for no-cost housing until you can get back on your feet -- and tips for finding a rental despite your damaged credit score.
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Posted
Oct 26 2007, 07:27 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
J.D. Roth writes with authority about getting out from under the dead weight of debt. In an interview at Wise Bread , Roth, the founder of popular personal-finance blog Get Rich Slowly , writes about how he accumulated substantial debt and about the wake-up calls that changed his thinking about money. Why is Get Rich Slowly (one of our partner blogs) so appealing to readers? "First, I'm just an average guy," he says. "... I've been where a lot of my readers are now. People can relate to my journey." He likes to explore personal finance from "a variety of angles" and values readers' contributions to the site. Advice he doesn't think he's emphasized enough: "Entrepreneurship is awesome."
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Posted
Dec 24 2007, 08:12 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Personal-finance bloggers joined voices to give us "12 days of Christmas -- personal finance style,'' and their work is quite a gift. For the first day of Christmas, Lynnae at Being Frugal presented "the best way to manage money," including making a list of necessary expenses and checking it twice. You'll likely find out if you've been naughty or actually are spending less than you earn. Credit Withdrawal offered "two guaranteed ways to financial freedom," and Ana at DebtFREE-Revolution gave us three paid-off credit cards, including an American Express that rose from the dead even after she got the balance to zero.
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Posted
Dec 24 2007, 11:46 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
On Christmas morning let's all be anthropologists for a day. Come on, it'll be fun: We have our own theme song! (More on that later.)
Tomorrow, I want you to time how long it takes for everyone to open his or her gifts. Record all reactions, whether they be, "This is wonderful! Thanks!" or "I wanted the other game system! I never get anything good!" During the day, observe how long it takes for kids (and grownups) to lose interest in their new toys and baubles.
Now, figure out how long it will take you to pay off the gifts, if you charged them. If you paid cash, figure out how many hours you and/or your spouse had to work to pay for this "celebration."
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Posted
Mar 28 2008, 06:59 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. Just this morning, I was leafing through my favorite personal-finance book of all, "Your Money or Your Life," when I came across the idea of the "purge-and-splurge" cycle. From page 148, discussing what happens after you start buckling down and paying serious attention to your financial state: "In the first month of recording your figures you might confront one of our national foibles. Your income entry might well be lower than your expense entry. You may have spent more than you earned. (It is, after all, the American way.) Seeing this reality might come as a bit of a shock. Chances are you'll want things to change -- and change now. Accustomed to budgets, diets, and New Year's resolutions, you swear on a stack of bank statements and credit cards that next month will be better.
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Posted
Jul 07 2008, 04:49 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from J.D. Roth at partner blog Get Rich Slowly. While sorting through reader e-mail recently, I began to detect a subtle recurring theme. People were writing to me because they had a goal in mind, but their present circumstances seemed to be far from their intended destination. These two points were so far apart, in fact, that my correspondents were afraid to begin moving. Because the distance seemed overwhelming, they were paralyzed. The importance of action I used to feel this way, too.
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