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Posted
Jun 26 2008, 03:30 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
It goes without saying that whenever personal-finance bloggers write about how much money they saved on shampoo or toilet paper and other mundane stuff, someone thinks -- and sometimes writes -- "Get a life." Why think about -- or take the time to find -- a $1 savings on a tube of toothpaste? As Kevin at No Debt Plan succinctly says in a post called "2 reasons you should care about my toothpaste savings," it's not just about the toothpaste. It's about "your money-spending life."
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Posted
Jun 20 2008, 06:08 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. Almost every day, people write to me with intimate details about their debt situations. Some of them are pretty mild and can be taken care of easily with a little bit of elbow grease. Others are horrifying and will take some very serious attention to manage. In either situation, the principles for getting rid of debt are much the same. Similar tactics can be applied whether the debt is a $200 credit card balance or a mountain of $250,000 worth of various forms of debt.
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Posted
Jun 12 2008, 07:03 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from Nora Dunn at partner blog Wise Bread. There is no tomorrow. Tomorrow is really a euphemism for "I can't think about that right now." Have you ever caught yourself saying these things? "Tomorrow, I get paid, and things will be easier." "Next week, I won't have so many meetings at work and can spend more time with my family." "Next month, I'll have paid off one of my credit cards, and then I will have money to save for retirement."
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Posted
May 20 2008, 06:39 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
This post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. Plenty of articles discuss the importance of emergency funds and how to set one up, so this is not going to be one of those. I assume that you already understand all that good stuff. (If not, check out these great articles at a Money Blog Network writing project.) Here I'll discuss a strategy to maximize your emergency fund's interest earnings so you can lessen the pain of not having the funds in an investment account.
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Posted
May 15 2008, 04:57 PM
by
Karen Datko
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"Lazy Man" noticed that some personal-finance gurus have a phrase they can call their own. David Bach has the latte factor. Dave Ramsey has the debt snowball. "Paidtwice" has snowflaking. Not to be outdone, Lazy Man at Lazy Man and Money has invented one -- "snowforting." "I realize that Lazy Man and Money is going to nowhere if I don't coin a term and/or champion a cause," he wrote. So, what is this snowforting, other than another PF blogger's fascination with winter?
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Posted
Apr 28 2008, 04:47 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from J.D. Roth at partner blog Get Rich Slowly. I wasn't raised in a culture of saving. My parents never made it a habit, and so could not pass the skill on to me or my brothers. In fact, I didn't establish my first savings account until three years ago, when I was 36 years old. (I had a passbook savings account as a young boy, but it never had more than $5 in it.)
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Posted
Mar 26 2008, 05:01 PM
by
Karen Datko
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Fed up with the government's bailout du jour? You'll find a kindred spirit in Randall at Credit Withdrawal. He's been on an extended rant lately about the causes of economic gloom and the supposed solutions to fix them. His starship goes where a lot of other personal-finance bloggers hesitate to travel. Bailout plans provoke this reaction: "Rewarding stupidity isn't going to make anyone learn from their mistakes. America is the land of opportunity, but that opportunity also includes the opportunity to fail." Why does the government want us to blow our tax rebate money on stuff? He writes: "If everyone were to spend their checks only on debt reduction, the only 'stimulus' that would happen would be for the bankers and lenders, and they already have lots of money coming to them from the Fed in the form of reduced prime rates and now direct loans to nonbanking businesses." Randall doesn't stop there. He foretells the future -- it ain't pretty -- and proposes what regulars folks should do, just in case his predictions are spot on.
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Posted
Mar 18 2008, 07:50 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
This post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. Having an emergency fund is one of the cornerstones of a solid personal-finance plan. Whether you subscribe to saving enough to cover three months, six months or a full year of expenses, an emergency fund is something that every single person and family needs. An emergency fund enables you to weather difficult times -- especially since they seem to cluster -- without getting in an even worse situation. Some people rely on credit cards to supplement an emergency fund, and others will use them only as a last resort. But ultimately you need to have an emergency fund that matches both your needs and the chance of a bad thing happening. For those of you who understand risk analysis, the part people understand best is the impact or severity of a risk.
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Posted
Mar 06 2008, 03:43 PM
by
Karen Datko
Your friends may be giving blood or watching porn to make extra money, but you can beat them on the weirdness factor by hiring out to contract malaria. Isn't that an interesting approach to building up your emergency fund? That's right. You can get paid to get bitten by an infected mosquito and check into a hotel for a few days while researchers check for parasites in your blood, according to an article by science writer Sandi Doughton in the Seattle Times. And, blessedly, not one soul has expired from participating in the experiment. This particular malaria is a cloned strain developed by the U.S. Army that can be easily cured.
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Posted
Feb 06 2008, 06:01 PM
by
Karen Datko
Single Ma at Fabulous Financials apparently took it as a personal slight when her bank informed her in a letter that -- due to rate cuts by the Federal Reserve -- her online savings account was, so to speak, losing interest. So Single Ma responded with a Dear John letter online. She noted that her bank first attracted her with a 5.05% APY. In the past five months, it has dropped four times, now to 3.55%. She wrote: "I really enjoyed our love affair while it lasted: the 5.05% APY, our biweekly exchanges, your generous deposits, the sneak peaks at my growing balance -- ah, the memories. But it's over now."
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