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• One big way to get intense about financial independence

  Posted Jul 02 2008, 07:57 PM by Karen Datko
  Filed under: Debt, Saving, Simple Dollar, Employment
  Rating:

  This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar.

  You are going to be fired from your job this Friday.

  Read that statement again. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine if that sentence were true in your own life. Would you be ready?   Read More...

  Discuss ( 9 comments) 5,098 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• The debtor's toolkit: 12 tactics to use for tackling debt

  Posted Jun 20 2008, 06:08 AM by Karen Datko
  Filed under: Debt, Saving, Emergency, Simple Dollar

  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.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 7 comments) 6,799 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• The fine art of abandoning goals

  Posted May 23 2008, 06:57 AM by Karen Datko
  Filed under: Debt, Family, Simple Dollar, Health care
  Rating:

  This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar.

  Hopefully, that headline woke you up a bit this morning.

  Several months ago, I made a list of 101 goals that I wanted to reach in the next three years. I piled this list on top of an already long list of medium-term and long--term goals --including building a writing career and paying off debt.

  While making the giant list of goals felt very empowering at first, it soon became a big weight on my shoulders. I was reaching for too many things at once. When I set a goal, I'm committed to achieving it, and thus I often feel like Lucy and Ethel on the chocolate candy assembly line -- more to do than I can possibly keep up with.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 3 comments) 2,180 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• Training wheels: Why I spend less time managing money

  Posted May 09 2008, 06:52 AM by Karen Datko
  Filed under: Debt, Spending, Simple Dollar, Budgeting
  Rating:

  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.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 4 comments) 6,163 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• Little income, big debt: Managing money in college

  Posted Apr 11 2008, 06:31 AM by Karen Datko
  Filed under: College, Debt, Spending, Simple Dollar
  Rating:

  This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar.

  When I was in college, I used my student loans to finance my lifestyle.

  I worked at a decent-paying job ($9 an hour for a job related to my major), but that wasn't enough. I needed more. So I took out student loans, even though scholarships covered most of my tuition and housing expenses.

  Even worse, I didn't really understand the value of the college education I was getting. I  completed a major, decided it wasn't for me, completed a different major, and took enough classes for some minors along the way.

  When I finally graduated after six years, I had accumulated about $35,000 in student loan debt. Including interest, I've paid about $32,000 so far, and I've got about $16,000 left to go.

  What did I learn from this disaster, and how can college students use what I learned? A lot of students entering college take out student loans to pay for it. The money they're spending, in the form of loans, far exceeds the money they're taking in. I know all about it. I was doing this very thing just a handful of years ago. I made some incredibly stupid mistakes along the way, and it takes a lot of hindsight to see the things I could have and should have done.

  If I had it to do all over again -- if I were a college student today with a big pile of student loans building up and not much income -- here's what I would do.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 4 comments) 3,115 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• When all hope seems lost

  Posted Jan 04 2008, 05:32 AM by Karen Datko
  Filed under: Debt, Spending, Emergency, Simple Dollar
  Rating:

  This post comes from Trent Hamm of partner blog The Simple Dollar.

  No matter how careful you are, there may come a time when enough bad events happen that you simply cannot afford your bills. While you can do certain things to protect yourself from being in that situation -- building an emergency fund, practicing frugal living -- they don't really help when you have no money and a pile of bills to pay.

  If you find yourself in this situation and don't know what to do, here are some practical steps you can take to get started on the road to recovery.

  Don't bury yourself in guilt and shame. Everyone makes mistakes in life, and you're certainly far from the first one or the only one. I was in a desperate situation once upon a time.

  Realize that there are solutions to your problems, no matter how bad the challenges are. Just because you don't immediately see the answers doesn't mean the answers aren't there. There are answers, and there is a path to a better situation.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 10 comments) 8,215 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• Emptying the wallet: Which credit cards should you keep?

  Posted Dec 28 2007, 05:55 AM by Karen Datko
  Filed under: Debt, Banking, Credit, Simple Dollar
  Rating:

  This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar.

  I often get notes from people who have a small mountain of credit cards. They're trying to figure out which ones they should keep and which ones they should cancel, and they're rightfully concerned about their credit score if they do that.

  A wallet full of credit cards can be a problem: You have more opportunities for identity theft and, with so many credit cards, your total line of credit may be high enough to hurt your credit score. There are other issues, including extra paper management and an unreasonably fat wallet.

  If you have a mountain of cards, what should you do to trim them down? Here are my recommendations:   Read More...

  Discuss (no comments) 690 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this