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Posted
Jan 17 2008, 11:29 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Paul Navone is one of those quiet millionaires next door. His friends had no idea he had money until he started giving it away -- $1 million to a college and another $1 million to a prep school. The 78-year-old retiree never made more than $11 an hour while working in the New Jersey mills, according to a story by Joe Logan in the Philadelphia Inquirer, and to this day Navone buys his clothing at thrift stores, and doesn't have a TV or a phone.
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Posted
Mar 21 2008, 12:24 PM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
A little cleaning can save dollars along with your sanity. That's what Smart Spending message board reader "Lynn D" says, anyway. In a thread called "Making home a haven," the grad student notes that her formerly crowded condo made her feel "stressed and boxed in," which led to her wanting to go out, which led to her spending money. At first, she tried to combat the tendency by spending more money -- on storage bins, hooks, an entertainment center and other things allegedly designed to help. Finally, Lynn D figured out the real problem: "I needed to get rid of (junk)!" Now she finds herself staying at home more, whether it's to do her nails or watch a movie on a couch no longer littered with papers and books. Lynn D admits to another savings, too: She no longer has to buy things she already owns but couldn't find in all the clutter.
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Posted
Feb 27 2008, 07:11 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
RacerX remembers the college experience: You get a credit card and "probably then only use the card for emergencies -- no pizza or beer left in the house! Taking our girlfriend out! Maybe even rent once or twice," he writes. Since you know nothing about finances, you get a second credit card to make payments on the first, and so the cycle goes. His kids won't be like that, he says. Why? Because he and Mrs. X have decided they're not paying for their kids' college education. Why not? you ask. Because every kid they know who went to college "on the parent express" left school unprepared for life -- and sometimes didn't even graduate. "They took basket weaving and Klingon 301," he writes at Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Money. "They never worked the menial jobs that give you an appreciation for honest work, honest wages."
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Posted
May 30 2008, 09:45 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Recently a tenant moved out of the apartment building I manage. During the final walk-through I saw that she'd left behind a wall-mounted spice rack, a shelf-and-cabinet unit in the bathroom and a wheeled kitchen cart. She told me her fiancé had all the household items they needed. If no one wanted those things, they could just be thrown away.
I love my new kitchen cart.
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Posted
Aug 28 2009, 08:57 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Some people are talking about a federal bailout for former college students. Forgive student loan debt, they say, and the economy will be instantly energized.
The Baltimore Sun's Eileen Ambrose polled readers of Consuming Interests about this, and, last we checked, readers were hugely in favor -- even though her post presented a solid argument about why it wouldn't work as advertised.
We voted no. "JLP" at All Financial Matters, who directed his readers to the poll, also said no. "Actually, I say HELL NO!" he wrote.
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Posted
Feb 20 2008, 12:23 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
A recent article in Money Magazine prompted Lily at The Honest Dollar to write about parents who don't cut the financial cord to their children. Kids are expensive to raise and educate. Then, she writes, "you'd think that once a child graduates into the real world, the bleeding would stop. Not so." The number of adult children living at home has increased 50% in the last 30 years, according to a University of Michigan study. "All told, a 2007 survey by Ameriprise Financial found about nine out of 10 parents give money to their grown kids for major expenses: credit card balances, car insurance, student loans, you name it," Money Magazine says. Lily, a thoughtful young adult, writes that parents need to pay themselves first. She says, "I buy the conventional logic that a child can get loans for school, for a car, for a house -- a parent cannot get a loan for retirement."
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Posted
Oct 08 2008, 04:48 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller.
Regret over past financial decisions can have a powerful hold on you.
At 23, you may regret running up $20,000 in credit card debt during college. At 35, you may regret never having gone to college. At 45, you may regret having never started that consulting business you always dreamed of pursing. And at 65, you may regret not having saved more for retirement. In recent days, many financial chickens have come home to roost.
Regret, financial or otherwise, can have a powerful grip on your life. For most, the question is not whether you have financial regret. The question is how you harness the power of that regret to make sound financial decisions today that you will not regret tomorrow.
Here are some ideas to help you do just that:
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Posted
Jan 21 2008, 10:33 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Last summer I found a cast-iron skillet in the "free" box at a yard sale. It was slightly rusty, but a little steel wool took care of that. I'd wanted an iron skillet and had been keeping my eye out for an affordable one. What's more affordable than free?
Never having cooked in cast iron before, I'm really enjoying this pan. It's as useful as I'd hoped it would be. Having a new kitchen tool makes me happy.
Betsy Teutsch, who writes the Money Changes Things blog, had the same kind of skillet epiphany, except hers was a Teflon pan from the supermarket.
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Posted
Dec 09 2008, 06:48 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
He's no stranger to controversy, that "Mr. ToughMoneyLove." Whether it's help for homeowners in default -- he called that post "Homeowner bailouts destined to fail" -- or sympathy for a particular 54-year-old GM retiree -- "It's second-career time, my friend, and quit the whining," he said -- he's never shy with his opinions. Recently, he blamed free-spending universities for teaching impressionable minds that it's OK to carry huge debt. Try this quote on for size, from his post "The college student debt machine: A national disgrace" at Tough Money Love.
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Posted
Jul 20 2009, 11:11 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This guest post comes from "vh" at Funny about Money.
Tina, my associate editor on the day job and my moonlight business partner, sent a link to this interesting discussion. The main post itself has several links to relevant, equally interesting posts and conversations.
Given the astonishing burden of student loans that too many young people are saddled with -- my son's roommate's girlfriend, for example, remarked that she will graduate from a top-quality institution with a master's degree in international business and $1,400-a-month student loan payments -- assessing the "value" of graduate education is not a crass or pointless exercise.
It's well and good to love learning for learning's sake and so to feel that the graduate school experience is irrelevant to one's vocational prospects. However, once that graduate school experience ends, you still have to pay for it. You still have to keep a roof over your head, put food on your table, and foot the considerable cost of raising a family. When young people are saddled with five- and six-figure student loan debt, they should reasonably expect the financial investment in graduate education to pay off with jobs that will support them.
That, unfortunately, is too often not the case.
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