Family Finances

Recently, the subject of cash gifts came up between my wife and I. Her grandparents both give us moderately sized cash gifts each year (between $50 and $1000, to give a range) as a Christmas gift. In years past, we have almost immediately spent these gifts on some sort of material item, often contributing some [...]

Continue Reading Handling Small Cash Gifts

As an exercise, I made a list of every single material thing I would like to have if money was no object at all. My list was pretty basic: a nice five bedroom home (because I would like to have three children and a guest bedroom), a very reliable automobile, a computer that wasn’t literally [...]

Continue Reading Dreams and Wishes – and Reality

When I was young, my best friend’s family used to give him and his siblings an allowance based on their age (I didn’t have an allowance, mostly because there simply wasn’t the money for it). When you were ten, for example, you would multiply your age by a certain factor (in their case, $1) and [...]

Continue Reading Investing A Young Child’s Allowance

Joe is a little boy who just turned one year old. Just one year ago, I was sitting in a hospital holding him for the first time. As I’ve already mentioned on here, I was in some very serious debt at the time, and when I looked down at him, I realized that for the [...]

Continue Reading The Inspiration For This Website

I was recently working on a self-evaluation exercise in which I was asked to consider memories from my childhood that had to do with money. These memories would then be used as a reflection on which to see my own personal finance biases today – and thus the connection would enable me to strengthen my [...]

Continue Reading Remembering A Painful Childhood Experience – And Trying To Apply What It Means

Recently, I’ve had several opportunities to seriously consider how money impacts the relationships within my family, and it’s made me develop a number of “rules” with which I interact with my family on a financial basis.
The first situation occurred several months ago, when one of my siblings was suddenly unable to take care of his [...]

Continue Reading Rules For Handling Financial Issues With Extended Family

As my net worth sneaks above the break-even point, I’m beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have accumulated a small number of steadily growing assets and my primary debt at this point is student loans. As I look forward to the future, I see a house purchase and another [...]

Continue Reading Preparing Your Financial Information For The Inevitable

Recently, I’ve had several opportunities to seriously consider how money impacts the relationships within my family, and it’s made me develop a number of “rules” with which I interact with my family on a financial basis.
The first situation occurred several months ago, when one of my siblings was suddenly unable to take care of his [...]

Continue Reading Rules For Handling Financial Issues With Extended Family

I grew up in a very poor home. We had so little money that we were required to grow, fish, and hunt for some of our food, and I remember many nights where we had “mystery stew” and other such dishes that were made up of whatever could be thrown into a pot together. To [...]

Continue Reading Educating Children on Fiscal Responsibility