Personal finance, my story, mistakes, and what I've learned
From my perspective, short term and long term financial goals are fairly easy to plan. I want to spend less in the next month (and save more while paying down loans), and I want to save for retirement; these are fairly straightforward goals. The challenge for me was to define a set of intermediate-term goals [...]
Continue Reading Setting Intermediate-Term Financial Goals
I used to waste tons of money on silly little things. I did it so often and so regularly that I didn’t even realize that it was adding up to a huge dent in my finances. A pack of Tic-Tacs here, a CD there, a DVD here, a new book there… it wasn’t long before [...]
Continue Reading The One Month Challenge
If you’re reading this, you likely have ready access to a computer with an internet connection. Most people are aware of a few ways that a personal computer can save them money, but there really are a plethora of simple, ethical ways that anyone can use a computer to make a few dollars. Here is [...]
Continue Reading 14 Ways Your Computer Can Put Money In Your Pocket
Here are some unorthodox tips for selling stuff on eBay while minimizing your own cost. Not only do the tips minimize the money one has to spend on an auction, but they generate sales on par with other items in the same category (and often higher) and create very happy customers. I have been selling [...]
Continue Reading The Secret Art of EBay Sales
It’s amazing how a baby can turn your life upside down. There is nothing that surpasses the feeling of holding your own child for the first time, looking down at the baby’s face, and realizing that they depend on you for everything. What you soon find out, though, is that everything is quite expensive. Here [...]
Continue Reading Six Surprising Ways To Save Money With A Baby
Supermarkets are designed to mess with your mind. I believe firmly that they are designed by a room full of middle management folks, sitting in an office somewhere with their coffee and suits, chuckling over the tricks they’re pulling on the populace. Stores are often organized so that the most commonly purchased items are on [...]
Continue Reading Zen and the Art of the Grocery List
The hardest part about changing your spending habits is simply getting started. For me, I was in a routine of eating out for breakfast and lunch every single weekday, plus I would stop all the time for frivolous purchases that I didn’t really need. I knew they were adding up to a lot of money, [...]
Continue Reading A One Day Commitment
Since turning my financial life around, I’ve discovered that frivolous spending really is a psychologically addictive habit. That little rush of buying something enjoyable for yourself or someone else becomes a part of your life, and when you begin to turn things around, it is a very hard habit to break.
Over time, though, I’ve found [...]
Continue Reading Turning Off The Financially Irresponsible Mindset
It seems like a surprising claim, but simply switching your regular lightbulbs for CFLs, even though they have a higher initial cost per bulb, can easily save you $100 a year. Let’s look at them in detail.
I took the information off of GE Soft White A19 bulbs in both their regular and CFL form and [...]
Continue Reading Save $100 a Year With CFL Bulbs
For many of us busy people, breakfast can often become a thing in the past, something we leave out during a hectic morning. Then, in the middle of a busy morning at work, we begin to hit a little speed bump – we feel a bit tired, or our stomach starts really growling, and our [...]
Continue Reading Eating Breakfast to Save Money
