In my free time over a week ago, I went to a friend’s wedding. While it took me away from the act of moving into our new home, it was a nice opportunity to relax and wind down for a bit. I don’t get many opportunities to do that much anymore. My wife was in…
First, let me give mad props to my fellow personal finance blogger, Holly of Club Thrifty, for rocking a Wall Street Journal essay and a Fox Business TV interview. She was dealing with the topic of money and marriage. This is a very controversial topic in the world of personal finance and I understand why. I wrote about it briefly some time ago when I was talking about paying off a spouses debt when they incurred it before marriage. That one got me some angry comments and emails, but I powered through. I don’t mind causing a little controversy. I read both the arguments on the WSJ piece and I am going to provide my argument for separate finances for married couples.
Over the past decade, more and more people have found themselves deep in financial debt. While there may be some obvious reasons why some people have gotten into debt, there are also many other overlooked factors that could have led to their accumulation of debt. I have spent a good amount of my adult life in debt. I know how it feels. There is nothing fun about it, but that doesn’t mean it has to define you. Remember that you are the one in control of your money, so don’t let it take control of you. We all make mistakes and debt should be one that you only make once. I don’t plan on making the debt mistake again, so I hope you do the same.
As a reformed spender, I love the opportunity to save money. Unfortunately for all of us savers, the economy is not really geared to rewarding us for holding onto our money. Even with low interest rates, I still love to save money and want to tell you about the American Express personal savings account. One of my goals is to give my readers options on where they store their cash. I am a big proponent of spreading your liquid assets in different places, so adding another savings account is no big thing for me. I am also a big fan of American Express, because they are the holder of one of my favorite cash back credit cards. Since my large banks are giving their savings customers a paltry 0.10%, anything better than that is good for everyone!
I came across this new infographic that broke down some of the most popular colleges around the world and how much the tuition compares. I think this is really interesting, especially since we are dealing with exploding tuition prices here in the US. One of our biggest problems as a nation is the out of control costs associated with higher education. This massive increase in costs is just passed over the the student and typically in the form of student loans.
My home air conditioner is severely inefficient, so my wife and I decided to look into saving money another way. We love to have our room very cold when we sleep, but we just couldn’t afford it. In a way to save money, I bought a window air conditioner and looked to see how much I would save. Check out my saving experiment and see how much I was able to save each and every month.
As a personal finance blogger, I have used or tested quite a few tools and resources in order to help me get to my main financial goals. There are so many websites out there that it can be hard to choose. I wanted to personally hand select some of the helpful money tools for you, so…
My personal debt story begins the same as many people’s does, with one credit card and the feeling of freedom on the horizon. I got my first credit card during my freshman year in college. I was working at the time, but didn’t earn much. I had enough to pay for gas and go out when I wanted to eat something that was not made during a creative cafeteria night. My credit card was a SonyCard, which gave me points to get free Sony electronics. This was a win-win for me because I love electronics and I love being able to “afford” the things I want. This card was the beginning of a long journey that I will never forget.
