(By the way, NCN has a new podcast out after taking a break for a few months. He talks about staying true to the basics in this one.) In times of plenty it’s natural to want to enjoy more of what life has to offer. When people feel rich, they feel the draw to supersize … Read more
At the beginning of this series, I mentioned that part of the reason for the series was to remind myself of the basics of wise personal finance. The risk in doing that was that I would run across one (or more) of the basics that I was utterly incompetent in, and would need to write … Read more
(I thought that Thoreau said that word three times in a row in Walden but it was only twice. Oh well.) Simplify, simplify, simplify. As in make things simpler. As in get rid of the minutiae that weigh you down. Here are some suggestions for freeing up money and freeing up time by freeing up … Read more
Pretty much any good personal finance resource you run across will talk about this: Spend less than you earn. All this means is that your expenses (everything that leaves your wallet) are less than your income (everything that enters your wallet). If you’re spending more than you bring in, you’ll have to borrow the difference. … Read more
Millions of people in the US are feeling at least a little pain as the market whipsaws and home values go down. The people feeling the most pain now have more mortgage debt than they can handle, the inability to refinance that debt, perhaps a lot of credit card debt, and maybe even unemployment. People … Read more
I felt like we dodged a bullet tonight. I was checking balances on some of my accounts and I loaded up the balance on our primary checking account. I knew it was going to be low. We had had a couple of big expenses (a six-month car insurance premium and a replaced central air system) … Read more
Earlier this week my wife had the opportunity to go back to work as an English teacher at a local private Christian school. (As in, go back to work outside of the house. She works plenty hard as it is raising our daughter.) She ultimately decided not to pursue the job after praying about it … Read more
As part of our preparation for Tropical Storm Hanna we kept some cash on hand in our emergency kit. Hanna turned out to be more beneficial for us for the rainfall but it could have been much worse. Stashing cash in the mattress as a primary means of saving for retirement is a poor idea … Read more