With Earth Day 2015 almost upon us, it’s a good time to think about how our actions impact the planet and, more importantly, what we can do to reduce our carbon footprint and improve our environment. Because, let’s face it, this is our home. And right now, it’s the only place we’ve got. 13 Ways… Read More 13 Ways to Save Money and Protect the Planet at the Same Time

This week, The Simple Dollar takes a look at Jim Cramer’s Real Money. Cramer has made a huge name for himself in stock picking punditry and he claims to reveal his methodology in this book. Is it worth reading? Let’s find out. Another interesting portion of the book was Jim’s recommendation of a ten stock… Read More Jim Cramer’s Real Money: Building A Ten Stock Portfolio

A reader once told me that he identifies better with other blogs because they write about the “city” and I write about “rural life.” I was informed, quite clearly, that he couldn’t possibly learn anything from a blog that spoke from a “rural” perspective. This is actually a pretty common thing. I hear all the… Read More Cultural Divides

In the past, I concluded that Jim Cramer’s success was due to the entertainment factor. I had never heard of him before tuning into his show on CNBC, where his … enthusiasm for picking stocks seems to know no bounds. I generally concluded that he was a cartoon figure and left it at that, but… Read More Review: Jim Cramer’s Real Money

Whether you’re struggling to get your debt under control or simply want to build up an emergency fund or a down payment as quickly as possible, a bare-bones budget is a powerful tool to help get you there. It’s just what it sounds like: your essential expenses, and nothing else. A simple, stripped-down budget can… Read More How to Create a Bare-Bones Budget

I like to think of one’s personal finance state as something like a toolbox. In order to accomplish a major task, one must use more than one tool from their toolbox to make it happen. Let me explain with a bit more detail. The Tools There are many, many different personal finance tools in one’s… Read More The Personal Finance Toolbox

Whenever I tune into CNBC, I’m usually blown away with the raw amount of data thrown at me. For the average person, there’s no way to separate what’s useful from what isn’t, so people often rely on the pundits to tell them. I’d prefer not to do that – I know from my experiences in… Read More How to Read a Stock Chart in Just Five Seconds

Americans continue to dig a deeper hole when it comes to credit card debt. According to the Federal Reserve and other government statistics, our penchant for indebtedness means that the average household now owes $7,281 in credit card debt alone. But here’s the thing – that average includes even those who carry no debt at… Read More The State of American Credit Card Debt in 2015

This is the fourth of sixteen parts of a “book club” reading and discussion of Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz’s Never Eat Alone, where this book on building a lifelong community of colleagues, contacts, friends, and mentors is teased apart and looked at in detail. This entry covers the seventh and eighth chapters, “Do Your… Read More Never Eat Alone: Do Your Homework

I recently read a provocative article on PsyBlog entitled Why Career Planning Is Time Wasted, which focuses on a concept called “miswanting”: The idea of making mistakes about what we might want in the future has been termed ‘miswanting’ by Gilbert and Wilson (2000). They point to a range of studies finding we are poor… Read More Why Career Planning May Be Time Wasted – And Personal Finance Planning Isn’t