Wanderlust has no age limit. For many Baby Boomers and members of the Silent Generation, your Golden Years are a time to go on the trips you couldn’t take with busy weekends and limited time off during your 40 or more years in the workforce. In fact, 38% of Baby Boomers have a travel related… Read More The Ultimate Guide to Senior Travel Discounts
Every month, I spend some time on a personal finance statement. I’m careful to include the current balances on all of my debts and assets, then I add up the assets, subtract the debts off the top, and wind up with a number that, in one single value, represents my financial standing in the world.… Read More My Real Net Worth
Each week, I highlight ten things each week that inspired me to greater financial, personal, and professional success. Hopefully, they will inspire you as well. 1. Peter Drucker on something new “If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.” – Peter F. Drucker Our hours are already full with something, even… Read More Ten Pieces of Inspiration #176
While frugal people often get a bad rap for being “cheap,” it’s usually due to misunderstanding more than anything else. Oftentimes, non-frugal folks assume those who are more careful with their money just “don’t know how to have fun” or haven’t learned to enjoy the finer things in life. Or they might assume someone who… Read More How to Handle People Who Hate Your Frugal Lifestyle
This past weekend, my wife and I were watching Clark Howard’s show on Headline News. During the program, Clark stated a canard that I’ve heard several times from personal finance “gurus” over the past couple years: instead of saving for a child’s college education, parents are better off saving for their own retirement. Clark’s main… Read More Saving for College or Saving for Retirement: What’s Best for Us?
If I had to point to one idea that really shook my financial thinking and showed me the value of turning my finances around, it was the concept of exchanging my life’s energy for money, as explained in the wonderful book Your Money or Your Life. The idea is actually pretty simple on the surface.… Read More The Money Trade
Once every few months, I get an offer from someone who thinks that I would be a perfect fit for being a “personal finance coach” or a “financial independence coach.” Usually, this idea comes from someone who has made some money doing that very thing – they’ve worked as a professional coach or a life… Read More Do You Need a Personal Finance Coach?
One of the things my wife and I both pride ourselves on is coming up with inexpensive and creative solutions for common problems. We like using white vinegar as a fabric softener – it’s inexpensive and accomplishes the same goal. We like eating leftovers. My wife just spent two weeks hand-sewing stuffed animals that she… Read More Frugality and Feeling Deprived
What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question. 1. Mortgage question 2. Old papers 3. Renting from parents and insurance 4. Skill diversification 5. Willpower struggles 6. Space for useful stuff 7. Mortgage recasting 8.… Read More Reader Mailbag: Fine China
Every other Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal productivity, personal development, or entrepreneurship book. A few weeks ago, I went out to breakfast with a big group. Most of us were engaged in great conversations about blogging and, frankly, Iowa media gossip, but a few people were pretty noticeably withdrawn from the discussion. They… Read More Review: The One-Life Solution