The Writer’s Coin

Slate makes a good point in this article about what people are going to do with their rebate checks. I guess people are saying that they will be saving that money or using it on essential items. The experts (and history) beg to differ with that one—most Americans will treat like free money and blow [...]

Read Full Post »

Sun has a nice post discussing the importance of direct deposit. Direct deposit isn’t a must when it comes to keeping a budget and saving money, but it sure makes it a lot easier.
One of the first tenets you’ll hear repeated over and over in personal finance is “make it automatic.” That means setting up [...]

Read Full Post »

I ran across this article on Yahoo! Finance the other day and it got me thinking about how I “grade” on each of these qualities. So lets run down the ten of them and see how well (or badly) I fare:

Patience: I love reading articles about retirement, so this is a good indicator that I’m [...]

Read Full Post »

Last week M’s car had a pretty bad flat tire so she took it in to see if it was patchable or if she needed a new one. The guy at the shop told her that her tire was completely punctured and she would need to buy a new one. That sucks, but not such [...]

Read Full Post »

As I mentioned earlier this week, reading is one way that helps me brainstorm new ideas. It doesn’t have to be something new, it just has to be something interesting. So yesterday I was going through Ramit’s blog, Iwillteachyoutoberich, poking around some of his old posts looking for something interesting. For those that have never [...]

Read Full Post »

So the FED cut its rates again because it’s trying to stimulate the economy and avoid a recession. Usually, that means stocks go up and the savings rate you get from high-interest banks like ING Direct go down (again).
For an interesting read on the FED and how our economy rewards risk taking without holding these [...]

Read Full Post »

It’s a question we all ask ourselves when we find a new job or when we just fantasize about the new job we’d like to have: If I was making X, then I could afford to do X.
After getting my new job, I spent a lot of time trying to calculate my new paycheck (I [...]

Read Full Post »

I’ve added a small ING ad at the top of each post today for a few reasons:
1. It’s another way of diversifying my income (first I need more traffic though)
2. I really believe that a high-yield savings account is the first step in taking control of your finances. It was for me and I [...]

Read Full Post »

When I first started this site, it was hosted by Wordpress and I didn’t have the option to put ads on it. And to be honest, I never really thought about it. I started the blog thinking I would help others go through the financial awakening that I went through, and I hoped to learn [...]

Read Full Post »

Last week I wrote about how the markets have got me nervous. My reasons aren’t because my investments are losing value, it’s because I’m not sure how to best take advantage of the drop.
It’s not easy seeing your hard-earned, hard-saved money getting lobbed off at the head, but that’s just the nature of the beast. [...]

Read Full Post »