For many couples, money is a tough topic. That’s why, for the past couple of months, I’ve been using the first post of the month to focus on ideas for making money work in marriage. It’s also why I created a financial workshop to help engaged and newly married couples get their relationship started in […]
Author Archive | Matt Bell
What Women Fear (About Money)
There was an interesting and surprising piece on Forbes.com about women’s greatest financial fears. Reportedly (the article didn’t actually say how it came up with its list), women’s top ten financial fears include finding themselves suddenly destitute (“the bag lady syndrome” – the article noted that even Katie Couric suffers from this fear), being unable […]
Why Saving More is Good News and Bad News
Has the recession turned you into a saver? You’re not alone. According to government statistics, the average American is now saving about five percent of his or her income—quite an improvement from the negative savings rate of just five years ago. However, as was noted on CNBC recently, an increase in the personal savings rate […]
Keeping Warm for Less
With winter just around the corner (stop laughing all of you who live in the South!), homeowners’ thoughts turn to… heating our homes for less. Aside from all the obvious ideas (set the thermostat on 50 and wear a parka inside, blah, blah), CNNMoney.com came up with a few new ideas. First, replace that dinosaur […]
Encouraging Your Kids to be Entrepreneurs
There was a good post on Get Rich Slowly recently about fanning the entrepreneurial flames in your kids. The author suggested connecting money making ideas with your kids’ interests (as opposed to just making money for the sake of making money), supervising the set-up of their business but giving them enough room to fail since […]
Money Lessons From a Long Run
My wife and I recently ran the 13-mile Chicago half marathon. For us, it was the accomplishment of a very challenging goal. Over the past 10 years, we had never run anywhere close to that distance. As we trained for the event, I noticed a lot of similarities with pursuing a tough financial goal like […]
The Money/Happiness Connection Revisited
It’s a timeless question: does more money translate into more happiness? A new study by researchers at the Center for Health and Well-Being at Princeton University shows that happiness does increase with income – to a point. At $75,000 per year, happiness levels off. But the study was actually more nuanced than that. The researchers […]
Recession Lessons: The Importance of Family Support
The number of children being raised by a grandparent spiked during the onset of the recession, growing nine percent between 2007 and 2008 to nearly three million kids. That’s according to new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. Of course, a far greater number of grandparents provide some help with childcare as […]
More Opting for Uncations than Staycations or Vacations
More than half of American workers do not use all of their vacation time, according to a new survey, and more than a third of those who do take time off regularly check in with their office while they’re away. A spokesperson for StudyLogic, the company that conducted the research, believes the high unemployment rate […]
Flexible Spending Accounts Becoming Less Flexible
If you have a Flexible Spending or Health Savings Account, some new rules will soon go into effect that you’re not going to be happy about. Beginning next year, you will no longer be able to use such accounts to pay for many over-the-counter medicines or drugs (allergy and cold medicines, antacids, acne treatments, etc., […]