Getting Started With a Budget
Using a budget is one of the smartest money management moves you could make. For guidance on using a paper & pencil system, read the Budget Quick Start Guide and make use of the Cash Flow Plan, Cash Flow Tracker, and Recommended Spending Guidelines, all found in the Resources section. For help using the online tool Mint.com, watch my tutorials here, here, and here. And for help with the Envelope system, read this article.
Remember, “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.” – Proverbs 21:5
If you’re really paying attention, life can be a very odd experience. Especially when it comes to money. For example, in troubled economic times, front-page newspaper stories regularly quote economists expressing concern that the personal savings rate is going up. I still vividly remember reading one such story during a recession. I had to blink […]
There’s a new report out that says a growing but still small number of Americans are financially healthy. Working with researchers at the University of Southern California, the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) administers an annual eight-question survey among a representative sample of U.S. adults, leading to what it calls the U.S. Financial Health […]
Those of us who write about money for a living can get a little carried away by some of the nitty-gritty details. That seemed to be the case in a surprisingly impassioned debate that sprang up recently over what a person’s higher priority should be—controlling spending or controlling saving. At first, it seemed kind of […]
Weekly roundup of interesting and helpful personal finance articles from around the web. Will TikTok make you buy it? (NY Times). Influencing is so yesterday. Now it’s all about the direct sale. What’s the best way to set financial goals? (A Teachable Moment). Think about one of your financial goals. What aspects of it can […]
What if there were a single step you could take to greatly increase your sense of financial control and confidence, decrease your financial stress, make your marriage work better, free up money for generosity, increase your savings, and speed the process of getting out of debt? What if this single step were available to you […]
Weekly roundup of interesting and helpful personal finance articles from around the web. A money-making machine: why a Roth IRA is your retirement best friend (USA Today). If you have kids and they have earned income, get them started on a Roth. Long after you’re gone, they’ll continue to think very nice thoughts about you! […]
A divorce attorney once told me that when money is the issue that comes between couples, as it often is, the most common problem is that the spouses were living separate financial lives. Often, unbeknownst to the other, one was taking their relationship to the edge of a financial cliff, usually by racking up a […]
Weekly roundup of interesting and helpful personal finance articles from around the web. What’s a better investment? Bitcoin or a Roth IRA? (Paul Merriman). One of the most reasonable articles I’ve read about cryptocurrency investing. Dollar cost averaging vs. lump sum: the definitive guide (Of Dollars and Data). The lump sum wins, if you can […]
With all the stuff two people bring into a marriage, it’s no wonder that money is a very frequent topic of dispute. They were raised by different sets of parents who did the whole money thing in their unique way. They had different personal financial experiences. They have different temperaments, and they bring into marriage […]
Sheila has long been an expert at living beneath her means. Even when she was making a relatively low salary and living in an expensive city, she never worried about not having enough. She always had money in the bank. Because she grew up as one of five kids with a stay-at-home mom and schoolteacher […]
