Growing up, I knew kids who were paid for their grades. An A was worth $X, and a B was worth a little less, and so on. My parents briefly flirted with the idea of paying my siblings and me for our grades but realized it didn’t really motivate us all that much. It was unnecessary in […]
So you’ve made that very difficult first step and decided it’s time to do something about your debt. Maybe you’ve reached the end of your financial rope. Perhaps you signed up for a money management program, enrolled in a debt relief plan, or maybe you’re doing it all on your own. You’re excited about the prospect […]
For the first few years of our marriage, my ex-husband and I lived paycheck to paycheck. I barely made over minimum wage, and although he made significantly more than I did, it still wasn’t a lot. We had a mortgage payment, as well as a stack of credit card debt accumulated from my ex being […]
Every year we make the same resolutions only to lose motivation and momentum, and yet we seem to think that each new year will be ‘the year’ we are magically able to follow through. Whether it’s losing weight, exercising more, starting a new hobby, getting rid of clutter, or saving money, most resolutions to change […]
I have a love-hate relationship with financial rules of thumb. On one hand, I recognize that not everyone is going to spend as much time thinking about and researching financial topics as they should, and rules of thumb give them easy-to-remember guidelines for staying on track. But on the other hand, these types of guidelines […]
We all know that we need to save for our golden years, but it can be difficult to know just how aggressive our savings goals need to be in order to fund a comfortable retirement. For many savers, it’s easier to simply put enough into the 401(k) to get the employer’s matching contribution and call […]
