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Free Money Finance is a personal finance blog designed to help readers grow their net worth. The site is over four years old and contains more than 7,000 posts on saving money, making money, investing, planning for retirement, and all other personal finance related topics.

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Help a Reader: Triplets

Published Friday, February 10, 2012 - 05:29 by Free Money Finance

Here's an email I recently received from a reader: We just found out we may have triplets (and are sorta freaking out financially).I will start with, I make an OK wage in Ohio (low cost city). I have very little debt (no CC debt, no car payments) in the form of a mortgage, we have only been in the house since 2008.  The house is 2100 SQFT with 3 bedrooms. […]

Americans Woefully Unprepared for Retirement

Published Thursday, February 9, 2012 - 16:45 by Free Money Finance

US News offers some thoughts on preparing for retirement. But it's not the advice I want to focus on. […]

Compute Your Net Worth Once a Year

Published Thursday, February 9, 2012 - 11:45 by Free Money Finance

The following is a guest post from Marotta Wealth Management. I actually compute my net worth once a month. I'll be discussing my year-end 2011 net worth soon on an upcoming post.Since the end of last year, the U.S. markets went up and then down and then back up to end the year sideways. […]

Comments on This Blog

Published Thursday, February 9, 2012 - 09:04 by Free Money Finance

I have received several emails lately from FMF readers who have tried to leave comments. In many cases, they seemingly posted the comments only to have them disappear. I have been working with Typepad (my blog software and host) to try and determine what the problem is, but they can't seem to crack it.The situation is made worse by the fact that there seems to be no pattern to the problem. […]

How Much Do You Spend on Kids' Birthday Parties?

Published Thursday, February 9, 2012 - 05:29 by Free Money Finance

US News gives some alternatives to pricey kids' birthday parties. This piece made me wonder -- just how much do people spend on birthday parties for their kids? We have some friends that go totally overboard and others that seem to pass them by without much fanfare. Here's what we do: Each of our kids gets $100 for his/her birthday. […]

Tricky Tactics by Mutual Funds

Published Wednesday, February 8, 2012 - 16:45 by Free Money Finance

We've talked a lot about index fund investing and, specifically, how they beat most actively managed funds over a long period of time once costs are deducted from returns. As well as they do, Wise Bread thinks index funds probably beat more actively managed funds than is generally accepted because of some tricky tactics by those other funds. […]

Free Money Finance March Money Madness, Round 1, Posts 5-8

Published Wednesday, February 8, 2012 - 14:15 by Free Money Finance

Here we go with the first round of Free Money Finance March Money Madness (to follow all the action click on my March Money Madness category link and scroll down to read all the posts involved in this subject.) I've listed each "game" (one post versus another) in segments along with the wording provided by the author when the post was submitted. […]

Worst Money Advice Ever

Published Wednesday, February 8, 2012 - 11:45 by Free Money Finance

MSN Money lists six stories of people telling the worst financial advice they ever received. […]

Where Do You Stand on These Financial Ratios?

Published Wednesday, February 8, 2012 - 05:29 by Free Money Finance

Dough Roller lists a set of financial ratios and gives guidelines on where each of us should stand in relation to them. These can be used as a sort of financial check-up to see if you're on track. […]

Do You Plan to Move When You Retire?

Published Tuesday, February 7, 2012 - 16:45 by Free Money Finance

Kiplinger recently had a piece saying people should stay put when they retire. In other words, don't look to move to Florida or Arizona -- simply keep living in the same city (even the same house) that you lived in pre-retirement.Staying put in retirement seems to be a growing trend, forced on many people because of the housing market. […]