The savings rate in the United States has increased significantly over the last few months, clearly as a response to our current economic climate. But how does our historical savin
The most simple-minded measure of your standard of living is how much money you spend: spending more equals living better. Reality is more complex. There are a lot of ways to li
If you quit checking your 401(k) balance last year, because the market crash made it too depressing, now might be a good time to take a fresh look. It'll still be well down from t
Most people think saving money has to be fun and exciting in order to work. Not so. I took The Boring Challenge and saved over $2,000. How much money will you save?
I got a notice from one of my credit cards a bit ago, announcing that they were raising the interest rate. It's only of theoretical interest to me, of course--I use credit cards f
I spent my whole adult life trying to figure out how to get by on a lot less money, because I wanted to be a full-time writer and knew that it wouldn't pay enough to support the li
A friend recently told me that someone she knows is so cheap that he would not let her use paper towels at his place. Yet at the same time he complains about not having enough mon
When I went off to college in 1977, inflation was high and rising, but the maximum interest rate you could earn on a savings account was capped by the government at a fraction over
Preventing a collapse of the financial system is part of preventing a depression. However, the shorthand term for this--getting the banks able and willing to lend--is misleading.
We're subjected to constant barrage of unhelpful advice to the effect that what the economy needs is more spending. (The stimulus program is one piece of this.) It's kind of unde
During the Christmas break my husband and I went to dinner with some of his friends from high school. One couple we spoke with told us that they are trying to save money for a dow
Wise Bread is stuffed almost to bursting with suggestions on how to live large on a small budget. But certain suggestions trigger a particular kind of negative reaction:—w
In the current economic climate, everyone is trying to save a buck. I know some families that have budgets so tight that there is no room for saving, but I think it is possible for
How much money is there in the economy to borrow? Well, if you don't have foreigners lending you large amounts of money, and you don't have central banks creating large amounts of
My wife spotted this book at the library and brought it home, suggesting (based on the title) that it might be a sort of anti-Wise Bread that I could read and mock. When I started
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