Philip Brewer's blog

Book review: Towers of Gold

It will not, I think, surprise my regular readers to hear that I like to read books about money. All kinds of books about money--not just books on personal finance and frugality,

Getting by without a job, part 4--get free stuff

There are all kinds of ways to get stuff without money. You can grow it in a garden, gather it from the wild, make it yourself, get it as a gift, scavenge it from trash, or get it

Getting by without a job, part 3--cut spending

With the economy tanking, more and more people will be not just losing their job, but will be finding themselves without one for an extended period. When that happens it's not goo

Getting by without a job, part 2--boost income

There are countless ways to raise your income, besides the obvious one of getting a job. Here are a few categories, and a few suggestions.

Getting by without a job, part 1--losing a job

Losing a job is always tough. During hard economic times--when it may not be possible to find another job as good as the one you've lost--it's even tougher. Here are a few steps

Is your country corrupt?

When I first traveled overseas, I was surprised to learn that many foreigners thought of the United States as a corrupt place--surprised enough that I undertook some careful questi

Don't treat businesses like people

When you fall short of meeting your obligations, it's natural to feel bad. In fact, it's natural to want to not only meet the letter of your obligation, but also the spirit: to d

Not the sort of person who ...

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

Funding your 401(k) when you're in debt

If there are two pieces of financial advice that get hammered more often than any others, they're "Get out of debt" and "Put enough in your 401(k) to get any corporate match." Wi

Emergency belt-tightening

Typical personal finance advice would have you divide your budget categories into two groups: Your fixed expenses and your discretionary expenses. I generally don't like that dis

New rate set for series I savings bonds

Every six months, the Treasury sets a new fixed rate for series I savings bonds. After tracking close to the rate on the Treasury's other inflation-indexed bonds during the Clinto

Check your statements

If a bogus transaction gets posted to your bank account or credit card, you have almost complete protection--just notify the bank that the transaction wasn't authorized and they ha

Why invest in the stock market?

The conventional reason for investing in the stock market--perhaps offered with a bit less confidence now that we're in the midst of a stock market crash--is, "It offers higher ret

The whole sorry mess in one picture

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

Invest some of this cheap energy

I've tried to avoid predicting energy prices, except to say that they'll be volatile. I'm not a bit surprised to see oil and gasoline prices dropping by half in the past few month

Book review: Spend 'til The End

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

Surviving a financial panic -- lessons from the past

Financial panics used to be quite ordinary. In the century or two prior to the great depression, there was a panic every 15 or 20 years. Since the great depression we haven't had

Book review: Internet Riches

If you've never considered starting an internet business--but now that I mention it, it seems like a good idea--this is the book for you. If you've considered starting an internet

Inflation is going away for a while

For a decade, starting in the mid-1990s, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates too low and expanded the money supply too quickly. Their theory was that, as long as consumer pric

What's the big deal about banks refusing to lend?

Anybody--but especially frugal people--can be excused for thinking that the whole credit crisis thing is being overblown. After all, we get along without debt. In fact, we str