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Sometimes you get a windfall--a bonus, an award or reward, a gift, a long-forgotten loan unexpectedly repaid. When that happens to you, do you use the money to make a special purc

While it would be prudent to think ahead and just buy in bulk when I’m in the city, that isn’t always possible without a full day of planning and a small pull-behind trailer. So I

A tip from Eric Fedewa sparked a discussion between Wise Bread bloggers (Andrea Dickson and me). He brought a new financial term (front-loading) to our attention that indicates how

Making moonshine is especially easy because running it through a still makes all the delicate balancing of flavors that mark a great beer or wine irrelevant.

Raise your hand if you’ve never used Google or any of its services, don’t belong to any social network (including sites like Flickr, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), don’t have (

My wife and I never worry about buying something with the fear that it may go on sale. And there's a good reason for that. It's called the "price adjust" and it's an almost ironcla

At one point or another, you may find yourself needing to cut caffeine from your diet (or at least scaling way back). As a tribute to all those who have had to do without, I gi

Most of us have insurance of one sort or another. But if you're like me, the prospect of a trip to the insurance agent's office isn't something that keeps you awake with excitement

There’s nothing like starting an article with a double negative is there? Sorry, but it was the easiest way to get my point across. As a father of a 3-year old and a soon to be 1-y

It takes more than $1.40 to buy one euro today. It cost less than $1 as recently as late 2002. A Canadian dollar is worth just about exactly a US dollar--a parity not seen since

I have spent a good portion of my young life being poor. Growing up on a small family farm during the agriculture crises in the 80’s gave me perspective on what poverty really mean

Among the Wise Bread community, I get the sense that there's a kind of "pox on both their houses" attitude to the problems in the subprime mortgage markets. People who worked thro

I'm not sure how many of you watch the news or read the news blogs on a daily basis. I know I can't, it's way too depressing to do every day. But when I saw that George W. Bush, ou

It's Friday, it's time for another deal. I must preface this by saying I'm not really a huge fan of the XBox 360, not because it's a bad console but I'm no fan of the reliability r

So, I'm finishing up at my old job this week and things are crazy. Thus, I offer you some of the best travel tips that just might save you some money.

Have you ever gotten a bill where something seemed a little off? Ever wished you could quickly check to see if it was good? Well, here's how.

I remember the expression on a friend’s face when she saw me pull my sneaks from the washing machine. “You wash your tennis shoes?” Why not? They get clean, don’t they? And you

The US Treasury today unveiled a new $5 bill, with security features intended to make it harder to bleach out a $5 and use the paper to counterfeit a $100 bill.

Have more of these things floating around than you know what to do with? Just like clothespins and binder clips, these humble bits of office flotsam can be used for more things tha