Recent comments

  • HP Giving Away $500 to a Lucky Wise Bread Reader   14 years 43 weeks ago

    The smartest investment I've made is in improving my written and oral communication skills. Whether I am interacting with clients, my boss, prospective employers or just friends I've found that the ability to present my ideas in a clear and coherent manner gets me taken much more seriously. If I can't communicate my thoughts and ideas well then how can the person I am addressing expect me to exucute on my ideas well? Indeed, I find that whenever I read anything with typos or poor grammar I am unable to take the writer all that seriously regardless of how good their ideas might be.

  • Tips for Accomplishing More in a Day   14 years 43 weeks ago

    One of the things that helped increase my focus and "time management" was to commit to the process. I made a commitment to learn how to master myself instead of my time. Once I made that commitment, even if I got off track for a short period of time, I would always bounce back. Now I can execute even the largest task much more effectively than before.

  • HP Giving Away $500 to a Lucky Wise Bread Reader   14 years 43 weeks ago

    The best investment I ever made was in a book about financial planning by David Bach. Though, I haven't mastered all of the tenets it really set me on the right track and I've been able to increase my savings and knowledge.

  • HP Giving Away $500 to a Lucky Wise Bread Reader   14 years 43 weeks ago

    The smartest investment I have ever made was saving for college as early as possible, and paying on my loans while in school. I graduated with very minimal debt!

  • HP Giving Away $500 to a Lucky Wise Bread Reader   14 years 43 weeks ago

    The smartest investment I ever made was in knowledge. Lame answer, I know, but it is SO TRUE. Without reading all our financial blogs, and finance books/magazines/etc over the past 3 years, there's no way in hell I'd be where I am today. Passion to learn more (and then apply it all) gets you much farther than a lucky stock or house purchase, etc.

  • HP Giving Away $500 to a Lucky Wise Bread Reader   14 years 43 weeks ago

    The best investment I have made I haven't exactly seen all my returns on yet but am hoping I will in the future. My investment has been in my health! Exercising regularly, making sure to include a healthy amount of fruits and vegetables and taking time to relax and disconnect are the best investment I have made thus far. I hope that the healthy behaviors I am making a habit of now will pay off in continued health in the future and cut down on future medical costs.

  • HP Giving Away $500 to a Lucky Wise Bread Reader   14 years 43 weeks ago

    Our greatest investment was paying a little extra for a home becuase it is in a better schoold district. I think it will pay off even further when the kids are ready for college.
    THANKS for the AWESOME GIVEAWAY!!!

    Scott Martin

  • Best Money Tips: How to Prepare for Natural Disasters   14 years 43 weeks ago

    You are welcome!

  • HP Giving Away $500 to a Lucky Wise Bread Reader   14 years 43 weeks ago

    The best investment I ever made was a degree from a small institution. Not only did I form some relationships that will undoubtedly last a lifetime, I also got more a degree that landed me my first job. With my bio degree from a small school I was able to get much more lab experience and better relationships with professors.

  • Alice.com: How to Save on Toilet Paper and Diapers Without Working Hard   14 years 43 weeks ago

    Alice.com is great for saving some money. Thanks for sharing!

  • HP Giving Away $500 to a Lucky Wise Bread Reader   14 years 43 weeks ago

    Staying married to the same man for 42 years has been my wisest decision - I invested in a good marriage.

  • How to Sell Gold Without Getting Ripped Off   14 years 43 weeks ago

    I recently sold some gold jewelry (right before prices started climbing so high), and I got about 50% of the gold value - mostly because I couldn't find any information about what I should be aiming for. It's good to know that 85% is achievable, though there's probably some negotiating required to get there.

    There are several gold calculators online that will tell you the value based on the karats of your piece, so that helps take some of the math out.

    Thanks for the great resources.

  • HP Giving Away $500 to a Lucky Wise Bread Reader   14 years 43 weeks ago

    I grew up in a family that dined out CONSTANTLY and spent a fortune doing so. The best investment I've made has to be learning how to cook and buying good tools for cooking. We spend a small fraction of what my parents spent 30 years ago for food/eating.

  • HP Giving Away $500 to a Lucky Wise Bread Reader   14 years 43 weeks ago

    My best investment has been my college degree. What I am making now compared to what I was making before I had it are a world apart.

  • HP Giving Away $500 to a Lucky Wise Bread Reader   14 years 43 weeks ago

    I took advantage of a stock purchase program at my old employer. I left the company and almost forgot about it until recently when I am getting ready to buy a house. That extra money will help me with a down payment!

  • HP Giving Away $500 to a Lucky Wise Bread Reader   14 years 43 weeks ago

    Therapy was my best investment. I never sat down before and thought about where I wanted my life to go, how not to get into bad relationships, and especially learn what I value most and how to focus on those values. I'm now in love with a wonderful man and looking to finding a career that I enjoy and love also.

  • HP Giving Away $500 to a Lucky Wise Bread Reader   14 years 43 weeks ago

    The best investment I ever made is a fairly recent one - I saved up and upgraded my DSLR camera to a much nicer model than my old one. It's allowing me kick off a side business MUCH sooner than I dreamed of, and I wouldn't give it up for the world!

  • The Best and Worst Things to Buy in September   14 years 43 weeks ago

    All the stress of moving last weekend seems a little bit better knowing that, at the very least, it's a good time to buy new sheets for my new apartment.

  • How to Sell Gold Without Getting Ripped Off   14 years 43 weeks ago

    Even though it totally makes sense, it never occurred to me that they'd only pay for the part of your gold that is actually gold.

    I'm more of a silver lady, so I've never done this myself. Does anybody have any stories about selling gold, good or bad?

  • The Worst Investments You Can Make   14 years 43 weeks ago

    Proprietary Colleges (For PROFIT "career schools") are nearly always a bad bet. An open admissions University may or may not be. For example, a Community College is a great way to get an education if you are broke and need to start somewhere. Yes, they take anyone, but they offer remediation for those who didn't do well or didn't care the first in high school, they offer training in technical areas as well as in traditional academic areas. In many states the academic courses are guaranteed to transfer to other 4 year Universities. This is a huge cost savings. CLEP tests can also help lower the cost of an education. Community Colleges often have better scheduling to meet the needs of working adults.

    Finally, Congress passed new legislation helping to protect students from being given a non-marketable "degree" and from being saddled with loans for the same. I hope you will do a follow up post on this.

  • Tips for Accomplishing More in a Day   14 years 43 weeks ago

    Eliminating distractions is huge. One thing that helped me a lot was downloading more than one browser on my computer. Chrome is my "home" browser, where I do things like check my personal email and Facebook, and I use Firefox for work. I only open Chrome during break times, and it's helped me cut back on random clicking around so much.

    Does anybody have any other suggestions for ways to eliminate distractions, or get more done in general?

  • The Pros and Cons of Paying Cash for a House   14 years 43 weeks ago

    also forgot to take into the acconut inflation rate of 3%...so basically with todays rate of return (top 3% for 10 years) after the tax and inflation I'm loosing money in the bank...WOW

  • Best Money Tips: How to Prepare for Natural Disasters   14 years 43 weeks ago

    Thanks for including my article!

  • 25 Alternative Uses for Lemons   14 years 43 weeks ago

    great article! Didn't know that you can use lemons as hand sanitizer. Also, cute idea with leaving notes on lemons.

  • HP Giving Away $500 to a Lucky Wise Bread Reader   14 years 43 weeks ago

    The smartest investment I ever made was taking Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace program. By working through his program and living like no one else, someday I will be able to LIVE (and GIVE) like no one else!