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This article is by editor Linda Vergon.

I don’t like clutter at all, but it’s oh so easy for stuff to build up and get out of control – especially when it comes to paper. If you really like everything to be neat and tidy – but you don’t want to spend your life managing the mess – read on.

The problem with paper

I dream about going paperless. But the fact is that there are still occasions when I need actual documents to prove my existence, prove what I’ve earned, or prove that I spent my hard-earned cash on whatever.

The problem with paper records is that they come in one at a time, from different sources. That means that they could end up in my car, my wallet, my jacket pocket, or my desk at home. Making sure they all end up in a central location that keeps them safe and still accessible whenever I need them is a bit of a chore.

This article is by staff writer Lisa Aberle.

Are you ready to start killing your debt?

Whether you make the minimum payment or you’re ready to accelerate your debt repayment like a mad man/mad woman, you need a strategy to make that happen.

Why you need a debt-repayment strategy

While you have to make the minimum payment on your debt each month, what happens if you want to accelerate your payments? If your budget can accommodate it, that’s great. You can pay your debt down faster. But what if, at the same time, you have a competing goal like you want to increase your emergency savings fund or you’re uncomfortable tying up some of your spare cash because you expect a change of circumstances?

You can put a strategy together to pay off your debt and save at the same time. Interested? Read on…

This article is by staff writer Megan Wells.

Millennials are weird. I should know; I am one. For years, our unorthodox lifestyle choices and money habits have been confusing to our elders. And perhaps the most unprecedented millennial-ish move we’ve been making is the avoidance of home ownership.

With home-buying at an all-time low according to the Census Bureau, the finger is easily pointed at us as a likely cause. But instead of leveling the typical charges that we’re lazy and stuck in wanderlust as the root of why we still live at home, perhaps it’s because we’re just trying to learn from the mistakes of the past.

Consider what we’ve witnessed: As millennials, we lived through the late ’90s and early ’00s, we’ve seen our parents go through tech bubbles bursting and the entire housing market crashing. We saw firsthand what can happen if you buy a home when you can’t afford it or if your job just suddenly vanishes.

This article is by editor Linda Vergon.

I bet a lot of people have a similar experience when they realize they have a problem with their finances. They create a budget – or they try to anyway – and, somewhere down the road, they get frustrated with the amount of effort required to keep it up. Ultimately, a lot of them give up budgeting altogether.

That was J.D. Roth’s experience. Mine too. As J.D.’s journey unfolded, he became frustrated with the traditional budget, calling it “too fussy”; but he didn’t give up. Instead, he created a spending plan and used it for years. He’d come across the Balanced Money Formula before, but thought the concept was “light.”

The Balanced Money Formula

Here’s how he described the concept in 2009: