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This article is by staff writer Kristin Wong.

It seems like an odd goal for a kid; but when I was little, I wanted to be financially secure. Of course, I didn’t put it that way. Instead, I declared, “When I grow up, I want to be rich.” Incidentally, so did my parents. I remember rolling quarters with them, while they explained to me the importance of saving. At a young age, I realized I’d need money to do many of the things I wanted to do: travel, live in the big city, and buy stuff at the grocery store without feeling guilty. “Save your money,” they told me. “It adds up.”

This article is by staff writer Honey Smith.

The new year is a time to look forward; but in order to do that, you need to know where you’ve been. Before I set my goals for 2015, I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything that happened last year.

This article is by editor Linda Vergon.

For many years, shopping for the perfect outfit was my sport of choice. I had a near-perfect excuse. To compete for the best jobs working in the most prestigious law firms in Century City, Santa Monica, and Beverly Hills, I needed to dress almost as well as the attorneys did. It was expensive, but it didn’t matter. Don’t hate me, but when the saleswoman at Nordstrom showed me a beautiful St. John’s suit, I fell in love.

I don’t remember how much I paid for my one and only St. John’s back then, but it wasn’t cheap. Today, one of these business suits will set you back $1,700 to $2,600 if it’s not on sale. The thing is, it was definitely worth it – to me anyway – because I believed it would help me get better jobs. Plus, I thought that high-quality clothing would last years, which I considered valuable. Do I make the same decisions today?

This article is by Suba Iyer, who currently writes for FiveCentNickel.com.

Until a few years ago, I used to frequent a store that gave $10 (technically a credit of $10 toward future purchases, but it wasn’t cash) back for every $50 purchase. Whenever I got to $40 in purchases, I would add unplanned items to bring the total up to $50 as I couldn’t leave the “free” $10 on the table. My rationale was that these items were technically free. But in reality, the rationalization is nonsensical because: (1) The $10 credit was only applicable for purchases made weeks after my original visit and, by the time it became eligible, I had invariably forgotten that I had the credit and so it naturally would expire; and (2) I only needed $40 worth of items, so even though I could get $60 worth of items for $50, I paid $10 more than I intended to and I ended up with $20 worth of stuff that I didn’t need. It took me a while to stop this behavior.