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Questions about Winter Clothes, Cheap Gas, Old Freezer Items, and More!
What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. Life insurance question
2. Buying gas when it’s cheap
3. Old deep freezer items
4. Keeping old financial documents
5. Debt repayment struggles
6. Buy it for life: winter
7. Old odd collector’s items?
8. Dave Ramsey and 12%
9. Budget categories
12 Budget-Friendly Steps to a Home Office Makeover
Clear the clutter, paint a bold accent wall, hide the cords, and ditch fluorescent lighting for lamps to create a more invigorating and productive workspace. Photo: Sam Figueroa
A home office is supposed to be a pleasant — maybe even ideal — place to work. But for many, it feels like a cave with four walls that appear to be sinking in more and more each day. And if you’re a time-challenged and financially strapped entrepreneur, chances are you’ve thrown in the towel and decided to endure the less-than-desirable working conditions because it still trumps commuting to a cubicle.
Betterment Review
As I explained last week, I’m on a quest to find the best retirement plan to roll over my old 401(k). I’m going to conduct the most thorough research I can — publicly — and then put my money where my mouth is, literally rolling over my old 401(k), worth approximately $85,000, into the best plan I can find.
Today, I will take a deep dive into the online financial advisor Betterment, one of the true automated account options out there.
Creating Motivation and Discipline for Change
As I mentioned in yesterday’s article, I’m currently rethinking my plans for how I save up for large personal “fun” expenses. My first trial run with this is saving for a trip with friends next August.
What I’ve decided to do is use this trip as a motivating “carrot” to strongly push myself to get more exercise.
The Motivation Log
Here’s how it works. As of right now, I have nothing whatsoever set aside for this trip. I’m not going to directly save for it, either.
Instead, I just created a new line item in our budget. It’s $50 a month for “self improvement motivation.” At the same time, I reduced my monthly “personal spending” by $50 to make up for it.
Confronting Your Worst Money Fears
These financial fears keep Americans up at night. Fortunately, we can prepare for many of them. Photo: Joe Penna
A tornado sweeps through your town and leaves nothing but death and destruction in its wake. An electrical fire burns your house and everything in it to the ground.
A hacker steals your identity and runs up tens of thousands of dollars in debt before you realize what’s happened. Or, a distracted driver gets into a severe, life-changing accident that involves not only your car, but you.
These are the things Americans worry most about, according to a survey conducted by Travelers Insurance from July 21-28, 2014. Here are some more interesting details on the results of the survey.
What’s Your Money Mind Type?
Excerpted from “Creating Money, Creating Meaning” by Orna Ross
A core understanding in “Creating Money, Creating Meaning” is that how you do money is how you do life. Your bank statement is the most accurate statement you have of your real, lived values (as opposed to those you talk about).
If money is making you unhappy right now, it’s important to close the gap between the values you talk and think about and those you actually live, as revealed by your earning and spending.
Best Email Marketing Services for 2014
As we continue to explore the best solutions for small business today, we’ll focus on email marketing services. Make sure you visit Saving Money in Your Startup – Part 4, where Joe discusses the four basic steps to setting up your business’s email marketing.
Email marketing services are vital for managing and interacting with your customers. In this article, we’ll do a deep dive into each of the top email marketing picks followed by an explanation of important features you want to explore before choosing a provider. I’ve broken down the top picks into those with only paid services, and therefore more features, and those that offer continuous, but limited, free services.
This article is part of a series in which The Simple Dollar is doing some deep dive research into money saving tools that will help your business save money, grow and run more smoothly.
Balancing Spending, Saving, and Social Situations
Each year, I go to Gencon (a convention in Indianapolis held every August) with a fairy large and ever-shifting group of guys ranging in age from early twenties and still in college to mid-forties and in full career mode. Some are married with children, while others are married without kids and still others are single. I’ve known most of these guys for years, some of them for decades.
During the travel and the periods in hotel rooms when we’re not actively at the convention, we would have a lot of life conversations of the type you would expect from people who have known each other for many years. We caught up on how our lives were going and how our careers were going, among countless other topics.
Nine Debt-Forming Habits and How to Break Them
Being disorganized with your bills can make your debt worse. Photo: Brendan C.
The average American household with a credit card carries more than $15,000 in credit card debt, according to debt.org. Add to that $1.2 trillion (and growing) in student loan debt, sprinkle in car loans, a mortgage, personal loans, and medical debt, and we’ve got ourselves an issue.
How did we get here?
The reasons we’re in debt, of course, vary from person to person. But there are some habits and behaviors that can lead to debt or cause existing debt to grow instead of dissipate.
Here are nine habits that might be adding more debt to your life, and suggestions for breaking those habits before they get worse:
How to Find Cheap Homeowners Insurance in 2021
You may be tempted to purchase home insurance solely because it’s the cheapest offered, but price should only be one aspect of how you make your choice. You also want to look at customer service, discounts available, and other criteria. We do the heavy lifting for you, and recommend four great choices for cheap home […]
The post How to Find Cheap Homeowners Insurance in 2021 appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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