Articles on Budgeting

How I Grocery Shop

First, I will commit heresy by saying that I no longer write a full weekly menu.

Bridging The Gap From Dining Out To Eating In

Feeling guilty about not having bridged the gap from dining out to cooking in? Don't. Follow my lead and I show you how to take baby steps from full-service to self-service.

A better way to create a budget

The only easy way to create a budget is to start with what you spent last month (and last year) and copy the numbers forward. If you don't do that, you're going to miss so

Travel Planning With Class

Bring up class and most people start to get touchy. Unfortunately, it's an unavoidable reality when traveling. Different groups of travelers define themselves and others by cla

Making Every Penny Count With A Zero-Based Budget

Feel like you're just living payday-to-payday? Having trouble figuring out where all your money goes? Then a zero-based budget just might be for you.

Thinking Inside the “Little White Receipt Box”

One box + Lots of Receipts = Financial Responsibility for this blogger!

How often do you get your paycheck?

One of the BlogHer featured posts talked about a mis-match between pay dates and credit card due dates. It reminded me of just how much I used to agonize over this issue, back bef

Marketing Messes With Your Head

A new study out today in PNAS confirms what we always suspected was true. The higher the price you pay for a product, the greater your subjective experience of pleasure in the prod

Looking Closer at Savings Strategies

How you put money aside may be just as important as the fact that you do. Have a look at three main strategies for setting money aside, and find one to fit your life.

Holiday Lessons Learned: Advice To Avoid Rip-Offs NYC

This holiday season has been rough for me. I moved out to New York for a few months and thought I'd be set with my savings and supplementary, lucrative temp work. However, at t

How to Find Money for Charity

You're trying to delight everyone on your Christmas list, and then the guilt sets in. What about those in more need than your family? Here are 10 ways to find money for a donat

The Quiet Millionaire: Part 2 – Major Obstacles to Financial Success

Want to have the wealth you need to follow your dreams? Brett Wilder, Certified Financial Planner and author of The Quiet Millionaire suggests that there are 7 major obsta

7 Monthly Expenses We Don't Realize We Don't Need

When you put together a frugal budget, you are usually careful to make sure you're not spending money where you don't need to. But are you getting rai

Separate Bank Accounts: 'Till Death (or Banking) Do We Part?

Many couples today boast separate bank accounts and successful relationships. But is it possible? Or are separate bank accounts a recipe for disaster?

The Retirement Latte

My introduction to David Bach was when I saw him speak at a financial conference a few years ago. He told an interesting story about a couple who came in for a consultation with hi

It's all your money

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

Price adjust - your big, fat shopping safety net.

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

Choosing Between Apples and Oranges

My family lives a fairly simple lifestyle. We live in a rural area, drive older cars, and rarely go out for dinner. But we also like to enjoy life. Given that we know approximat

Live Like There's No Tomorrow

Two weeks after my husband had gotten a glowing performance review and his manager sent care packages for all our of our kids, he was told over the phone at a client meeting that h

Debt repayment is not an expense

Over and over again, in budgeting articles and even books on personal finance, I see sample budgets that include debt repayment as if it were an expense. This shows a fundamental