Money Tips Network

Savers are having a tough time. Interest rates are low, and that means yields on cash are low, too.

At the end of January, I had an epiphany.

Kim and I were sitting in the living room one evening, relaxed in our easy chairs, both reading books. All four of our beasts were nestled nearby. The house was quiet. For the first time in forever, I felt completely content.

For maybe twenty minutes, I paused what I was doing and simply savored the moment. I stopped. I looked around. I made time to be present in the Now.

Eventually, my mind began to wander. “When was the last time I was this happy?” I wondered. I thought back to the late 1990s when my ex-wife and I lived in similar circumstances. Kris and I would read together in the evening, each with a cat in our laps. Life was simpler. I felt no anxiety. I was happy.

Curious about amortization? This schedule explains your monthly payment and how those payments are divided up between principal and interest.

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Ah, life. It's funny sometimes, isn't it?

On Thursday, I began writing an article about the difference between personal finance in Mexico vs. the United States. You see, last week I spent several days in Mexico with a friend (who also happens to be my accountant). I had planned to finish the article on Friday. I came close. I got the YouTube version done and was nearing completion on the blog version.

But then Portland was hit with a winter storm.

Kim and I spent Friday afternoon prepping our yard for ice. Good thing, too. That night, our neighborhood was blanketed with an inch of freezing rain.

I've lived through a handful of ice storms over the past couple of decades. Two of them were worse than this when measured in inches. But when measured in sheer damage? Wow, this year's storm takes top billing.

Hey hey, y'all. Here's a guest post from former GRS staff writer (and perennial reader favorite) Donna Freedman. This piece about becoming a frugalvore contains material that originally appeared at Donna's site, Surviving and Thriving. It's been modified for GRS. Enjoy!

The “locavore” movement is based on the idea of eating only foods grown within a 100-mile radius of where you live. Vicki Robin, for instance, might be best-known for her money manual Your Money or Your Life, but she also wrote a book for locavores in which she advocates a ten-mile diet.

There’s a lot that goes into financial stability — and it seems out of reach for many of us. Laura Whateley’s new book, Money: A User’s Guide, cuts through the panic and gives readers the confidence they need to take back their financial goals. Designed to read like an instruction manual for personal finance, we […]

The post What if Personal Finance Had a User’s Guide? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

One money idea I've been coming back to a lot recently is the “buck-an-hour” rule of thumb for entertainment. I ran across it on J Money's site.

It's a simple rule in principle and practice: When buying entertainment, the amount of entertainment time should work out to a buck an hour, or better.

My corollary to this is that for families it should work out to a buck per person-hour or better. So if all three of us are enjoying something, that counts triple.

Here are some examples.

While I've identified as a writer since I was eight years old, what I've written has changed significantly over time.

When I was very young, I was only interested in writing stories. These stories were child-like, to be sure, but they grew in sophistication as I did. By junior high, I was drafting large chunks of fantasy novels (mimicking the books I tended to read at the time). Then, in high school, I discovered a love for poetry.

In high school and college, I mostly wrote poetry. Some of it was actually good, too. (Seriously!) I won contests and scholarships with my poetry, and some of it even saw print in small magazines.

But somewhere along the way, I stopped writing poems. I've written a few songs with friends over the years, but that's it really. The part of me that's a poet — a part that once was integral — seems to no longer exist.