Money Tips Network

You’re standing at the grocery store looking at a large selection of wines. You know you want a red wine to go well with your pasta meal this evening. One is $5.99 per bottle. Another is $19.99 per bottle and has a little tag bragging about the score it received in some wine magazine. Which one is likely to bring you more enjoyment?

Believe it or not, the difference between the wines amounts to a complete coin flip. Professional wine judges, when faced with duplicate blind taste tests, fail to accurately repeat their grading of wines. From this study, with my own emphasis added:

Insurance is essentially a form of protection for the things you value most. Photo: Jenny Downing

Insurance is a form of protection for the things you value most in life. It helps you manage risk by promising to assume some or all of the financial burden caused by unexpected events such as fire, accidents, illness, or death. But not everyone has the same insurance needs. As you accumulate more of value in your life — a car, a home, a child — there’s more you need or want to protect.

This article is by staff writer Kristin Wong.

I get frustrated when people don’t understand what it means to be frugal. A few criticisms of frugality I’ve come across:

• Frugality is a waste of time.

• Frugality distracts you from earning more money.

• Frugal people deny themselves of any enjoyment.

I’ve already written in detail about how these arguments are silly. They might apply to being cheap, but they don’t apply to being frugal.

The point of being frugal

My two favorite splurges are dining out and travel. Over the past few months, I’ve splurged quite a bit. One night, driving home from dinner with a friend, a little voice in my head said:

For those investing for retirement, target-date funds sound like a great idea. Say you want to retire in 2030. Simply purchase a 2030 target-date fund, the wisdom holds, and the fund will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you when it comes to your investments.

But like that time you tried to pass your literature midterm by scanning the Cliff’s Notes of “Crime and Punishment,” taking the easy way out may not be your best strategy here either. As one expert says, target-date funds are “the one-stop shop for mutual fund investing.” In selecting the holdings comprising the fund, target-date fund managers choose a higher concentration of high-risk, high-return holdings in early stages, gradually converting to lower-risk holdings as the target date nears.

Over the past 20 years, data has moved out of your hard drive and into the cloud. The world is becoming more and more mobile without compromising accessibility. Luckily, technology has quickly advanced to accommodate our newfound lifestyles.

Cloud storage providers enable individuals and businesses to easily transfer files to secure networks in order to free up device space while allowing for seamless collaboration between multiple parties.

This article is part of a series in which The Simple Dollar is doing some deep dive research into money saving tools that can help your business thrive.

In this article, I’ll discuss the what, why, and how of cloud storage for businesses. The “when” is clear: If you’re not utilizing the cloud, the time is now. We’ll also explore the best of the best cloud storage providers for business in specific arenas, as well as The Simple Dollar’s Top Picks based on overall performance.

Cash back credit cards can help consumers practice responsible spending while earning a little extra for their efforts when used properly. The days of earning 5 percent cash back for all credit card purchases may be just a memory, but the smart use of credit cards can still be profitable for diligent consumers. You may be able to find some credit cards offering a high level of cash back in certain spending categories, but these are often subject to maximums.

Most of today’s better cash back credit cards offer 1 percent to 2 percent cash back on purchases. However, if you look hard enough, you’ll find a number of credit cards with higher cash rebates. Keep in mind that in order to make credit card with rewards programs worthwhile, you must pay your bill on time and in full every single month to avoid interest charges and late fees.

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Furniture. Movies. Moving trucks. Tuxedos. Cars. Homes. Those are the first things that spring to mind when thinking about what you can rent instead of buy.

Get up, get ready, and go to work — that's the gist of most people's weekday mornings. But what each person does when they get up and ready can vary greatly, and going to work can mean a 20-minute drive or a 20-foot walk down the hall.

What is your morning routine?