Money Tips Network

Fall is the busy season in my house. School is back in session, work is in full swing, and dinners are difficult to craft quickly each evening. The solution? Freezing!

Kayla writes in:

I’ve never really understood how you could suddenly make the switch from way overspending to actually living on just one of your two incomes and saving half of your income. How does that even happen?

As I thought about Kayla’s question, I started writing a list of things that I felt played a real role in this turnaround. It’s easy to point to one single thing – my “financial bottom” – but that actually only tells a little bit of the story. It wasn’t just that one painful day – it was a series of things that happened both before and after that moment. All of these things pointed my life in a different direction than before.

Let’s walk through them.

Sarah and I Had a Child

Our first child arrived in late 2005, about six months or so before our financial turnaround began in earnest. Unsurprisingly, it triggered a bunch of changes in many different aspects of our lives.

It seems I may have struck a chord (or a nerve in some cases) with my last post about popular vacation spots that aren't worth your time and money.

In the middle of channel surfing, fighting over the remote, or rolling your eyes at the latest unreal reality show premise, is it possible to become a better person? Maybe so.

Welcome to Wise Bread's Best Money Tips Roundup! Today we found some of the best articles from around the web on investing.
Top 5 Articles

What Grocery Shopping Can Teach You About Investing — Did you know you can think of stocks, bonds, and cash as different investing groups?

Now that school is back in session, you might find that evening lunch-prep has become quite laborious. Maybe that means you're packing the wrong lunches.

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. Hospital bills and 529 plans
2. Planning with constant challenges
3. Using old baseball cards
4. Frugal yoga tip
5. Baking bread at home
6. Frugality and “ripping off” businesses
7. Buy it for life: underwear
8. Old stamps
9. Reliable car brands

This article is by staff writer Lisa Aberle.

I’ve been cooking for years. Although, if you ask my husband, I’ve been screwing up fried eggs for just as long. (His secret: Fry them on low to avoid cooking the egg too quickly.) So I am no genius in the kitchen, but I am getting better.

Flexible cooking

I used to follow recipes exactly, afraid to deviate at all. (Didn’t have all the ingredients? Find another recipe!) But then I discovered a recipe in a cookbook that had the same basic ingredients (meat, pasta, diced tomatoes), but the recipe authors gave suggestions on how to use different spices (chili powder or Italian seasoning) and cheeses (mozzarella vs. sharp cheddar) to totally change the taste of the dish.

Do you want to make today better in an instant? How about making the rest of your life better?

Just start saying "Thanks." In fact, say it right now.