Money Tips Network

Welcome to the new normal: The average worker today stays in a job for 4.4 years.

You should probably expect that number to get even lower as 91% of Millennials expect to stay in a job for less than three years. (See also: 25 Career Changes You Can Make Today)

And while being labeled as a job hopper may make you less attractive to future employers, there's no time to waste if you don't like what you're doing. Here are seven tools to check if you're on the right career path.

Financial independence is a tricky phrase because it can mean different things to different people.

Right now, I view financial independence as being a state where I no longer have to work for money. Yet, seven or eight years ago, I might have viewed it as simply being free from worrying about my next paycheck. At different points in there, I might have seen financial independence completely differently.

Along the way, I’ve come to realize that financial independence is made up of a series of stages. Some people might see more stages, while others might see fewer; I see four clear ones.

In my own financial journey – and in the journey of others that I’ve had conversations with – “financial independence” generally means the next stage that hasn’t been achieved yet.

This article is by staff writer April Dykman.

My personal finance education began here at Get Rich Slowly. I went from owing more money than I had to being debt-free (although now I have a mortgage). And along the way, I learned about money on websites and blogs. I used Mint to get my spending aligned with my goals and to track debt repayment. I opened and started managing my husband’s and my Roth IRAs online too.

Most people like movies where the main characters get into a world of hurt but then, somehow, escape at the last minute and all is well.

The movie I'm about to tell you about is not like that. At least not completely.

The first part is what you'd expect (the world of hurt part), but unfortunately there's no happy ending.

Yep, it's a film about the retirement crisis in America. Here's a video summary of the movie:



The film covers several people planning to retire with absolutely no financial plan to do so. As you might imagine, that plan isn't going well.

A few key quotes:

This is part of a four-part series on affordable online colleges and degree programs. The other articles cover affordable online colleges, affordable online master’s degree programs, and affordable online MBA programs. Our goal with this series is to help anyone interested in online education find the best programs for the money and walk away with a quality degree.

Who Should Consider an Online Bachelor’s Degree

Before getting into the list of the top five schools for an affordable online bachelor’s degree in 2015, let’s explore who an online degree is best for. That way, you can determine whether you want to move forward with research on individual schools and programs.

Welcome to Wise Bread's Best Money Tips Roundup! Today we found some stellar articles on the best sites for renting and buying textbooks, steps to financial prosperity, and things you should know about the U.S. economy.

Top 5 Articles

The 11 Best Sites for Renting and Buying Textbooks Online — Half.com and Student2Student are a couple great textbook rental and buying sites. [The Real Deal]

6 Steps to Financial Prosperity — To be financially prosperous, choose a career and do it and marry your soulmate. [Learn Play Give]

Link for teaser title: 

http://www.wisebread.com/bestdeals/today

Victoria's Secret Clearance: Up to 75% off (from $3!), Up to 40% Off Select Rubbermaid Products, A-Fashion Women's Racerback Striped Maxi Dress for $9, and more!

Three weeks ago, I shared with you the first third of my favorite essay of all time, Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Self-Reliance has profoundly affected my life in countless ways, and I find myself re-reading it every month or two. Each time I read it, it reveals something new to me, giving me something to think about.

The original essay, published in 1841, outlines the value and need for each of us to follow our own path in life, one that relies mostly on our own efforts. It’s a call to do our own thing and to focus our energies in making our lives as independent as possible so that there are minimal consequences for doing our own thing.

When we asked you how to improve Get Rich Slowly, you told us you’d like an article on “The horrible, terrible, no good, very bad reality of paying for fertility treatments.” We can’t fit all of that into one post, but we did ask Joanna Lahey, who gave us a series on health insurance, to give a broad overview of the issue in this guest post.

Joanna Lahey is an associate economics professor at the George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. The opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect those of the aforementioned institutions.