Money Tips Network

Welcome to Wise Bread's Best Money Tips Roundup! Today we found some amazing articles on saving on medical costs and improving your family's health, things you need to throw away, and remaining frugal while traveling.

Top 5 Articles

Twelve Inexpensive Strategies for Saving on Medical Costs and Improving Your Family’s Health — To save money on medical costs and improve your family's health, eat a better diet, and evaluate free health clinics. [The Simple Dollar]

About 35 years ago, when I was new to the corporate world and fired with ambition, but not the least bit fired-up about staying with my big corporate employer, I had a series of bewildering conversations with colleagues, many even younger than I.

See, the place where I worked had long been the number one name in its field, and that status conferred a certain sense of stability. So when I talked with co-workers about what job they expected to jump to next, where they intended to go professionally, and what bold new career worlds they hoped to explore, many responded in very clear terms that they had no intention to go anywhere.

There was a time when I was absolutely obsessed with keeping track of my money. I checked all of my account balances daily. I recalculated my net worth on a weekly basis. I meticulously tracked every single expense. I didn’t want to miss out on a dime.

Over time, I mellowed out on this type of tracking. I still follow my finances pretty carefully, but I don’t do the things above, at least not with such fervor.

Don’t get me wrong, I still pay attention. I still want my spending to be low and my net worth to keep going up.

The big change is that I realized it’s not really about the money. Whenever I make a financial decision, what I’m really asking myself is this: is this thing I’m about to spend money on a good use of my life’s energy and time?

This article is by staff writer Holly Johnson.

A few weeks ago, I was browsing the Internet with my morning coffee when a link to a write-up at USA Today caught my eye. It read “Price tag for the American dream: $130K a year.”

The article, which is based on a study conducted by researchers at Cornell University, claims that the rising costs of everything from food to housing have resulted in a new American dream that is out of reach for all but the one in eight American families who earn at least $130,000 per year. They apparently wrote a book about their study as well, in which they described the American dream as “finding and pursuing a rewarding career, leading a healthy and personally fulfilling life, and being able to retire in comfort.”

Why does the American dream suddenly cost 130K?

The following is a guest post from Marotta Wealth Management. I've stripped out the political commentary (or at least I think I have -- hope I didn't miss anything) because it didn't really add anything, but am running the piece anyway because I think it lists some good ideas on how to avoid capital gains taxes if you really want to.

The capital gains tax traps wealth in an investment vehicle requiring special techniques to free the capital without penalty.

Multiple ways are available to avoid the tax. Here are 14 of the loopholes the government's gain tax unintentionally incentivizes.

A washer and dryer are mainstays in many households.  They are in our household, for sure.

We bought a used washer and dryer set four and a half years ago.  Over the past couple of weeks, the washer was whining loudly.  First we heard it within the drain cycle, then in the spin cycle.  When it started squealing during the wash cycle, I sensed that its time was almost over, because that sounded like a transmission problem.

Our family had done some repairs on it already to fix a bent support frame, but a new transmission runs upwards of $100.00.  Considering we paid $200 for the whole machine, this expense was questionable.

A massive clothes moth infestation triggered my minimalist wardrobe philosophy. The hard lesson I learned from the bugs that destroyed my favorite coat was this: There's no point in having a surplus of anything if I can't protect it. The moths that chewed quarter-sized holes in my cashmere sweaters had probably been munching away for weeks before I noticed their work.

A phone used to be a phone. Now, many of us live our entire lives through our phones. It's how we check our bank balances, organize our schedules, send emails and texts, and pay our bills. Most of us have hundreds, if not thousands, of photos and videos on our phones. They also house sensitive personal information that an identity thief would just love to get his or her hands on. In short, it's no longer a phone… it's our life.

So when a phone is lost, or worse, stolen, we have every reason to panic. Here are 10 horrible things that can happen if your phone is stolen.

Naked With Cash is an ongoing series at Consumerism Commentary in which readers share their households’ finances with other readers. These participants benefit from the accountability that comes from tracking their finances publicly and the feedback of the four expert Certified Financial Planners (CFPs).

For more information, read this introduction.