Money Tips Network

Learning a new language used to mean taking years of classes in high school. When you graduated, you knew enough Spanish, French, or German to buy a sandwich, find a bathroom, or ask if anyone speaks English — should you travel to another country. Learning a new language outside of school meant buying expensive CD sets that you listen to while you were driving or sitting around your home. You could go at your own pace but didn't have anyone to converse with or practice your new skills. (See also: 5 Ways to Learn a Language)

When it comes to finance, most people like stability.

Having the certainty of when and how much cash you will receive for a set period of time provides you peace of mind that allows you to focus on more important things. This is the reason that annuities may be an attractive long-term source of income for some investors. (See also: 5 Super Safe Investments)

Let's take a look at what are annuities and when they are a good choice.

This article first appeared in U.S. News and World Report Money.

The recipe for finding financial success is an easy one. Spend less than you earn and do something sensible with the difference. If you do that over and over, you will see financial success. The challenge is actually making that happen. It’s not easy and most of us eventually hit a bump or two along the way.

The challenge comes when you recover from that misstep. Do you brush yourself off and get back to work?

Many people don’t. Instead, they find excuses for why they made that move. Even better, that excuse usually still works for the next mistake – and the one after that. Soon, the excuse is a “rule” by which they live their life. Unfortunately, it’s a “rule” that ensures their continued financial misery.

This is a guest post from J.D. Roth, who founded the blog Get Rich Slowly in 2006. Roth wrote Your Money: The Missing Manual and is the “Your Money” columnist for Entrepreneur magazine. His latest project is a year-long course on how to master your money, which explains how to slash costs and boost income so that you can pursue early retirement and other goals. This article is one piece of this course.

One of the coolest online tools I’ve seen in a long time came to my attention this past weekend as I was thinking about our family’s weekend plans between now and Memorial Day. With the arrival of spring, I was looking for outdoor activities, when I came across DiscoverTheForest.org.

DiscoverTheForest is a website that allows you to see all of the parks, hiking trails, forests, and other natural areas within a small radius of where you live. Simply type in your zip code and set a radius (say, 25 miles) and a map pops up showing you all of these locations. You can click on each one to find out more about it, typically including a link to find out more information about that specific site.

I typed in our zip code, set the radius to 50 miles, and I quickly found a very long list of hiking trails, parks, and other such places near our home.

This article is by staff writer April Dykman.

More than four years ago, I wrote a post for Get Rich Slowly about how to stop buying clothes you never wear. I wasn’t sure how it would go over, to be honest. We don’t discuss fashion much in our little corner of the Internet, and I also worried about being judged for my sordid, non-frugal past.

But it was a problem I’d had struggled with, and it was a problem that cost me a lot of money over the years. And in the 100+ comments on the original post, many of you said that you’ve struggled with the same problem.

So here we are four years later, and I’m happy to report that my wardrobe is even smaller and more functional today. And since I’ve picked up new tips these last few years, I thought it’d be helpful to update my original post.

We all want to have an easier time managing our finances. That's where budgeting tools come in! They can be as high-tech as a money-tracking-app-doodad, or as simple as a pen and paper. The best tool for the job is what works for you.

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More than seven years ago, I encouraged readers to forget about the Latte Factor. The Latte Factor — a registered trademark — is the core marketing message from personal finance guru and author David Bach. The concept uses a daily morning latte as a metaphor for all small, habitually repeated expenses, that add up to a lot of money over time. A lot of that money could better serve us by being placed in savings or investing than being spent through an unnecessary habit.

This article is by staff writer Lisa Aberle.

No matter what I do, we’re still spending more on food each month than I want to be spending. Two of my weapons in the battle to lower my food bill that I haven’t talked about yet are Aldi and bulk-food stores.

One thing I don’t like to do is stop at several different stores, so I don’t shop at all stores every week, or even every two weeks. Both these stores are small, and I prefer to shop at these stores instead of Walmart or other huge stores. (Does anyone else get exhausted by the sheer number of decisions, people, and products in the huge stores?)

Positives about Aldi