Money Tips Network

Personal finance covers a wide range of topics, such as budgeting, frugal living, investing, earning income, and so many more.

In the 10 years since the illuminating book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Nobel Prize-winning economist Richard Thaler and legal scholar Cass Sunstein was published, the idea of nudging people to make better decisions has become mainstream in everything from...

When I sat down to take my AP Computer Science exam at the end of high school, I knew it would be bad. As a class, we had no idea what we were doing for the entire year. Our teacher was in his last year of teaching and had already given up on us.

We entered the gym hopeless, a ragtag bunch made up of students who really just wanted to avoid taking statistics. The test began, and immediately three boys in the first row put their heads down for a nap.

I stared blankly at the first free-response question:

“Recorded sound often begins with silence. Write the method trimSilenceFromBeginning that removes the silence from the beginning of a song.”

My mother and father got married in Baltimore, Maryland on June 22, 1972.

Perhaps the single biggest reason that people get themselves into a deep debt hole is that they buy into the idea that personal debt is a tool that allows them to get things they want now rather than having to wait.

Want a house now? Get a mortgage.

Want a car now? Get a car loan.

Want to go back to school now? Get a student loan.

Want that pair of AirPods now? Whip out the credit card.

Want a bedroom set now? Sign up for the payment plan.

In every single one of those situations, a person is getting something they want – not need, want – right now without having to pay for it right now. Instead, the person that has to pay for it is their future self, and that future self is going to have to pay more than the sticker price.

Want a $200,000 house now? Sign up for a 30 year $200,000 mortgage at 4% and you’re putting your future self on the hook for $343,739.

For the most part, my domestic and professional lives run along quite smoothly. However, there are a few times a year, namely April through about mid-June and late August through the end of October, that tend to be quite stressful. Our schedules compress for a number of reasons and we find ourselves often with more things to do and more things to get done than we have time to complete.

This leaves us feeling overwhelmed and often exhausted, which means that we’re much more prone to looking toward convenient options to handle some of our life’s needs. We consider eating out more often, something we rarely think about outside of those crunch times. We think about things like laundry services or even hiring a one-off housecleaner. We used to look at hiring babysitters on occasion.

As a parent or guardian of a young adult with disabilities, you know full well that your child may or may not need help making important decisions, financial or otherwise. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to special needs guardianship, but there are there are degrees of need when it comes to guardianship. 

This guide will help you know what to expect financially if you do decide to become a guardian of your child or loved one. It’s sometimes tricky to be sure you’re making the right decision for everyone, but this article will guide you through how parents and other interested parties can become legal guardians of a young adult with disabilities. 

The following is a guest post from Marc at VitalDollar.com.

Have you ever wondered what separates those who are successful financially with those who are not? Have you felt like your income should allow you to live a much more comfortable life than what you are experiencing?

Personal finance doesn’t have to be complicated. There are a few basic rules that you should follow, and if you do that, everything else falls into place.

This article covers some of the most basic and most powerful financial rules that should impact your everyday life.

1. Spend Less Than You Earn

I hate phones.

I hate answering phones. I hate making phone calls. I especially hate doing business by phone. Maybe it's a part of my social anxiety, but I will go to great lengths to not use my phone. (The phone “app” doesn't even live on the homescreen of my phone!)

If I ever have a question for my bank, for instance, I will get in my car and drive to the bank before I'll pick up the phone.

Kim thinks I'm crazy. She's just the opposite. She loves the phone and prefers it to doing business in person. Every week, I listen as she makes two or three calls and uses her charm on customer service agents. I have no charm, and I hate the phone.

Let me give you a more detailed example of why I find phones frustrating.