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What would you spend on, and what would you continue to be frugal on?  Would you invest it all and keep living just as you do, or would you earmark a small portion to buy that thing you always wanted?  Unfortunately, a million dollars doesn’t go quite as far as it used to, but it definitely is still an astronomical sum of funds and it sure is fun to think about what would happen if I suddenly won Deal or No Deal and had the big wad of cash lying around. (more…)

The Twelve Days of Christmas have gotten pretty expensive this year.  So, I’ve compiled my own list of the twelve days of Christmas- twelve things you can and should do this Christmas season to save yourself a little green at what tends to be a time of year when a lot of peoples budgets go into the red.   (more…)

The retailers are praying that you are, to help salvage what may be a dismal Christmas season due to the current economic crisis.  However, is it really in your best interest to hit the streets at 5 AM to score the amazing deals that stores are touting?   (more…)

Christmas is supposed to be a time for celebrating the Birth of Christ (if you believe in such things).  At the very least, it is supposed to be a time that we spend with our friends and family, sharing good memories and letting each other know that we are loved and appreciated.  But, all too often, Christmas becomes something else entirely.  It becomes a time to overspend, to fight in the aisles to get the latest must have toy, to trample each other to get the Early Bird Special on Black Friday so we can add yet another useless gadget to our already overcrowded homes.  And, it becomes a time when we charge, charge, charge on our cards to allow us to maintain extravagance.  In other words, we are a long way from the manger.   (more…)

When I was younger I used to imagine that one day I would be rich.  I would win the lottery or marry some rich prince or get some great fantastic job that didn’t require me to work more than a few hours a week and yet allowed me to live the lavish lifestyle.  I would shop all day and eat in the most decadent restaurants.  I would have a maid and a cook.  If I wanted something, anything, I would go out and buy it. (more…)

In many ways, I am lucky, because my DF is completely on the same page as I am about getting out of debt.  We both want to pay down our loans aggressively, and we are both willing to make the sacrifices necessary to do so.  However, even if you don’t have a supportive partner or if you aren’t married, it is much easier (and more fun) to accomplish your debt repayment or savings or other financial goals with someone else.   (more…)

In this post, I wrote about why it is important to track your spending.  Well, this post wasn’t just talk, I’ve been walking-the-walk and tracking my spending for almost half a year now.  I’ve learned a lot, we’ve refined our process for how we track our spending, and I am even more convinced that it is important to do this and that it is helpful to engage in this process.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that tracking your spending carefully is almost more important than having a budget (in fact, we don’t have a budget we only track.)  (more…)

I am not a proponent of spending money, generally.  At least not unless you have no debts and a good solid savings.  Otherwise, there are very few things that I think are worth the sacrifice to financial freedom.  However, there are a few area’s where I feel like everyone should treat themselves a bit.  Here are 5 recommendations I have to make you feel rich, even if you are on a Raaman noodles budget…   (more…)

A few years ago, Bank of America came out with its Keep the Change Program which played on the old idea of throwing your charge into a jar.  Although I didn’t become a Bank of America customer, I thought the idea was ingenuous.  If you can make saving fun, or at least effortless, then it gives you yet another incentive to save money.  So, here I’ve posted some idea’s or games to play to help making saving some extra money a little more enjoyable.     (more…)

I mentioned to a friend the other day that I got a really cute sweater at a thrift store.  Her response was “why, you can afford to shop elsewhere.  And you are taking clothes away from someone who might not be able to.” I had to think a little bit about her second point- was I really taking away the opportunity to buy that sweater from someone who really needed it?  However, the Goodwill Store isn’t a charity in the sense that they give away clothes or provide clothes to the needy… so its not as if I’m going to a food bank and taking food out of the mouths of the needy or anything like that. Goodwill is open to everyone, with no income requirements or requirement of impoverishment.  In fact, I think that when I buy a sweater at Goodwill, they put that money towards helping people (right?)  So I was able to answer that issue relatively easily.  Even more thought went into the idea of whether I could, in fact, afford to shop elsewhere. (more…)