Welcome back, readers. We’ve decided to create a new series called “Worst Advice I Ever Received” as it relates to finance, where we take our friend’s, twitter colleagues’, and various other’s stories of the worst advice regarding finance they ever were told. Our first one up is “Buy the biggest home you can afford; it’s value […]

Dan feeds his family of 3 for roughly $300 per month of groceries. Dan’s family dines out for a meal or snack roughly a less than one meal per person per week. Here’s how he keeps his grocery bill as low as he can:   Shop at no-frills grocery stores. This includes everything from Walmart […]

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: INVEST, SAVE, OR SPEND EVERY DOLLAR (IN THAT ORDER) Conventional wisdom says “you need to budget” your money. Then there’s the wisdom of those against budgets and their argument often goes like this: each January 1st, you tell yourself “I’m going to budget better,” but then […]

Sometimes Things Don’t Go to Plan My dad once gave me great advice as I hesitantly told him I didn’t think I was ready to have a child: “you’re never ready; you have no idea what you’re getting into, but you’re going to learn and figure it out.” I told him with both excitement and […]

A lot of people think that they can afford something if they can take it home from the store without stealing it. Sure, you can buy it, but can you afford it? This distinction is exactly what lands so many people in credit card debt. If you need to make the minimum payments on your […]

This time, I am trying a slightly different format for this report since the graphics from my 2010 version of Quicken were not exactly… HD. I have since figured out how to export to Excel for some different graphical representation. (Way easier than I thought!) Not too many kinks with converting it other than it […]

This will be a short post, mostly just some simple math. My wife made salmon cakes tonight along with a side of Brussels sprouts that were seasoned with cayenne pepper and some balsamic vinegar. The salmon was canned and cost $5.52 and the Brussels sprouts I ate were probably from a package that cost about […]

1. First, Count What You Normally Spend Making a budget doesn’t have to start with you figuring out how much money you should spend on food, drugs, alcohol, and clothing. I have seen plenty of attempts at budgeting fail because the person making it wasn’t realistic about where his/her money was going to go. Before […]

This is my first time giving you all my spending. Sure, it’s weird discussing money, but since I work in the public sector, my pay is publicly available for all of you to see already. I’m open for critiques anyway, so for all the financial bloggers out there, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Of […]