My friends told me about this ‘great’ app they found called Acorns back in early 2017. They mentioned how great it was that the program rounds up all of their credit card purchases to the nearest dollar and invests the change. My first question was something along the lines of why not just put the […]

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 […]

[Preface: Don and I try not to get overly political on this blog. We understand minimum wage is often a politically charged issue. I promise the following was based on a real experience, and I’ll keep the name of the restaurant I visited under wraps for reasons that should become obvious as you read the […]

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 […]

Dan’s Unconventional Approach to His Car Loan   As I’ve posted earlier in this blog, my wife and I purchased a new car in December, 2016. The price was worked down to $26,000 and we put $9,000 down meaning we took a loan for $17,000 at 2.05% APR for 36 months. If I paid the loan […]

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 […]

  The use of a vehicle, in most places outside of urban cores, still remains a necessity for most Americans. Uber, Lyft, and bumming off your friends are great, but in the case of the first two, they can get expensive and in the case of your friends… well, you’ll lose them if you keep […]