No matter how financially secure you are, you can always get taken by surprise. Many people are hit with unexpected bills and struggle to handle them, whether it’s a sudden medical emergency, a busted water tank, or your math isn’t as good as you thought it was, life can be an expensive game. Let’s take…
About six years ago, I was a super advocate for digit and Dobot. Both of these are apps that connect to your checking account and siphon out small amounts using an algorithm (or you can schedule a set amount) into a saving account. They were incredible and free, but then both services started charging. If…
I recently gave a personal finance talk and when I was talking about frugality I pointed out that my favorite thing about frugality is you can take what you like and leave what you don’t – though you do need to do a bit of experimenting to know what is what. There are also a…
I have a theory that my body inflates to the extent it is allowed to. Hear me out. In the prepandemic times, I would wear my jeans almost every day. I would know pretty quickly if they were starting to feel tight and I could make life adjustments to make sure I didn’t stay on…
The other day I was running a few errands and picked up a pizza and was shocked at how cheap it was. Not so much because the pizza was actually so cheap – it was a regular priced pizza – more because I’ve been using so many apps to order so much food over the…
When I moved back in with my dad in July, I felt like I was making the smartest financial choices possible. I had just lost my job. My lease was up on my apartment. My industry was still in ruins. I figured I’d stay a few weeks until I got sorted. I’ve bounced back home…
I have been struggling with balancing the best financial choice and the best life choice for a while now. Clearly, for the duration of the pandemic, the best financial choice is to stay home with my dad. I’ve just gotten my monthly income back to a semi-reliable level to pay bills since my job at…
Weddings are expensive and the rigmarole of wedding etiquette is seriously ridiculous – and pretty outdated. I think it’s perfectly fine to RSVP no if the bride or groom would be offended that you can’t afford much of a gift. There are a few folks in my life that ascribe to such strict etiquette in…
If you don’t spend a lot of time reading personal finance blogs, you may not have come across the term FI/RE, which means Financial Independence/Retire Early. This is a small group of people who have figured that if they can super charge their savings rate for about 10 years, they can achieve financial independence and…
I’ve found there are actually a few things that make saving money a little easier that are incredibly easy to implement. I call these one step money tricks because there’s like one moment of effort you have to exert and then the effort is done and you just get the payoff. Cash Back There are…
I don’t know about you but my Facebook and Instagram targeted messages took a hard turn towards Zeelool at the end of the summer. I’m sure somehow my phone heard me complaining about Coastal eyeglasses and that I had totally lost all patience with them, but whatever the reason, I was intrigued. I have seen…
A car is an expensive commodity that you want to ideally last as long as possible. Not only is the purchase of said car, expensive but you’ve also got the running costs and any nasty surprise in maintenance. With that being said, here are four tips to make your car last longer. Image Source Read…
Folks. I might not be the most scientifically inclined person, but I love a good experiment. I am also (unfortunately sometimes) someone who learns best by doing. I’ve been talking a lot lately about how I’m hardcore lacking motivation (skill kinda true), but I got to thinking about what I do when I am motivated…
Let’s talk a little about hacks. Silly name, but useful idea. I like to think of it like… hack away… at the cost of something. Like with an axe, not like whooping cough – especially these days. Let’s talk about coffee, because people love to hate on the latte factor, because I love caffeine, and…
I love how LUSH stores smell. I love the idea of good for the earth, cruelty-free bath products. I don’t really love LUSH prices. BUT Their bath bombs are visually gorgeous. They have all sorts of colors, scents, shapes, creatures – you name it, LUSH probably has a fancy pants bath bomb of it. During…
Hello friends, I have a recently found a money saving opportunity you can look into if you find you have a lot of time on your hands at the moment. I emailed my car insurance company this week (NJ Manufacturers, pretty much the best insurance in the world – I am totally biased, I’ve always…
In our last post, we were talking about budgeting and what to do when the numbers don’t line up in the way you hoped. Earn more or spend less. Today we’ll look a little at spending less. I think it’s the natural default when your finances are out of whack because you are in control…
I took a fairly major adulting step this week. I bought a set of four matching glasses at the Christmas Tree Shop. I figured, I have a nice apartment, and I have friends coming to stay for the weekend… and then I thought about my dishware and laughed because the majority of it is plastic…
How often do you reevaluate your financial goals? Maybe I should start by asking, have you set some financial goals? Setting financial goals is honestly one of the biggest reasons I’m doing so ok. Name it and claim it, right? (Goal setting wise – not theology wise, prosperity gospels are nonsense.) But for real, the…
The last few weeks have been a pretty good lesson in how much money chaos costs. I am a fairly organized person. I like to have systems. I like everything to have a place. I like to have spares and backups. The funny thing about moving is that it throws all your systems so far…
If you’re operating on a tight budget, giving great gifts to your friends can be a serious trial. You want to be giving and generous, but you also want to buy groceries. Plus, if your friends have birthdays around the holiday season, you can pretty much forget it. That gift is going to have to…
Photo by Nordic Overdrive from Pexels Whether you need the extra cash, are moving abroad or are looking to buy a new car, it might be time to sell your vehicle. A daunting time when you will have to set a price, advertise it and draw in potential buyers, it’s important that you’re prepared. But…
Over here, we’re all about frugality – it’s the name of our game. But sometimes, life demands big expenses. We can go about putting them off for as long as possible, but sometimes nickel and diming to the 10th degree does more harm than good. This is especially true in the case of the new…
For preventing the poor people in the United States from being a burden on their friends, family, neighbors or country, and for making them beneficial to the public. In this great day and age, in accordance with the order of the Great American Dream, we see a prevalence of good citizens finding themselves vexed with…
There’s a simple way to improve the state of your finances: stop spending your money. But of course, this is much easier said than done. While, of course, there are things that we need to buy, the real challenge is to stop spending the money that we could leave in our bank account, if we…