One of my favorite places to visit is Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City, Iowa. It’s an independent bookstore with a wonderful atmosphere and I truly love the opportunities I get to browse through the books there. The problem is that when I go into a retailer without a specific purchase in mind but with
Success in personal finance is really a matter of the mind. It’s about having the awareness to see all of the choices you’re making and having the fortitude to consistently make good choices in terms of your money. One of the big challenges, particularly for people first starting out, is to see the connection between
Once upon a time, Sarah and I lived in a two bedroom apartment. The two bedrooms were pretty small. When we had our first child, we made the second bedroom into a nursery and, eventually, into a little boy’s room. When our second child was about to arrive, we decided that the apartment was just
Each week, I highlight ten things each week that inspired me to greater financial, personal, and professional success. Hopefully, they will inspire you as well. 1. Keith Ferrazzi on poverty “Poverty, I realized, wasn’t only a lack of financial resources; it was isolation from the kind of people that could help you make more of
I get notes pretty regularly from readers who express concern that earning more won’t actually gain them anything. “Why should I earn more than I’m making if Uncle Sam is just going to take it all?” That perception is a complete myth. Yes, you will be paying more in taxes if you make more and,
Over the past several months, the art of reading has really clicked with our oldest child. A year ago, he would parse a simple sentence in a book with great nervousness, sounding out each individual word very carefully and moving at such a slow pace that there was almost no narrative or educational value to
It is really, really easy to fall into a trap of paying lip service to the things we think ought to be important but that we don’t actually find important in our day to day lives. “Oh, I should be spending less money,” says someone waiting in line for a large coffee and a breakfast
What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question. 1. Mortgage tax deduction calculator 2. Private school worth it? 3. Advice on inexpensive business clothes 4. Is home ownership necessary? 5. Fantasy writing progress 6. Learning
Anyone who strives to live frugally eventually comes across an experience that makes their frugality seem “cheap.” They’ll serve a homemade meal that someone turns their nose up at because it’s not a prime cut. They’ll bring a thoughtful gift to a party only to find that everyone else paid out the nose for their
We’ve had our first multi-day run of nice weather here in Iowa. That means getting out the grill and enjoying grilled fish, grilled vegetables, and countless other items cooked outdoors. I don’t care what it is – the smell of cooking food is tremendously invigorating, at least for me. Nothing makes the mouth water quite
Five years ago, I wrote an article about the “flexible casserole recipe” that I found in the wonderful book Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn. In my original article, I lauded the flexible recipe as it enabled people to easily fit whatever ingredients were on sale into a simple casserole that would work for dinner.
In my closet, I have every issue of MAKE Magazine ever produced. I really enjoy reading issues of MAKE. The magazine is all about technology-oriented do-it-yourself projects, like making your own homemade musical instrument and wiring it up to a homemade soundboard so you can record the music you make or making a homemade remote
One of the most powerful things I’ve learned over the last few years is that older children and teenagers often learn the most powerful life lessons from experiences they can directly relate to. The problem is that personal finance isn’t often directly relatable to their life. Quite often, parents and teachers rely on lectures and
What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question. 1. Quality of life in retirement 2. Angry relatives over estate 3. Credit score challenges 4. Neighborhood culture shock 5. Odd bank behavior 6. Pyramid scheme addict
Whenever I see advice on saving money on commuting fuel costs, the suggestions often revolve around completely giving up your car. I’m as guilty of that as anyone else. It’s a great way to drastically trim your finances. Let’s be honest, though: a lot of people simply aren’t going to give up their car. They
I’m involved with a charitable organization (that I’ll choose to leave nameless) that is undergoing what I might call an identity crisis. The staff of this charity has made a ton of commitments on an organization-wide level. They’ve pledged help to many different local groups and causes and those commitments are impressive and good ones.
Let’s start off by looking at what I mean by “top-down” versus “bottom-up.” A “top-down” approach to something means you take something large and break it down into smaller pieces. For example, if you’re making a meal, you would be taking a “top-down” approach if you walked into the kitchen with a specific recipe already
Each week, I highlight ten things each week that inspired me to greater financial, personal, and professional success. Hopefully, they will inspire you as well. 1. Samuel Johnson on habits “The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” – Samuel Johnson I wouldn’t quite call
I often meet up with a good friend of mine that I’ll call Dave. You rarely see Dave without his trusty bottle of Powerade at his side. He seems to thrive on the stuff. He’s as thin as a rail and doesn’t seem to eat too much, so I guess he uses it as some