There have been many, many times over the past several years when I have felt completely overwhelmed by the huge gap between where I am right now and where I want to be. My big dream is to reach true financial independence. By that, I mean that I have enough money socked away in relatively
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. Checking account buffer 2. Insuring collectibles 3. School now or later? 4. Traveling for music 5. Parents helping with home purchase 6. Piano lessons 7. A
Once a month, our banks and credit card issuers send us a statement in the mail (or online) outlining every single item that we spent our money on over the last month. We can see a big list of the checks we wrote, the stores we swiped our card at, the online shops we conducted
My condolences and prayers go out to the victims of the Oklahoma tornado and other weather events in recent days. We drove pretty close to one on Sunday night and witnessed an overturned semi thanks to the sheer force of what was almost assuredly a small tornado. Prayers and condolences don’t go very far, though,
If you’ve read The Simple Dollar for very long, you’ve learned that, in my opinion, one of the most important things in personal finance is setting goals. Where do you want to be in a year? In five years? In twenty years? Establishing those goals gives you something real to work towards and makes a
When Sarah and I were first married, we maintained the two separate checking accounts that we had when we were single. Mostly, we kept it this way out of convenience, as we both were in the routine of paying monthly bills. To keep things straightforward, we divided up the shared monthly bills. We were each
A few days ago, I posted an article on saving money on fuel during your commute. While all of those tips were useful, one in particular can really reduce your fuel costs when commuting – buying a more fuel-efficient car. But what does that really mean in terms of dollars and cents? Before you even
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. Difficulty estimating freelance income 2. Graduation gift 3. Never wanting retirement 4. Why buy a premium car? 5. Prenupital agreement 6. Road trip dining 7. Low
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.