This is the twenty-first part of The Simple Dollar Book Club reading of Your Money or Your Life. Want to know more? This section is filled up with a series of nine implications for disconnecting work from wages. I thought it would be worthwhile to move slowly and examine each of the nine. 1. Redefining

Almost a year ago, I wrote five entries on my five biggest financial fears at the time. Here they are, one more time: #1. Buying a home We lived in an apartment at the time, and the idea of purchasing a home scared me to death. I didn’t know the first thing about purchasing a

This is the twentieth part of The Simple Dollar Book Club reading of Your Money or Your Life. Want to know more? This chapter of Your Money or Your Life starts off by attempting to define what exactly work is, which isn’t an easy thing to do. I thought their various quoted definitions were quite

A few of my friends are big believers in buying organic produce. They basically won’t buy anything at all that’s not certified USDA Organic, and they claim loudly and repeatedly that this is really the only way to go if you care about your health. To me, it’s more a matter of personal preference than

This is the nineteenth part of The Simple Dollar Book Club reading of Your Money or Your Life. Want to know more? Prosperity and the Planet Much of this section focuses on the idea that frugality is good for the environment, too. Most frugal ideas boil down to buying less and reducing your costs, and

A reader wrote in with the following complaint: You write all the time about starting a side business and about chasing your dreams but it’s all kind of a waste of time. Chasing your dreams is childish. Adults have things that they need to do. After all, 1 Corinthians 13:11 says “When I was a

The Little Book That Makes You Rich is the fourth in a series of investment books that each strive to explain in layman’s terms a specific investment strategy. I reviewed the first three, each of which I liked: The Little Book That Beats The Market by Joel Greenblatt focuses on “magic formula” investing, where a

I have a question: do you meditate or pray? If so, how often? I find that quiet time for introspection and mental relaxation that prayer and meditation provides for me is invaluable in my life. A Guideline Budget – How Do You Compare? Although I’m not the biggest fan of strict budgeting, I thought that

This is the eighteenth part of The Simple Dollar Book Club reading of Your Money or Your Life. Want to know more? Today, let’s look at the rest of those 101 sure ways to save money, this time focusing on the groupings of tips starting at #50. Shopping I find that the one thing that

Lately, I’ve had a lot of fun playing with Wachovia’s 401(k) contribution calculator. Ever wondered what sort of impact changing your 401(k) contribution would have? This calculator tells you based on your own information. What’s interesting is that for most people, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. To play with the tool, I created a

In the last week, I’ve received four emails from nearly-panicked people who have recently discovered they’re pregnant, crunched the numbers, and thought “MY GOD WE CAN’T AFFORD THIS CHILD!!!” and fell quickly into panic mode. Don’t. There are a lot of reasons why having a child isn’t the financial bomb that it’s made out to

For anyone who lives in Nebraska or in any state bordering Nebraska, the fact that Tom Osborne got rehired at the University of Nebraska is ridiculously big news. I know I’ve fielded somewhere around twenty five emails in the last day on the topic from various people. It’s basically the equivalent of Chrysler bringing back

This is the seventeenth part of The Simple Dollar Book Club reading of Your Money or Your Life. Want to know more? Instead of focusing on each of the individual 101 ways to save money (and boring people to sleep), I thought I’d comment in general on the groupings of these (each seven or eight

When I write on The Simple Dollar, I often write about tips and techniques that I’ve found useful for saving and investing money. I’ll talk about the big things – like always spending less than you earn – but I also list things like ten ways to avoid financially responsible buying. I have very little

When I think back to my high school years, I realize that I didn’t have the faintest idea of what I wanted to do with my life, nor many of the options really available to me. I had a sense that I needed a significant change of scenery for a while because I did not

As I’ve mentioned on here, I usually play ten minutes worth of puzzle games in the morning – things like Sudoku – to get my brain running. I find it really helps, but I’ve also found that if I tackle something deeply complex that early (like chess puzzles), I often just get tired and regress

This is the sixteenth part of The Simple Dollar Book Club reading of Your Money or Your Life. Want to know more? Let’s move through these ten items one at a time. 1. Don’t go shopping If you’re not going to a retail outlet in pursuit of a specific item, don’t go. If you do,

Whenever I hear that phrase the feeling you get from a Coca-Cola Classic, my tongue tingles a bit and I can’t help but think, “Man, an ice cold Coke in a glass bottle sounds good right now.” That ad works like a charm on me and it likely encouraged me to buy far more Coke

The weekend after next, we are expecting eleven houseguests who will be staying for varying periods of time ranging from two days to seven days. This means that on top of the challenges of having two children in diapers, we also need to plan ahead for food for that many guests. Since we’re frugal, that