Carlos writes in:

I’ve been working at the same job for the last six years. I used to love it but lately I’ve started dreading going to work. I can’t really put my finger on a reason why, either. I’m considering quitting but I am very afraid to take that leap with the economy the way it is. Got any suggestions?

Once upon a time, I was in a similar situation. For me, it really boiled down to three factors, two of which had little to do with the job. First, I felt like my dream of being a writer was slipping away from me. Second, I felt like I wasn’t spending enough quality time with my children. Third, the aspects of my job that I loved (my great coworkers and the creative work) were often buried behind minutiae, maintenance, and paperwork.

Even in this situation, it took me more than a year to choose to walk away. Much like Carlos, I was very afraid to take that leap for financial and career security reasons.

That year was not miserable at all. In fact, when the time came where I could walk away, I found myself having a lot of last minute second thoughts because I actually liked my job so much. It was the non-job aspects that finally called me away.

Here are eight key things to try when you’re feeling professionally burnt out.

1. Reconnect with your core work.
You were hired to perform a certain task, right? Get back to that task, which is often the part of your job that you love the most. Take a break from all of the extra stuff – the paperwork, the committees, the office politics – and just focus on the work that you enjoy.

You might have to get a bit of buy-in from your boss on this, but most bosses will be receptive. After all, you’re requesting to focus on the task that they hired you for.

2. Plan for the next step.
If you were to quit, what would you do? Develop a detailed plan for doing this. On one level, it might just be escapism to help you deal with a rough patch. On another level, you might be putting together the blueprint for a powerful life goal for yourself.

Make the plan as detailed as possible, then start taking action on those little details. Actually moving forward on such a goal can bring it to life in a very powerful and life-affirming way.

3. Build new relationships.
If you’re feeling burnt out with the circle of people you work with (and office politics in general), reconsider the group you’re associating with. Look for new people in your office – and outside your office – to adopt into your inner professional circle.

New people offer new insights. They offer new opportunities and connections and ideas. More than anything, though, they offer new attitudes and new perspectives, which might be exactly what you need right now.

4. Share your gifts.
Open up a Twitter account. Start a blog. Link to interesting things that you’ve discovered. When you’re on Twitter, follow and converse with people in your field. On your blog, link to articles by people in your field that you find interesting.

Most importantly, share the things that you know. Over a long period of time, with consistent activity, a thoughtful blog becomes a powerful resume in and of itself. Never mind the fact that it’s also a potential way to earn some money, too.

5. Learn something new.
Jobs can sometimes become frustrating because you’re stuck in an intellectual loop, doing the same thing over and over again. Many jobs can change radically if you take the time to learn new ways of doing things.

Look for opportunities to expand your education. Take some classes. Read some books. Focus on learning some new techniques. They’ll breathe new life into your current job and open the door to better ones.

6. Talk with your supervisor.
This works particularly well if you’re a longstanding productive employee, because a supervisor will actually pay attention to what you have to say. If you’re chronically underproductive, this is a bad route to take.

Just have a meeting with your supervisor and lay your concerns on the table. Ask for some help in coming up with a plan to solve those concerns. Your supervisor may be able to handle some of them and offer solid advice on how to handle other aspects.

7. Build an emergency fund.
Sometimes, the pain of a job comes from a sense that you’re completely tied to it financially: that without the job, you can’t possibly survive financially. Take a hard look at how you spend money. How much of that spending is really necessary and life-fulfilling?

Learn some frugality. Cut down on your needless overspending. Start socking away some of your money. Build up a cushion – and don’t give into the temptation to spend it just as you start building it. Quite often, the long-term presence of a healthy emergency fund can make life seem a lot more tolerable.

8. Build an exit strategy.
If none of these tactics work, it might actually be time to leave – and leave soon. Polish up your resume and get in touch with the people you know in your field. Seek out that next position so that when you make the leap, you leap into someplace safe.

Good luck.

A few years ago, an old friend of mine bought a fantastically expensive home, far larger and with higher quality furnishings than the home I live in now. I went to college with him and noted that after college, he worked at a minimum wage job for a year and had only been working at a solid salary for a little over a year when making this purchase.

“How could he afford it?” I wondered. So I asked him about it. He just grinned and said that he had a big bankroll.

For a long time, I figured that he had either done something illegal or something like that to earn the money. Eventually, though, I learned that his parents bought the house for him.

Today, this old friend of mine doesn’t have time to spend with me. Even though he’s only making about $26,000 a year (at my best estimate), he drives a Lexus and is constantly buying all kinds of different things. He spends most of his time with similar big spenders – and that’s not a group I’m a part of.

What I find most interesting, though, is his assumption that his parents’ lifetime earnings are his to spend however he likes.

For some people, this could be a happy arrangement. As a parent, I can understand the desire to want to make life easier for my children – to make sure they’re content, have social stature, and have the possessions they want and need. I can also understand, on some level, how it would be nice to simply have all of the things that I want without having to be responsible for earning them.

The problem is that the solution isn’t permanent – and when it fails, everyone suffers greatly.

In this situation, the parents are getting older and, at the same time, their financial resources are being slowly drained. Unless they are prodigous accumulators of wealth, there’s going to come a point where it will become difficult to make ends meet – and that point will come when it’s more difficult than before to earn money. When they reach the age that they’ll actually need their savings and investments, they may find that they’ve been whittled away.

On the other hand, when the support of the parents disappears, the child will be stuck without having learned how to live within his means. In fact, the child’s standard of life is so far beyind his/her means that, unless the child is very, very aware and centered, their life will enter a very difficult period, laden with debts and some incredibly difficult lifestyle changes. This disruption will alter almost every element of their life – and many of those elements will involve a serious downgrade.

If you find yourself in a situation like this, the best thing you can do is to begin the process of distinguishing and separating the finances of the parent and the child. It is far better to do it slowly, surely, and together than to do it abruptly, shockingly, and without personal support.

This way, the child will be able to stand on their own two feet financially and the parents will have the resources they need as they reach their later years (and, hopefully, have enough resources to truly enjoy those later years).

A final note: I’ve witnessed again and again that people who choose a $20,000 career believe (or pretend to believe) that they can live like they have an $80,000 career. A $20,000 career is likely to be much more personally and spiritually fulfilling than an $80,000 career – but it’s not financially fulfilling. Life is full of gives and takes – your career choice is just one of them.

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

I am 50 years old, live on SSI, have $25.00 in savings. My SSI is $845.00 per month. I rent my apartment. On housing, so thats a great dicount. I have nothing else. My family is my two children, both adults and moved out, the last one left 2 months ago. How do I manage my money so I can eat all month? Each month I start with $645.oo. And I am backed up on utility bills. I refuse to turn on my heater this year. So far, we havent frooze. (I have two cats). Please advise
- Jana

Since you’re on SSI and under age 65, you must either be disabled or blind. However, since you were able to write this email, you do have some capacities for earning additional income, plus you have internet access.

My suggestion would be to seek out simple online opportunities to earn a few extra dollars. Given the unknown nature of your disability, I’m going to assume that sustained tasks – like starting a blog – might be challenging. However, simple independent tasks (like sending this email) are within your means. Plus, it sounds like you’re able to mostly make ends meet with what you have, so you only need a limited additional boost.

Why not give Mechanical Turk a try? Whenever you feel up to it, you can sit down at a web browser and earn small amounts for simple tasks. I was able to earn a little over $10 in an hour doing it a while back, so it’s not too bad. Plus, it’s something you can do when it works for you and your health conditions.

You might also want to take advantage of any charitable offerings available in your area. Is there a food pantry from which you can get food to supplement what you have? Are there assistance programs for your energy bill? You may want to simply call them and see what you can learn. Many people are too “proud” to take charity. Others use charity as a tool to get by without doing anything. My belief is that if you need it, you should take it – and it sounds like Jana does need it.

Good luck.

You often mention that you’re a big fan of board games and card games. My family has a Christmas tradition of playing Trivial Pursit. Some of us would like to find a different game to play at our big Christmas gathering, perhaps also giving it as a gift. Do you have any suggestions?
- Erin

You’re clearly looking for more of a “party” type of game rather than one that requires a lot of strategy and deep planning. Usually, with such games, many people play it simply to socialize. If that’s the case, two games immediately come to mind.

The first is Apples to Apples. The game is really simple. There’s a big pile of red cards from which everyone gets a hand of seven cards. There’s also a big pile of green cards. Everyone sits around a table and the players take turns being the judge. The judge turns over the top card in the green stack which has an adjective on it (like “funny” or “smelly” or “obnoxious”), then all of the other players pick a red card from their hand (which has a noun on it like “stand-up comics” or “my feet” or “Rush Limbaugh”) that they think best matches the green card. After everyone has played a red card face down, the judge shuffles all of the played red cards, turns them over, then decides which one is the best match (with all of the players trying to make their case for why their card is the best one). The judge picks the best red card and whoever played it gets to collect that green card and keep it in front of them. The first one to some certain number of green cards (seven or so) wins. It plays really fast and can be a lot of fun with a big group.

The second is Wits and Wagers. It’s a trivia game like Trivial Pursuit, but each question is answered with a number (like “In what year was Columbus born?” or “How many baseball players were in the Hall of Fame as of 2008?”). Each player writes down an answer on a piece of paper, then the answers are lined up on a board. The players are then allowed to bet on which answer is right or that the right answer is between any two answers. The person with the most money at the end of a certain number of questions (usually seven) is the winner. It plays in about an hour, there’s a bit of gambling fun involved, and it’s not ruled by a painful die roll like Trivial Pursuit is.

My question for the reader mailbag is, when buying gifts for people, do you work to a dollar limit? Obviously all of these questions include the disclaimer assuming you can afford it, but do you just buy a gift you think somone will really like, regardless of the cost? Or do you try to spend approximately the same on people who fit into a particular ‘category’ relating to how close to you they are? [Example, do you spend the same amount of money on both your children/all your parents and in laws/your close friends etc?] What if you find a really really great gift for someone important (even Sarah?) for only $3? Do you then feel obliged to go out and get them some other things as well to make the money the same, even though the thoughtfulness will probably get drowned out by the other things? Please share all your thoughts about this.
- Katie

I don’t usually worry about a dollar limit at all unless it’s for a gift exchange where a dollar limit is specified, as is the case with the gift exchanges with my extended family.

Honestly, the thought of “what if the recipient thinks I’m cheap?” never really crosses my mind. I just try to find a gift that genuinely matches the person I’m giving it to. If I feel like giving them something more, I do so, but it has nothing to do with the price tag. I think my thought and care in most of the gifts I give comes through to the recipient.

On top of that, almost all of the people I exchange gifts with feel much the same way: they’d rather give an interesting or thoughtful gift than one that meets a price tag. If you’re surrounded by people who are obsessed with how much something costs, then you’re likely surrounded by people who turn Christmas into Debtmas, ruining the joy of the season.

Me and my wife are in the process of buying town home in NJ and are looking at mortgage rates with several firms. I received a note from a company called American Federal Mortgage offering a rate of 4.75% on a 30 year loan with no points. This rate is by far the best we have heard in the last week or so talking to Wells Fargo and looking at bankrate trends.

My question is, how safe is it to get a huge mortgage (~300K, i am putting 20 down) from a company such as American Federal Mortgage? Will I be better off going for a slightly higher interest rate but with a bigger more established firm like Wells Fargo?
- Pankaj

If you’re not dealing with someone local (which I prefer if you’re getting competitive rates – if your loan stays local, it’s much easier to sit down with someone and talk about it if there are problems), you’re basically just shopping for the lowest rate among larger banks. That’s often done with tools like Bankrate.

However, having the lowest rate by a few hundredths of a percent doesn’t mean too much if you’re going to get socked with fees. Don’t be afraid to request a description of charges and fees from all lenders you’re considering and also ask for guarantees that cap the amount of your fees in total.

If one bank is seemingly far ahead of the curve when it comes to rates, I would make sure that I knew the business was reputable and I’d also carefully read over my HUD statement before I closed on the house to make sure there weren’t any sneaky fees tossed in there. Unless you plan on living there forever or your mortgage is enormous, it’s not worth thousands in fees to get a 0.25% lower rate.

My girlfriend’s car will cost $2000 to repair and it’s only worth around $5000. She will graduate in 7 months and has a $70k/year job lined up with a $6k signing bonus. She also has about $10k saved up but will need a lot of that to live on for the next 7 months. What should she do about the car? Thanks.
- Greg

Repair the car.

I think the underlying assumption here is that Greg assumes his girlfriend will obviously upgrade her car that’s “only” worth $5,000 the second she gets out of school. Coming from a person who is currently driving a truck that’s worth somewhere around $1,000, I really find that a strange perspective.

You don’t need a brand new car just because you’re earning a good salary. In fact, that brand new car will eat away big time from your other goals via car payments, much higher insurance costs, and so on. Hold onto that used car for as long as you can, then replace it with the car that’s the best value for you in your situation then – and pay cash if you can.

You’ve mentioned your distaste for Craigslist. Why? Is it from a bad experience (a la Aldi) or another reason? I’ve had very good experiences on Craigslist, made quite a bit of money, and found some great deals. I’m curious why you’re so against it.
- Michelle

My problem with Craigslist is the signal-to-noise ratio. For every interesting and useful offer to be found there, you have to trawl through acres of stuff that’s irrelevant and self-promoting. Even using the search doesn’t often lead you to what you want.

In large cities, there’s a lot of signal (good stuff), but it’s buried under a ton of noise (stuff that’s useless). In smaller cities, there’s just a little signal – often not enough to bother visitig with any consistency.

A better-policed Craigslist would be an incredible resource. The way things are now feels like I don’t get much benefit for the time invested there.

How do you handle Christmas with your kids? Do you have them make a list? Do they write letters to Santa? Do they pore over toy catalogs?
- Jim

My children are four and two, so actually making a list is beyind them, as is writing a letter to Santa. We have asked them what kind of things they’d like for Christmas and received a few vague answers, but I think they’re mostly just happy to open a few gifts on Christmas morning. We try to keep it as low-key as we can within our family.

As for the toy catalogs, we intentionally don’t receive any in the mail and if we do wind up with any, we throw them away. I have no desire to have my children covet the contents of what amounts to a glorified marketing flyer.

I don’t mind it at all if they hear about something they want from their friends or from other sources, but just simply browsing through lists of stuff to decide what they want is just encouraging pure consumerism.

Aren’t you better off hiring someone to do things for you like housework and using your time to earn a lot of money?
- Tess

That might be true if you were infinitely capable of turning every hour of your life into cold, hard cash. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people simply aren’t in that position. In fact, many people who think they are in that position often aren’t actually in that position.

Take my own life. One might argue that I’d be better off hiring a housekeeper because I can earn more during a productive hour of writing than it would cost to pay that housekeeper. The catch is this: not every hour of my life is a productive hour of writing. Sometimes I simply can’t write well – at other times, I’d rather not be writing. At those times, I’ll do housework or find other ways to spend my time.

In effect, if I hired a housekeeper, it would do nothing at all to increase the number of good writing hours per week. It would just give me more hours of leisure, something which I’m not interested in paying a high fee for at this stage in my life.

It seems in these difficult economic times there are more and more “internet opportunities” popping up every day. One that appears to be gaining in popularity is HubPages. Since there seem to be a good many aspiring bloggers who read your blog, I thought you might want to do a post or a reader mailbag with your thoughts on this website and those similar. Since you always share wonderfully insightful comments, I thought this might be a topic you’d like to tackle.
- Susan

Sites like HubPages, Squidoo, Mahalo, and the like all operate around a simple premise. You go there, create a page on a topic that you know something about, and they do the rest, adding advertisements to the page and so on. Then, you earn some portion of what the page brings in.

It seems good in theory. All you have to do is write and they handle the rest. However, there’s a catch: most people earn almost nothing doing this. I’ve experimented with several different sites (here’s an example of a page I made at Squidoo) and have never earned more than a penny or two for multiple hours of invested time at each site.

Yes, if you continued to work at it and built lots of top-quality pages, interlinked them a lot, and convinced other sites to link to your pages, you’d likely see your income on such sites take off. But if you’re going to all that work, why are you letting those sites take a big cut of it? Why not just start a site yourself and reap all of the rewards?

If you have just a little bit of time, you’re better off doing something like Mechanical Turk, which I mentioned in the first question. If you have a ton of time, start your own site.

Got any questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll use them in future mailbags.

Every other Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a book of interest not directly concerning personal finance.

One of the most profound lessons I’ve learned about money management since I’ve started The Simple Dollar is that a deeper understanding of your desires and motivations is vital for making good money decisions. Today’s marketing is incredibly clever – and I’m not talking about advertisements, though that’s just part of the equation. I’m talking about the multitude of messages that are sent to me in order to convince me to choose to buy a particular product: product placements, peer pressure, appeals to one’s self esteem, and so on.

As a result, I find that I learn a lot about how to better understand and manage my own spending desires and instincts by reading the key books about marketing. Few books are considered as essential in that field as this one, Roberd Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

The book’s central premise is that there are six universal principles that work to persuade people to your way of thinking, discovered through thirty five years of Dr. Cialdini’s research. The book focuses on these six principles, offering tactics on how to use each of the six principles as well as suggestions on how to resist their use.

Reciprocation
It’s simple: if someone gives you something for free, you’re more likely to think positively of them. You’re also more likely to listen to what they have to say, simply because of human nature. Quite often, that’s all a good salesman needs to make the sale.

I’ll use a great example from my own life. We shop at Sam’s Club, and on Saturdays they often have a large number of free food samples that they give out. We’ll often go grocery shopping on Saturdays and due to the samples, we’re much more likely to make Sam’s Club a stop on our trip. Once we’re actually in the store – and then softened up a bit by the free samples – we’re more likely to spend our money there.

The most effective way to avoid this type of persuasion is to simply decline free things that you don’t actually need. Many people will argue that they’ll just take the freebies and not actually buy anything, but to get that freebie, they often have to surround themselves by marketing and temptation. It’s simply not an equation worth entering.

Commitment and Consistency
It’s easy to say no the first time. It’s easy to say no the second time. By the fifteenth time, though, the message has been pounded into your head and, not only that, on some level you respect the tenacity. You’re much more open to buying the product.

This is why major brands often run advertisements that do nothing more than attract your attention to that brand – then run them over and over. Geico. Nike. Verizon. We see their ads so often that their message is pounded in our heads. Whether consciously or not, they become standards that we use for comparison simply because we know them and we know what they offer, thanks to the commitment and consistency of their message.

How can you avoid this type of persuasion? Minimize your channels of persuasion. Avoid commerical-sponsored television programming. Also, when you make purchases, do research in advance so that you know what the actual features of the product – and reviews of the product – are before you buy them. Read Consumer Reports and let that be your guide instead of pitchmen. It doesn’t matter how many times you hear the pitch if you just stick to the data for your purchases.

Social Proof
Ever notice how ads often show a multitude of people using a product, usually successfully? That’s because the persuasive tactic at work here is social proof – look, many others do it this way and they’re seeing success, so you will, too!

The Simple Dollar, in its own way, runs on this tactic. I’m the social proof. I write about the things that work in my life, and because they work in my life, you’re more willing to try it. Thankfully, I’m not selling a product – I’m just encouraging people to get control of their financial life.

That’s also why marketers will often use testimonials in ads because you can see that the product works for other people.

The best way to break through this is to remember that when you see someone in an advertisement for a product, they’re paid to be there. They’re not speaking the truth (or the full truth).

Liking
Sex sells. So does humor. Why? Because we like them.

When someone makes you laugh, you feel better and you’re more receptive to what they’re saying. When someone arouses you, you’re much more susceptible to the suggestions that they make. Both of these things make us feel better and open us up.

What can you do to resist these things? Enjoy the emotional ride, but step back from the actual purchase. Learn to walk away, because walking away is the most powerful tool in your arsenal.

Authority
As I mentioned above, it’s often useful to consult others when making purchasing choices. The problem here is that marketers are aware of the fact that we often consult experts – and they try to co-opt this as well. They hire experts to do their marketing. Having a doctor in your ad for medicine is helpful. Having a well-known doctor in your ad is even more helpful.

Another technique often used is the reference to recommendations and awards – “this car won the J.D. Power blah blah blah award,” for example. This call to authority makes the claims of the ads seem more real – “see, this respected third party agrees with us.”

The antidote is simple. Follow up on those claims. If a car won an award, check out that award. Check out the reputation of that award, Use more than one source – and find your own sources.

Scarcity
“Get them before they’re gone” is often a simple spur to convince people to take action quickly. Think of Black Friday and the hordes of people chasing sales that will disappear if you don’t jump on board.

Scarcity is powerful. It calls to our fear of doing without. We might miss something of great value. We might miss a great opportunity. And we might wind up being one of the ones without.

Two antidotes really work here. First, surround yourself with people who don’t care if they’re doing without. Use peer pressure to your advantage to counteract the power of scarcity (and the “haves” and “have nots”). Second, find out for yourself if the opportunity really is scarce. Quite often, the “big sale” isn’t really much of a sale at all – just ordinary prices with some very clever window dressing to push your “scarcity” button.

Is Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion Worth Reading?
If you have an interest (as I do) on how marketers (and others – including writers, I suppose) persuade you to certain ideas and also how to resist those tactics of persuasion, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion is an utterly fascinating read. For me, it was one of the most enjoyable and thought-provoking books I’ve read this year.

To get real value out of this book, however, you have to invest in some introspection. Unlike many books that I review, it doesn’t simply provide you with a checklist of things to do. Instead, it points you in directions for you to think about the decisions you make and lead you in better directions. Similarly, if you have a career in which you persuade people (like writing, for example), the ideas in this book can help sharpen your persuasive skills quite a bit.

If this sounds intriging to you, pick Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, without question. It’s an excellent read and one of my favorite books I’ve read this year.

Earlier today, I read with interest the comments on this Get Rich Slowly article about Suze Orman and the “cash only” movement. In a nutshell, the article advocated (as Suze apparently does now) that people should abandon credit cards because the credit card issuers have been raising interest rates.

To put it simply, the raising of credit card rates shouldn’t matter to a person who has control over their financial life. If you don’t carry a balance on your credit card for longer than the grace period, it doesn’t matter what the interest rate is.

Based on the comments I read there, a lot of people do the same exact thing I do. I use credit cards for their convenience and the rewards they provide. I pay off the balance in full each month (I pay all such bills on the 1st and 15th of each month, actually, to keep it simple).

There’s one big problem with this plan, some will point out. It puts you at risk. What happens if you can’t pay the balance at the end of the month?

For starters, I never, ever carry a balance that’s more than what I have in cash in my emergency fund. I never even come remotely close. In fact, I never come remotely close to carrying a balance that’s more than what’s in my checking account. If I’m turning to my emergency fund, it’s a genuine emergency, not just a great sale at the store.

Which brings me to the second point – effective credit card use requires a lot of self-control. I am speaking from experience here – I learned the hard way about what damage a credit card can do if you don’t have self-control. It took a mountain of debt and a point that was perilously close to personal bankruptcy (while having a baby at home, no less) to force me to wake up to the truth – that a credit card without self-control is like a chainsaw in the hands of a toddler.

If you aren’t spending less than you earn month in and month out, you should go cash only, because cash provides the hard limits that are needed when you don’t have your spending under control. Credit cards are only beneficial to people who spend less than they earn every month, like clockwork. If you can’t or aren’t doing that, the drawbacks far outweigh the benefits for credit card use.

When the credit card companies raise interest rates, it’s not the financially stable people who are punished – they are often barely aware of rate changes because they’re unaffected by the changes. Instead, it’s the people who don’t have self-control – the people who carry a balance – who are punished by the changes.

Yet again, it’s a fantastic argument for living frugally, responsibly, and below your means – if you do so, the games companies play with credit card rates don’t affect you.

If you’re carrying a balance right now and your credit card company has just adujsted your rates, I have a simple plan for you: cut up your credit card. It’s doing you much more harm than good right now. Then, focus intensely on paying off the debt. Absorb as many frugality ideas as you can and try them in your own life. Knock down your life’s routines and build new ones – your old routines are the ones that brought you to this point. Seek out friends who don’t find their self-worth in the things they have. Seek out activities that don’t drain your wallet.

And gradually, you’ll find that credit cards don’t have to be dangerous – they can merely be useful tools – and that you don’t have to worry about rate changes.

Good luck.

Many newer readers of The Simple Dollar haven’t been exposed to the hundreds of great articles in the archives of the site, so this is a weekly series that highlights the five best posts from one year ago this week, two years ago this week, and three years ago this week. I call it … the Time Machine.

One Year Ago (December 6-12, 2008)
Fifteen Tactics for Maximizing Your Investment in Reading for Personal Growth I’m a firm believer that a steady diet of reading is one of the best ways to make yourself into a intellectually well-rounded individual, which is of more and more importance in the information age.

The Best Moment of Your Day What was the best moment of your day? I’m willing to bet that it had little to do with spending money. Keep that in mind as you move through life – your best moments are rarely defined by stuff.

Review: Outliers Malcolm Gladwell’s book is a great analysis of what makes people truly great. The secret? Lots of hard work. Talent doesn’t really compare to obsessive practice.

Eighteen Tips for a Frugal (Not Cheap) Wedding A spectacular wedding doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Even back in our “big spending” days, we used many of these ideas at our own wedding.

The Expensive Ups and Downs of Christmas Christmas can be an incredibly expensive time of the year for all of us. Here are some things to keep in mind if it feels like the season is eating you alive.

Two Years Ago (December 6-12, 2007)
The “It” Toy from the Perspective of a Parent Some thoughts on parents chasing down whatever the “must-have” toy is during the Christmas season. I largely consider it to be a fool’s errand.

Facing A Difficult Personal Finance Decision (Or Other Major Decision)? Try These Seven Techniques I use most of these techniques whenever I’m trying to make a difficult decision in my own life. It usually helps me get to the place I need to be.

Seven Unexpected Things I Read For Personal Finance Inspiration and Motivation I often find ideas and inspiration in the least expected of places. Everything you take in has the chance to trigger something worthwhile.

I Have A Wallet Full Of Credit Cards – Which Ones Should I Keep? If you’re having debt troubles, none of them. If you’re doing well but want to trim down your identity theft risk, then follow this advice.

Does Peer Pressure Keep Us From Succeeding? I’m a big believer that you’re roughly as successful as the average of your five closest friends. Thus, if you want to move up, you may need to find new friends and peers.

Three Years Ago (December 6-12, 2006)
Review: The Total Money Makeover A great one-shot review of Dave Ramsey’s seminal book on debt reduction and management.

The First Christmas Present You Should Buy If the stress of the Christmas season makes you a bear to be around, this is absolutely the first Christmas present that should be on your list.

Battling The Convenience and Costs of Fast Food Fast food is undeniably convenient – that’s the one big thing it has going in its favor. Thankfully, there are a lot of things we can do in advance to make healthier and tastier and cheaper things just as convenient.

Ten Ways To Save Money On Your Evening Commute As with any such list, these are each worth trying on their own to see which ones work best for you. I wound up incorporating several when I commuted each day.

Cashing In Savings Bonds Early: Is It Worthwhile? Generally, it isn’t. But here’s why it isn’t.

If you’d like to browse through more of the archives, visit the chronology, where all posts are listed in chronological order.

Nine Ways to Get More out of The Simple Dollar
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are nine great ways for new readers to dig deeper into The Simple Dollar.

1. Subscribe by email or RSS. Visiting The Simple Dollar’s website is great, but for many people, it’s more convenient to receive the articles in another form. It’s easy to join 60,000 other subscribers and get The Simple Dollar’s content by email or in your RSS feeder (if you’re unfamiliar with RSS, check out Google Reader.

2. Comment. Each article on The Simple Dollar has lively discussion. Just click on the green square in the upper right of each article on the website and join in!

3. Read my story of financial meltdown and recovery. The Simple Dollar isn’t based on what I’ve read in books or learned in school. I’ve made a lifetime of financial mistakes – The Simple Dollar is a record of what works for me during the process of getting my life on a better track.

4. Download my free 49 page e-book. Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance On Just One Page is completely free. It summarizes all of the key lessons I’ve learned along the way about personal finance in one tidy package – in fact, all of the main principles can be found right on the cover.

5. Follow me on Twitter – or other social networks. I post tons of interesting articles, quotes, follow-up material, commentary, and other material on Twitter. Follow me! If you’re unfamiliar with Twitter, it’s essentially an open discussion forum for people to share ideas and thoughts with other like-minded folks – you just choose the people you want to listen to and their ideas and thoughts are all delivered to you on a single page.

I also participate on several other social networks. Feel free to check me out on del.icio.us (it’s where I collect links, from which I select the ones that appear in my weekly roundups), wakoopa (what software I use), GoodReads (what books I’m reading), Facebook, and FriendFeed (which aggregates everything). I also have an irregularly-updated personal site, TrentHamm.com.

6. Dig through “31 Days to Fix Your Finances.” 31 Days to Fix Your Finances is an article series that outlines how you can get a grip on your finances over the course of a month.

7. Send me your questions and suggestions. Send me an email and let me know what you’re thinking, what you’d like to see, and any questions you might have. I try to respond to as many emails as possible and I read them all. I may even use your question in a future article!

8. Become a “Friend of The Simple Dollar.” If you find the stuff on The Simple Dollar valuable and are willing to spend five minutes or so a month to help me out with small things, please consider signing up to be a “Friend of The Simple Dollar”.

9. Email a great article you find to a friend. Find an article that you think your friend would love? At the bottom of each article, you’ll find a link that says “Email this” – just click on that, type in your friend’s address, and send it right along to them!

Earlier this week (just before the large blizzard hit central Iowa), our furnace went out. I took a look and couldn’t diagnose the problem myself, so we called a repairman (ouch). The guy we called was someone who was recommended by a few friends who told us that we’d be surprised how inexpensive his first visit would be.

They weren’t kidding.

The repairman stopped by on Monday morning, took a look at our furnace, and within ten minutes had figured out the problem – it was our thermostat, which had short circuited. He offered to replace it with a programmable one, of which he had several on hand (I’ve mentioned before that programmable thermostats can be a big money saver). Ordinarily, I wouldn’t buy one in this fashion, but he happened to have the exact model that I was considering buying earlier in the year and offered to install it for the same price I was going to buy the thermostat for.

Here’s the kicker: he gave us a form to send to our energy company to get a $30 reimbursement on our next energy bill for the new thermostat.

After that, he offered to clean our ventilation system for $30 – a process that would take about half an hour. Again, I was about to say no, but then he showed me a form for our energy company that, if given a receipt, would give us a $30 credit for having our ventilation system cleaned, making it a wash even if it didn’t help our energy efficiency at all.

And it certainly did. When he started cleaning it, he noticed the air flow was shockingly low. He ran a retrieval tool through our duct work and pulled out a large air filter that had somehow become lodged in our duct work by the previous owner. Once he removed it, finished his cleaning, and turned on the fan, the air flow through the house was tremendous compared to what we were getting before – an obvious improvement over our previous energy efficiency.

After the repairman left, I took a look at the wide variety of rebates and discounts our energy company offers us for doing simple home energy improvements. In fact, it turns out that several things we already did to lower our energy bill could be rewarded with a rebate from the energy company.

It’s basically extra money in my pocket for something I’m already doing.

If you’ve ever thought about improving the energy efficiency of your home in some fashion, whether it’s something simple like putting in new light bulbs or installing a programmable thermostat or something major like putting in new windows, take a look at the incentives offered to you by your energy company. It turns out that many companies offer such incentives to their customers. If you take advantage of those incentives, it swings the cost balance even more in favor of doing a simple energy upgrade, as the up-front cost is now even lower (or, in some cases, zero).

Take a look today. After all, the winter season is one of the best times to improve the energy efficiency of your home, and if your energy company is making it even easier on your pocketbook, now’s the time to make some changes.

My grandfather and grandmother came of age during the Great Depression. They both passed away when I was a young child (not all that much older than my own son now), but many of my memories of them revolved around their extreme frugality. They would buy bottles of the most inexpensive wine they could buy, drink it slowly, then fill it with water to get those last drops of flavor. They hand-painted their car with house paint and a brush (seriously).

One of the most vivid memories, though, is that they kept their money in tin cans in their home, hidden in different places. To put it simply, they did not trust the banks to keep their money for them.

They grew up in the 1930s, where banks failed by the hundreds. The only difference between now and then is that they didn’t have FDIC insurance. If their bank failed, their money was gone.

Their coming-of-age experience was filled with inherent distrust of financial institutions and a well-ingrained idea that they had to protect what they had. This usually meant living as inexpensively as possible – making modest choices again and again throughout their lives.

Since then, three generations have passed. Most of us living today in the United States have never experienced a true economic meltdown. Losing some of your retirement money in your 401(k) one year and then gaining most of it back the next year is not a meltdown. Losing your job and finding a new one – partially supported by unemployment along the way – is not a meltdown.

Without this kind of life-altering experience, it’s unsurprising that later generations are unable to match the frugality of my grandparents’ generation. The idea that a third of the nation can be unemployed, that the bank where you keep your money can just take that money and run, and that if you don’t have a job you don’t get any benefits or support from the government seems completely alien to how we live our lives today.

We inherently rely on these institutions and they allow us to live less frugally and carefully than we otherwise would have.

Yet they had the things that mattered. They had people to love – and people who loved them. They had food on the table. They had the entertainment that they needed. They had a roof over their heads.

In the end, what else do we really need? Whenever we go beyond that, we’re simply chasing more of the same – and risking the security of everything we hold dear to do so.

Lately, I’ve been looking at a picture of my grandfather quite often. He’s sitting on the couch in his home with an old banjo in his hand and a big grin on his face. He didn’t have much spit and polish to him, but he was surrounded with what really mattered to him – his home, comfortable clothes, friends and family, a fishing net on the wall behind him, a musical instrument in his hands. He was happy and he didn’t need much to get there.

He knew what was important. He knew what made him happy. He also knew how easily it can be lost – something that’s very difficult for us to see most of the time. So, he made choices that might seem outrageous to others. So what?

Grandpa, almost twenty five years after you left this earth, you’re still inspiring your grandson.