And even though there are many different kinds of living situations these days it appears that most PF advice still assumes that everyone is married and/or has kids.

There’s no one to blame, I’m just surprised that there are so few bloggers to fill the gaps.

It’s pretty obvious Trent almost never bothers to do even the most basic research. His posts tend to be based on what he feels things are or should be like. A quick look at almost any Reader Mailbag would reveal that.

He even makes the same basic mistakes over and over again, no matter how many times he’s been corrected, so I don’t think he ‘tries very hard’ at all.

“Not even trying to get your facts right.” By observing your comments over the past year I notice that you hold people accountable to not make statements they can’t support with facts.
This comment of yours leads me to believe you know exactly how hard Trent tries to get his facts straight. Why don’t you follow your own advice and make sure you have evidence before you make assuming statements like this.

Gah. Who are you, my mother?

You know what else there’s no excuse for? Not even trying to get your facts straight.

From Yahoo, Ben Stein’s columns were good ones. I know Trent is a fan of some of Ben Stein’s classic columns about earning more.

It is always a good idea for a writer to ask himself “Who is my audience for this article? What do they already know about this topic? What can I tell them that they don’t already know?” I think your writing could benefit from doing that far more often. A lot of posts here end up being collections of some information relevant to one group, some information relevant to a totally different group, and some information relevant to pretty much nobody.

Tour around. I read Kiplinger and Yahoo Finance to find links to new blogs all the time. I disagree with the Yahoo Finance rehashing of “skip the lattes and save $4!” but sometimes they run contributor pieces that they feel are “outside the box”. Not often.

Also, go right to Amazon and tour the personal finance books. Read the author profiles and you’ll find some good site leads.

Otherwise, I go to thesimpledollar and getrichslowly.org for 90-95% of my regular reading.

Over the holidays, my family and I did something that most financial folks would not have advised. We really did NOT have the money – but we went and did a ropes course (climbing and balancing on ropes, etc when 50 feet or so off the ground) in Tampa, FL with my wife’s sister.

We decided to go ahead and do it cause we are ADVENTURE SEEKERS and that stuff is part of what we LIVE FOR! And the cost wasn’t going to drive us to bankruptcy but it would be a real challenge to make it up over the next months. Sometimes you have to GO WITH YOUR HEART – as opposed to everyone’s well-meaning advice.

I find myself shouting this at people on a daily basis. Not everything applies to YOU, and just because it doesn’t apply to you doesn’t mean it’s “bad” or “wrong”.