Financial meltdowns often start with a small thing – the figurative straw that breaks the camel’s back. I’ve read stories from readers about the many small things that have caused them to start reassessing their lives. They had a credit card rejected at an inopportune moment. They didn’t have enough cash to pay for the

Monica writes in: At my new job, everyone dresses incredibly well. Everyone is wearing expensive – or at least expensive-looking – suits and other businesswear. My wardrobe is simply not up to snuff. Catching my wardrobe up to the level of everyone else is going to be really expensive. Do you have any suggestions? First

Let’s say you make $45,000 a year – that was the median income for a male in the United States in 2007. You pay 25% in taxes each year between federal, state, and local taxes of various kinds, leaving you with $33,750 in money you bring home each year. Reasonable, right? Let’s say you’re paid

Let’s say you have three choices for your work commute. Option A will cost you about $2. It will get you outside your office in forty minutes, but you won’t have to be doing anything during that time other than just sitting there. Option B will cost you $12. It will get you outside your

When I shop for garbage bags or toothpaste or something else that doesn’t really come with an expiration date, I really only use two criteria. First, do I care at all what brand I buy? Most of the time, I really don’t care. With an awful lot of products, I have found basically no difference

One of my favorite television series is Good Eats, a food science program hosted by Alton Brown that still sometimes runs on repeats on Food Network and Cooking Channel. The series could probably best be described as being like Mr. Wizard, except with an adult target audience and with a focus on the exploration of

A few nights ago, our family went out to dinner at a local restaurant. On the occasions when our family does eat out, our children are usually pretty excited for the event, as it’s a change of pace from eating at home every evening. They’re usually really observant and spend much of the meal asking

Recently, I’ve come across several financial “gurus,” both in print and online, who make the claim that the little expenses in life don’t really matter in terms of getting ahead. “You’re wasting your time worrying about the details of lunch,” they say, “when you should be focusing on drastically increasing your income.” It’s an appealing

Want some action points today that can change your financial situation pretty rapidly? Willing to make a few big changes to your life? Here are four things you can do starting right now to make a radical shift in your finances and set you on a better track. 1. Cancel your cable or satellite service.

I love orange juice. I just love the stuff. When there’s orange juice in the fridge, I am constantly tempted to pull out the container and pour me a glass of it. This is particularly true when the container is mostly full, but when the container starts to get low, I slow down. I know

That’s the thought I have pretty often when I have a few free hours on the weekends. I usually have a ton of things that I’d like to be doing. I could go buy some books I’ve been wanting, then curl up with them. I could go golfing. I could go out to eat at

This coming Thursday is Valentine’s Day, and an awful lot of couples out there are going to be spending some cash on flowers, on chocolates, on expensive dinners, and on other gifts on that day (or within a day or two of it). The entire purpose of the day is to express love for your

For most of us, the desire to replace our computer comes about due to one of two things. Either there’s a hardware failure or there’s a need to run some application that doesn’t run well on our older computer. In either case, I’ve found myself in a position to replace my computer twice since I’ve

A reader recently wrote to me about her struggles with when to be frugal and when not to be: I’m a long-term reader and appreciate your work. Just came across this blog entry and thought to pass it along if you haven’t already seen it (http://www.budgetsaresexy.com/2013/01/10-rule-spending-tip/). It made me pause to think about some of

We went ice skating as a family during a free skating day at the local ice skating rink. We found out about this because we watch the local community calendar. We played several board games among the ones already sitting on our shelves. At different times so far this year, all of us have suggested

Our lives are enormous collections of routines. On a typical morning, I get out of bed, put on adequate clothes to be presentable if I have to answer the door, take my Synthroid, go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, check my email, wake up the children, prepare breakfast for us, eat breakfast, help my

A few years ago, I was a big collector of DVDs. I amassed a collection of almost 1,000 DVDs of all kinds, and I was pretty proud of the collection. We had display cases in our living room showing all of them off. Now, if you do a bit of “back of the envelope” math

I love sending frugality tips to my friends when I see an opportunity for it. I thought it might be fun to share some of those recent ideas I’ve sent out to people. (Names are changed, along with a few bits of personal info from my responses.) To Amy, the chronically disorganized friend: I find

Late last winter and early last spring, many local places put their fall and winter clothes on deep discount. Long sleeved shirts and long pants had to go to make room for the short sleeved shirts and shorter pants, after all. I actually went to one of these sales and picked up a couple of