I make financial mistakes. I make a lot of them, actually. What I usually try to do when I screw up is not dwell on them. Instead, I try to identify why I made the mistake and then try to figure out how I can fix that issue. I don’t beat myself up over them

Earlier today, I did a lengthy interview with Dean Voelker on his Improving Your Financial Health radio show. Dean’s very much into preparation, so I actually wound up doing a substantial amount of prep work for the interview. Since I had accumulated such a pile of notes for the interview in advance and Dean asked

(And now for something a little different…) There isn’t much that I feel I need A solid soul and the blood I bleed With a little girl, and by my spouse I only want a proper house When I was in college, I was obsessed with music of all kinds. There was music playing almost

I’m spending the first day of this new year sleeping off a long New Year’s Eve night and spending some quality time with my kids and my wife before the spring semester gets rolling. I hope your 2010 gets off to a wonderful start! Tomorrow, we’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming!

I hope that wherever you are and whatever you believe, good tidings are reaching you. Tune in tomorrow for our regularly scheduled programming

Today, I’m spending the day with my family, enjoying some turkey, taking a nap, playing a few games, and kibbitzing with people I love. Wherever you are today (whether you’re in the United States or not), take a moment to look at the good things in your life and ask yourself what you can do

Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day (one of the two holidays of the year that are really important to me, the other being Christmas), I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on the eight things over the last year that I’m most thankful for. I’m thankful for my family. My wife, my son, and my

As I announced on Twitter a few days ago, I recently turned in the manuscript for my upcoming second book. I’m extremely proud of this book, as I conceived of the entire idea myself, spent literally hundreds of hours researching materials and interviewing dozens of people, and spent the last three months tying together the

Over the past three years, I’ve had countless opportunities to reflect not only on my own personal finance and life journey, but that of thousands of readers who have contacted me over the years with questions and stories. Along the way, quite a few principles for personal and financial success began to appear. These same

Three years ago today, I officially launched The Simple Dollar. It’s been a crazy ride. Each year, on the anniversary of the launch, I’ve highlighted my 25 favorite articles from the previous twelve months of entries. These aren’t necessarily the best articles, just the ones I enjoyed writing the most. Here’s the list from the

After some positive response to yesterday’s comments about an article explaining how I earn an income from The Simple Dollar, I decided to follow up and give the process a thorough description. Enjoy! Quite often, when I tell people that I’m a full time writer, they’re surprised. They expect that by saying that I’m a

Over the years, many of you who read The Simple Dollar have come through time and time again when I’ve asked for a little bit of help. For that, I thank you very, very much – I really appreciate when you guys step up to the plate and offer a bit of a helping hand

Recently, several readers have written to me bringing up various points about writing about money. Edward writes: I’ve been a reader of The Simple Dollar for two years. Sometimes it feels like you’re saying the same thing over and over. Jamie writes: You really should run more ads. With your audience, you could be making

Download it now – for free! A long time ago, I wrote a very popular post entitled “Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance on the Back of Five Business Cards“. After posting it, several people contacted me and suggested that I try to turn it into a book of some sort.

As The Simple Dollar has grown in popularity over time, I’ve been able to slowly gain more and more control over the advertising that appears on The Simple Dollar. I’ve been able to avoid advertising that’s unscrupulous, while also keeping the amount of advertising to a minimum. Even better, I’ve been able to build enough

One year ago, I began my journey as a full-time writer working from home. Prior to making that leap, I worked full time in a research lab with a small, rather tight-knit group of people and I spent my spare time (when I could find it) working on The Simple Dollar. After a year and

Recently, I heard some pretty strong (but valid) criticism of The Simple Dollar (that applies to most personal finance blogs out there): You are a guy in your [thirties] who lists no credentials except the fact that you made it through a “complete financial meltdown” a few years ago. You have no professional training and

Over the last year or two, I’ve had to do a lot of thinking about where I wanted The Simple Dollar to go in the future. The site had become quite popular, but I didn’t know what that meant. I had started The Simple Dollar mostly as an outlet for my desire to write a

Recently, a reader (CreoleIvy08) suggested that I hold a “de-lurking day” in which I encouraged readers who did not regularly comment on The Simple Dollar to leave a brief comment, in order to get a broader picture of the readership of The Simple Dollar. Why? It would give a much broader picture of the diversity