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 12 – December 18, 2009)
The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good If you’re trying to be “perfect” when adopting a new habit, you’ll soon find that you can never really be “perfect.” Instead, shoot for being “good.”

Investing without Goals Is Like Golfing without a Putter… Goals help you figure out what the right kind of investment is. Without goals, it’s like shooting in the dark.

How I Wrap Gifts, Christmas and Otherwise I didn’t do this this year because we picked up a lot of wrapping paper at a steep discount late last December.

Two Years Ago (December 12 – December 18, 2008)
Planning Ahead for Next Year’s Garden Our garden is a major part of our food planning for the year. Garden planning plays a big role in that.

Are You Insuring the Irreplaceable? Look around your house and ask yourself what items would actually be replaced if your home burnt down. Now, are you insuring those things (at an extra cost to you)?

The Two-Career Assumption Do you and your spouse both have to have a career? For different families, different arrangements work better.

Three Years Ago (December 12 – December 18, 2007)
A Talk With My Niece My niece is now a wonderful eighteen year old woman, a college student who seems to have a better grasp of her life than almost any younger person I know.

The Real Value of Stay At Home Parenting Not everything in life is measured purely with dollars and cents.

Maximizing That Hourly Rate: Figuring Out How to Best Utilize My Working Time The more efficiently you work, the more you earn per hour over the long run.

Four Years Ago (December 12 – December 18, 2006)
Shakespeare Has Insights On Everything – Why Not Money? Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets have something of value for every element of life.

The Talk: Tips For Difficult Financial Discussions I find that when I’m about to have a difficult financial discussion, the time I spend thinking about it and planning ahead is very well served.

What Exactly Is A Certified Financial Planner, And Why Should I Care? It’s worth knowing about because it helps you to determine on at least a basic level how competent the person across the table from you really is.

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

Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten 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 130,000 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. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.

4. Follow me on Twitter. I post 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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!

9. 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”.

10. 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!

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 5 – December 11, 2009)
Personal Finance 101: What Does FDIC Insurance Really Mean? In a nutshell, it means that if your bank fails, your account is insured up to $250,000 and, likely, it’ll appear as an account at another bank within a week or so.

Brand Preferences and Frugality Can a frugal person have brand preferences? Certainly, as long as they’re based on something tangible about the product.

Most of Us Have Never Experienced a True Economic Meltdown This is not the 1930s. It is not the Weimar Republic.

Two Years Ago (December 5 – December 11, 2008)
If You Don’t Need It, It’s Not a Deal! Bargain shopping for the sake of finding bargains on stuff you don’t need isn’t really bargain shopping at all.

Family Traditions: What Children Really Want for Christmas They want traditions. They want family. They want time with people that love them. Christmas memories aren’t created from an expensive gift from an absent parent.

The Best Moment of Your Day If you keep track of these, you’ll begin to find that most of them have very little to do with any form of spending money.

Three Years Ago (December 5 – December 11, 2007)
Building a Foundation: Ten Things To Do First If You’re Looking At Starting Your Own Business Most of the things you need to do to get ready involve planning and thinking about what you’re doing. Things like filing paperwork are just icing on the cake.

Does Peer Pressure Keep Us From Succeeding? We are often very similar to the average of our five closest friends. Your peers somewhat define who you are.

Facing A Difficult Personal Finance Decision (Or Other Major Decision)? Try These Seven Techniques I often use the “pros and cons” list idea to help me with difficult decisions.

Four Years Ago (December 5 – December 11, 2006)
Battling The Convenience and Costs of Fast Food I freely admit that I like an order of French fries when I’m on the road.

Lauren’s Problem: Overdrafts Mixed With Solid Planning Quite often, personal finance problems are resolved by being better organized.

Figuring Out What Money Really Is Money is a representation of the time you spent doing something for someone else – typically some form of work. When you spend money, you’re essentially trading away your time and energy.

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

Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten 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 130,000 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. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.

4. Follow me on Twitter. I post 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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!

9. 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”.

10. 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!

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 (November 28 – December 4, 2009)
Some Thoughts on the Prosperity Gospel I have mixed feelings about the “prosperity gospel.” I don’t agree with the theology, but I do like it as a self-improvement tool.

Putting the “Important but Not Urgent” Tasks Above the “Urgent but Not Important” Tasks Mastering this, in my opinion, is a big key to personal success in every dimension of life. There are so many “urgent but not important” things in our lives and when we put them atop the “important but not urgent” things, we lose.

Why Are Oranges Always on Sale in December? Seasonal Food Sales and How to Take Advantage of Them I am always keeping an eye out for fresh produce on sale.

Two Years Ago (November 28 – December 4, 2008)
A Long December A long December and I’ve reason to believe that the next one will be better than the last.

Cutting Down on the “Hidden” Costs of After-School Activities Eating out, mall stops, buying beverages at the game – these were all part of after-school activities for me and they were all expensive. How can you cut that down?

Internal and External Signals If you can get a grip on all of those external signals, you can get a grip on some of the poor spending choices you make in your life.

Three Years Ago (November 28 – December 4, 2007)
Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance on the Back of Five Business Cards This is very concise summary of my perspective on personal finance.

An Inheritance of Collectibles What do you do if you inherit a collection of stuff that you don’t know much about? Here’s how I would handle it.

Simple Frugality By The Hourly Rate I often look at frugal decisions in terms of the value per hour that they provide. For example, if I can spend five seconds going across the room to flip a switch that controls four 60 watt bulbs and the lights then stay off for eight hours, that switch flip saved me about twenty cents. Figuring that for an hourly rate makes the value of that five seconds very high.

Four Years Ago (November 28 – December 4, 2006)
Money as a Social Barrier I think that if you’re finding money to be your social barrier, it may only be a proxy for something else.

Building a Better Blog for 2007 Here’s a compilation of my advice on getting a blog going. I put everything I ever learned about blogging to work here on The Simple Dollar and it seems to have worked out.

Is Living Cheap Really Worth It? Ask Alan and Bob If you can shave just a few percent off of your spending, it can have life-altering effects.

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

Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten 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 130,000 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. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.

4. Follow me on Twitter. I post 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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!

9. 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”.

10. 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!

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 (November 21 – November 27, 2009)
How to Start a Meal Exchange Exchanging meals with friends and family is not only convenient, but it can also save a lot of money, too.

It’s Not the School, It’s the Student It’s easy to blame schools when something is wrong with your child, but quite often the solution is found at home, not by railing against the school district.

Consumption Smoothing and Why It Doesn’t Work To put it simply, consumption smoothing (on an individual basis) doesn’t work because we don’t know the future, and if we do everything based on some assumption of the future, we end up making bad moves because the future almost always won’t match that assumption.

Two Years Ago (November 21 – November 27, 2008)
Ten Fundamental Steps for Online Career Networking Reaching out to others online is often seen as being merely signing up for Facebook and LinkedIn, but such efforts just scratch the surface of the potential opportunities out there.

When a Treat Stops Being a Treat – and How to Get It Back I find that if something used to be a treat and is now routine, it often improves my enjoyment of that treat to take a long break from it. When I return, it really feels like a treat.

5 Simple Water Conservation Methods: Do They Save Real Money? Most obvious water conservation methods save some water, but they don’t add up to enormous savings.

Three Years Ago (November 21 – November 27, 2007)
The Expenses of a Soda Pop Addiction – And How to Defeat It Soda addiction, like any substance addiction, not only has an ongoing cost, but also has long term health costs. Cracking that addiction is well worth it.

Twelve Important Things To Talk About When Your Relationship Gets Serious Sitting down with your potential life partner and figuring out what your financial future looks like can really help to bond you together – and can also give you signs of potential problems.

Six Ways to Fight Back When You Lose Financial Focus It’s easy to lose focus. It’s a lot harder to regain that focus.

Four Years Ago (November 21 – November 27, 2006)
PayPerPost, Paris Hilton, and Violating the Trust Between You and Me I still stand by this post, even though I’ve been offered impressive sums for selling out.

Money For Nothing: Five Ways To Put Money In Your Pocket With Zero Effort Yes, even lazy people can save money.

What Can A Dollar A Day Get You? And An Inspirational Idea A dollar a day can get you quite a lot if you’re willing to be patient with it.

Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten 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 130,000 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. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.

4. Follow me on Twitter. I post 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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!

9. 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”.

10. 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!

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 (November 14 – November 20, 2009)
The 40/30/30 Rule The idea here is that you spend 40% of your income on basic bills, 30% on saving for the future, and 30% on enjoying life. This split actually works, but it’s very difficult for many people to actually execute.

Personal Finance 101: How Averages Lie There are three types of untruths: lies, big lies, and statistics. The trick is knowing which is which.

My Garage Sale and Thrifting Toolkit I keep a few things on hand whenever I go to thrift stores or yard sales or any situation where I’ll be perusing used stuff at a high discount. Be prepared and you will find value.

Two Years Ago (November 14 – November 20, 2008)
Some Thoughts on Personal Finance Coaching I think coaching can be a good thing, but I think people can often overpay drastically for such coaching.

Personal Finance 101: Deflation and You What happens to your pocketbook when deflation occurs? It’s not really a pretty thing, even if it sounds good on the surface.

Seven Tactics for Turning Short-Term Intensity Into Long-Term Intensity It’s easy to get excited about something in the short term, but how do you transform that into long-term intensity that will really take you places?

Three Years Ago (November 14 – November 20, 2007)
How to Maintain Friendships With Non-Frugal People If you’re very frugal and you have a friend who likes to spend wildly, it can be difficult to maintain a relationship with them. Here are some tactics for doing just that.

Seven Ways To Get Books For Free (Or Close To It) I love to read. Tactics for acquiring free books are always a good thing.

Finding Motivation and Meaning in the Drudgery of Personal Finance It can be very difficult at times to keep moving forward with one’s financial progress. How do you find meaning in all of it?

Four Years Ago (November 14 – November 20, 2006)
A Christmas List: Before and After Financial Armageddon This was one of the first times I realized that my internal desires had really shifted in the wake of our financial meltdown. That felt really good.

The Value of Personal Appearance Our personal appearance is surprisingly important. There are many basic steps people can take to maintain a very good level of personal appearance.

Minimizing the Personal Cost of Business Travel When I used to travel frequently for work, there were often lots of incidental costs as I went along. After a while, I learned how to minimize those incidental costs.

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

Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten 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 130,000 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. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.

4. Follow me on Twitter. I post 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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!

9. 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”.

10. 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!

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 (November 7 – November 13, 2009)
Giving Experiences, Not Things, This Holiday Season For most people, the experience of Christmas is the best part, not the stuff that they receive. Keep that in mind this holiday season.

The Five Whys and the Power of Analyzing Your Life I find that the more often you use the “five whys” in your life, the more often you find yourself reaching conclusions, spending money, and doing things that are more in line with what’s really important to you.

Is the Dollar Store Really a Bargain? I’ve come to find that there is no store on Earth that has the cheapest prices on everything. Because of that, I usually end up suggesting that people focus on the store that offers the overall best prices on the specific things they regularly buy.

Two Years Ago (November 7 – November 13, 2008)
Walking Away to be a Stay-At-Home Parent This is an incredibly tough decision, and I think it’s one that every professional who has a child considers, at least a bit.

Taking Dramatic Change One Day at a Time Rather than focusing on the huge impact a major change you choose to make will have on your life, try focusing on just achieving that change one day at a time. What will you do today to achieve that goal?

On Good Debt and Bad Debt I don’t think there is a strict line between good and bad debt. I think all debt is bad, but some types of debt (like your first home’s mortgage) can be justified to an extent.

Three Years Ago (November 7 – November 13, 2007)
Lying to Yourself About Money (and Anything Else) When you fall into the habit of lying to yourself about your life, you reach a point where you can no longer trust yourself and rely on external forces to guide you, forces that you can’t really trust, either. You’re like a boat without sail or anchor, wandering the seas aimlessly.

Parental Enthusiasm and Childhood Branding It is utterly amazing to see how much impact the little actions of a parent can have on a child. If you’re excited about something they can comprehend, they often get excited about it, too.

Six Things I Look For At Yard Sales – And How I Get Them Even Cheaper There are certain things I always look for at yard sales, simply because I know they’ll always be a bargain.

Four Years Ago (November 7 – November 13, 2006)
Money Magazine’s 25 Rules to Grow Rich By – Reevaluated Money Magazine does a great job of promoting basic personal finance, but sometimes they promote specific things that are a bit sketchy, like the mutual fund du jour.

Remembering A Painful Childhood Experience – And Trying To Apply What It Means This still shakes me every time I think about it. It caused me to distrust a lot of things in life.

The Inspiration For The Simple Dollar This is still the inspiration for The Simple Dollar, though it’s grown over the years.

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

Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten 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 130,000 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. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.

4. Follow me on Twitter. I post 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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!

9. 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”.

10. 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!

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 (October 31 – November 6, 2009)
The Stumble What do you do when you “stumble” on your financial journey? Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, reflect, and recognize that you’ve just taken a couple steps backward on a journey of a thousand miles and you’ve not undone all of your progress.

Teaching Money Management Through Self-Responsibility We’re utilizing self-responsibility as we teach our children money lessons. Here’s a big taste of how we’re doing it.

A Reflection of Your Closest Friends Much of who you are is a reflection of your five closest friends. What does that mean for your career and finances?

Two Years Ago (October 31 – November 6, 2008)
Dealing with Personal Disappointment and Tragedy Life isn’t always a wonderful path filled with roses and happiness. How do you deal with the unwelcome moments in a financially sensible fashion?

Reading This Article Won’t Make You Rich There’s no article that, just by reading it, will make you rich. No book will make you rich. Only your actions will do that.

Excuses, Excuses There’s always a reason not to do the hard thing.

Three Years Ago (October 31 – November 6, 2007)
Seven Tips For Avoiding Boredom During A Financial Turnaround Cutting back on living the big life can be “boring” for some. Here are some ways to deal with it.

How to Create A Nifty Visual Savings Goal Reminder These can really help when you’re saving towards a big goal. It turns the goal into something visual that you can constantly connect with.

Homemade Bread: Cheap, Delicious, Healthy, and Easier Than You Think I love love love making homemade bread.

Four Years Ago (October 31 – November 6, 2006)
The Road To Financial Armageddon #1: The Earliest Mistakes This is the first entry in a ten part series that will give you a very clear picture into my financial background. I hope to someday write #11.

Turning Off The Financially Irresponsible Mindset For me, it was akin to finding a light switch in a dark room. I stumbled around a lot to find it, but once I did, it was much like flipping a switch.

How Your Local “Alternative” Newspapers Can Save You Money I am a big fan of CityView, a free alternative newspaper that you can grab in the grocery stores in our area. I read it each week. Toons is another excellent one – a collection of political cartoons of the past week.

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

Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten 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. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.

4. Follow me on Twitter. I post 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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!

9. 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”.

10. 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!

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 (October 24 – October 30, 2009)
The Ten Most Important Things I’ve Learned About Money and Life Since Starting The Simple Dollar This article really sums up the valuable things I’ve learned over the past several years.

Ethical Frugality Week: Regifting I don’t think regifting is necessarily a bad thing. If you can put an item into the hands of someone who will genuinely enjoy it more than you, I’m fine with it.

Stress and Overspending When I’m stressed, I simply spend too much. There’s a deep connection between the comfort level in your psyche and your ability to make good choices in the moment.

14 Ways a Notebook in Your Pocket Can Save You Money Quite seriously, my life would be far less productive without a note-taking device of some kind in my pocket.

Why Windfalls Make Many People Unhappy We’ve all heard stories about the lottery winner who discovered that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Two Years Ago (October 24 – October 30, 2008)
Brand Preferences and the Two Year Old Child What can make a very young child prefer some brands over other brands? I was mystified by this when my first child was two, so I dug into the question.

Some Follow-Up Thoughts on Fruity Cheerios and Branding Our Kids My investigation into marketing to very young children continued a few days later. I was really stunned by this.

Should an Entrepreneurial High Schooler Go to College? My answer was yes, but part of that is fueled by a sense that college is often wasted on people straight out of high school.

Eleven Tactics for a Cheaper Christmas It’s so easy to overspend during the holiday season. Here are seven ways my family commonly reduces holiday spending.

Exploring the Connection Between Time and Money I think that money is simply a representation of time spent, and the more money you get for your time, the more effective that time was.

Three Years Ago (October 24 – October 30, 2007)
Spam Emails About Individual Stocks: What’s The Scam? The scam is “pump and dump” – they want you to escalate the price so they can sell the stock at a profit.

A Deeper Look At Dave Ramsey’s Seven Baby Steps To Financial Freedom – And How They Apply To Us I have a strong respect for Dave Ramsey’s straightforward debt management tactics (even if I’m not a big fan of the product upselling).

Preserving The Things That Money Can’t Buy Relationships are the big one here. A relationship with a loved one or a close friend can’t be represented in dollars.

The Eternal Question: Am I Doing The Right Thing? I find myself pondering this question quite a lot, actually. I’m never quite sure.

The Ten Most Important Things I’ve Learned About Money and Life In The Last Year This summarizes many of my revelations during the first year of The Simple Dollar’s existence.

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

Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten 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. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.

4. Follow me on Twitter. I post 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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!

9. 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”.

10. 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!