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 17 – October 23, 2009)
Ethical Frugality Week: Hidden Replacements Is it an honest thing to substitute a lower cost item into the package of a higher cost item in your home?

Ethical Frugality Week: Hotel Visits What items in a hotel room should you feel okay putting into your luggage?

Ethical Frugality Week: Haggling When is it okay to start negotiating for price? What should you expect from haggling?

Ethical Frugality Week: Free Samples How “greedy” should you be when you have the opportunity to pick up some free samples? Is it cool to grab fifteen packets of ketchup and then go home and fill your ketchup bottle?

Ethical Frugality Week: Lifetime Guarantees How long should a lifetime guarantee last? How “abusable” is it?

Two Years Ago (October 17 – October 23, 2008)
18 Things a New Homeowner Should Do Immediately to Save Money I’d give this checklist to any new homeowner. There are lots of great things a homeowner can do to maximize the value of their new home purchase.

When Networking Doesn’t Work: There’s No Value in Just “Touching Base” I think if you’re not giving value to someone or getting value from them, why are you communicating with them?

That First Taste of Financial Success It’s so easy to fall back into bad habits when you begin to feel financial success. Here’s how to not fall into that trap.

Stop Wasting Money on Disposable Things Disposable things mean that you’re going to eventually chuck them and it’s a net loss for you. Look instead for non-disposable items that will last for a very long time, even if you have to pay a bit more up front. You’ll use them forever and they’ll still have value in ten years.

Giving Outside the Box: Generosity on a Limited Budget Give your time. Give your talents. Give your unused or unwanted possessions. There are so many ways to give that don’t involve you busting open your wallet.

Three Years Ago (October 17 – October 23, 2007)
Stumbling on the Simple Things I do this, actually. My biggest stumble? Keeping up with my inbox.

Five Reasons Why Having A Child Isn’t As Expensive As You Might Think Most of the huge costs for raising a child don’t include the areas in which you save by having a child, and some of those can be a tremendous help.

Seven Lessons Learned From The First Issue of Money Magazine I really enjoyed making this article, because it enabled me to read this classic issue of Money.

Twelve Tactics For Defeating the Starbucks Habit I used to have a bad “Starbucks habit.” Breaking it not only saves a lot of money, it can also help your health.

Handling A Child’s Material Wants and Impulses This is pretty much a daily challenge for us, given we have a four year old and a three year old at home. They need different lessons because there’s an 18 month gap between them.

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 10 – October 16, 2009)
Hidden Treasures from Thrift Shops I love shopping at thrift stores for staples like clothes and spare tools. Sometimes, I discover a treasure.

Extracting the Child Who Stayed in the Nest Too Long This is an issue that many parents find themselves dealing with as their child grows up. When do you boot the large baby bird out of the nest?

Mirror Neurons: Why Watching Others Succeed Won’t Help You Succeed This is why I’ve essentially stopped watching Food Network.

The Forgetful Mind More and more, I find my tendency to write down every spare thought or thing to do saves me.

When One Partner Is Self-Employed These are issues that my wife and I have worked through over the past few years.

Two Years Ago (October 10 – October 16, 2008)
Stop Trying to Impress Other People This is one of the biggest single keys out there for improving your financial situation. People are going to make up their mind about you anyway, so stop wasting your time and money trying to be something you’re not.

Talking to a Child About Home Foreclosure This is a money conversation I hope I never have to have with my children.

How Much Extra Should You Pay for Fuel Efficiency? Here’s How We’re Calculating It Fuel efficiency is a major criteria for us because we do quite a lot of road tripping to visit family.

Ten Steps for Remaining Calm in a Financially Turbulent Time So many media sources were calling for financial apocalypse in late 2008. My philosophy? Calm down.

How to Plan Ahead for Next Week’s Meals (And Save Significant Money): A Step-By-Step Guide This is pretty much exactly how we shop for groceries.

Three Years Ago (October 10 – October 16, 2007)
The Feeling You Get From A Coca-Cola Classic: How Advertising Tickles Your Wallet – And Five Ways To Fight It Advertising is far more clever and influential than people give it credit for. You might fast forward through the commercials – but what about all the ads in the program?

Adventures in Frugality: Preparing Food in Advance for a House Full of People We find ourselves doing this surprisingly often. In fact, we did it at least three times so far this year.

Selling My Future, One Dollar At A Time Every time you spend a dollar on something pointless, it’s a dollar you don’t have down the road when you really need them.

Dealing With Professional Exhaustion In A Financially Sensible Way Just walking away from your job is never a good solution – not without some careful planning, anyway.

Children’s Gifts: Don’t Spend A Lot On What They Don’t Want It’s so easy to just imagine the stuff you think your children want and buy them. In truth, most kids don’t really want very much.

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 3 – October 9, 2009)
15 Ways to Be a Leader Today – or Any Day The best way to build social connections is to step up and be a leader of a group. Here’s how to do just that.

A Weekend at Our House A typical weekend at our house is family-oriented and it rarely involves spending much money.

The “Local Store Premium” – How Much Is It Worth to You? It’s worth quite a bit, actually, when you start calculating the costs of shopping elsewhere.

Frugal Soups and Stews: Great Solutions for Busy Weekends We often make soups and stews in our slow cooker on weekends. We put the ingredients in in the morning, then eat it for dinner whenever we happen to come in from the park.

Is This All There Is? If you feel that your life is empty, it’s time to step back and re-evaluate how you’re spending your time and who you’re spending it with.

Two Years Ago (October 3 – October 9, 2008)
Some Thoughts on the Fulfillment Curve Once you reach a certain point in a particular area in your life, there’s diminishing returns from adding more to your life in that area.

The Entrepreneurial Drive (Or Lack Thereof) I think some people have an entrepreneurial fire – and some do not.

A Do-It-Yourself Guide to a Romantic and Highly Frugal Date Night My wife and I do something along these lines as often as we can, usually involving a grandparent or two who asks to babysit.

Opening the Door to Helping Your Parents The transition from your parents taking care of you to you taking care of your parents can be a tough one.

Ten Things I Wish I’d Done Differently While Buying a House The best reason to look back at the past is to find out what you can do better in the future.

Three Years Ago (October 3 – October 9, 2007)
Five Lessons My Friend’s Passing Taught Me About Money, Life, And Everything Else The person that I’m writing about here passed away three years ago. I still miss him. He was a great guy.

Frugality Campaigning: How To Support Your Favorite Candidate Or Cause With Frugal Living It’s more than putting your money where your mouth is. It’s putting your behavior where your mouth is.

How To Minimize The Cost (And Maximize The Benefit) Of Eating Out For Business Is it worth the cost of eating out? It can be, as long as you’re sensible about it.

Ten Steps To Financial Success For A Minimum Wage Earner I wrote this in response to a commenter who lamented how difficult it was to live on minimum wage.

The $21 Food Week: Is It Possible? Is It Healthy? I don’t think it’s healthy over the long term. $1 per meal for every meal in the week is really pushing it.

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 (September 26 – October 2, 2009)
Do You Want to Appear Rich? Or Do You Want to Be Rich? I think different sides of this coin appeal to different people. I also think the desire to appear rich hijacks the ability to be rich, causing people to go deep into debt.

Some Thoughts on a Cultural Shift Towards Frugality In short, I don’t think it’s sustainable, because people will rebound their spending when the economy eventually rebounds.

How the Traditional “Rules” of Frugal Living Often Vastly Undervalue Time There are a lot of frugality tips that seem to assume that you have a mountain of time with which to apply them. That’s simply not a reality for many of us.

How Does The Simple Dollar Earn Money? Some Notes on Do-It-Yourself Self-Employment Mostly, this article provides insight as to how I got the ball rolling on The Simple Dollar.

Modular Meals We make a lot of our meals with an eye towards our ability to remix the leftovers into some sort of completely new dish.

Two Years Ago (September 26 – October 2, 2008)
Looking at Your Career as an Investment Your career isn’t just an exchange of time for money. It’s an exchange of your effort for future opportunities as well. Simply put, it’s an investment.

Personal Energy and Frugality As with the time factor mentioned above, many frugality tips seem to assume that the person carrying out the tip has an infinite amount of energy. The solution? Don’t be afraid to filter a big pile of tips for the ones that are actually doable.

A Visual Guide to Saving Money with a Baby I took these pictures to describe how we saved money with our daughter. We’re now doing the exact same things with our son.

How to Find and Utilize a Mentor, No Matter What You’re Doing I think a mentor is the most valuable thing you can get during your career. A mentor can help your career develop in countless ways.

The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself This was my response to the complete doom and gloom being shouted from the rooftops at the start of the economic downturn.

Three Years Ago (September 26 – October 2, 2007)
The City Versus Rural Debate: Which Is The Better Place To Live? I think it depends on the person more than anything. What do they value? What’s more important to you: a small forest behind your house or easy access to cultural events? There’s no black-and-white answer there.

The Backlash Against Frugality Why do people sometimes treat frugal tactics in a negative fashion, as though it’s an affront to their personal sensibilities?

Five Personal Finance Lessons That Rocked Me Like A Hurricane When I Figured Them Out The things I’ve learned about personal finance since I started The Simple Dollar have completely changed how I view the world, from day-to-day life to global perspectives.

Should You Give Yourself Material Rewards For Meeting Certain Milestones? I think it works if you keep those rewards reasonable and decide on them in advance.

Thirteen Ways To Reduce The Effect Of “Bad Luck” In Your Financial Life The essential core of these tips boils down to simply making sure you’re removing burdens from your future self, because the more burdens you’re carrying then, the more likely it is that bad luck will find you.

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 (September 19 – September 25, 2009)
Business Card Doodles I had so much fun making this post because it was so far outside of what I normally do. Truly, though, I usually start my presentations on the back of business cards because I don’t think a slide should contain more info than you can fit on the back of a card.

Is Overmaintenance Costing You? Yes, most people run into trouble by undermaintaining their things, but the flip side can be costly, too. I’ve become an adamant follower of the manufacturer’s recommendations.

What Is a “Good Job”? I think there is no standard “good job.” The elements that define a “good job” vary greatly from individual to individual.

“Eighteen and Out” – Good Parenting or Bad Parenting? My parents more or less espoused this with me. I never lived under their roof again after I was eighteen years old, and I think it was very good for me.

Seven Things I’ve Learned from Doing It Myself More than anything else, though, doing things myself gives me the self-confidence to try doing more things myself. It builds on itself and gives you the self-motivation to gain a lot of useful little skills.

Two Years Ago (September 19 – September 25, 2008)
Overcoming a Routine of Bounced Check Fees, Overdraft Fees, and Payday Loans This is a rough routine to fall into, but people fall into it all the time. Here’s some advice on getting out.

The Twelve Biggest Personal Finance Mistakes People Make Over and Over Again They happen over and over again because they become so ingrained in people’s personal routines. That makes the ability to escape them very difficult and causes people to just repeat the same mistakes over and over.

Managing the Natural Ups and Downs of Your Workweek My peak writing days are Tuesday and Wednesday, like clockwork. I’ve learned that over time, so I often plan my week with that idea in mind.

How to Safely Build Your Credit History A good credit history can be very useful even if you never take out a dime of debt. Here’s how to build it if you have no credit at all.

The Psychological and Emotional Attachment to What We Have and What We Want It’s easy to get attached to the things that are ours, but there is great value in getting that attachment under control.

Three Years Ago (September 19 – September 25, 2007)
Making A Major Life Change: Is It Time For Kathy To Abandon The City? This post sponsored a lot of discussion. I often think people know what they want to do in their heart, but they allow others to convince them otherwise.

Why Does Everyone Preach About Index Funds? What They Are And Why They’re Good – From The Very Beginning Want to know what an index fund is? This is the place to start, from the very beginning.

Is The Value Menu Really A Value? Comparing The Homemade Double Cheeseburger To The McDonald’s $1 Version This story is still true – except that now the double cheesburger costs $1.29, moving the marker ever closer to the homemade version.

When A Frugal Life And Social Gift-Giving Come Into Conflict Like many of you, I feel very uncomfortable when I’m socially “required” to give a gift to someone. It feels cheap.

The Simple Dollar Guide To Eating Out For us, the real cost in eating out isn’t in the meal out, it’s in doing it in an overly spontaneous fashion. You pay for pure spontaneity – hard.

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 (September 12 – September 18, 2009)
Addition by Subtraction: The Benefits of a “Fall Cleaning” I absolutely love big cleaning projects where we get rid of collected stuff that we just don’t really need. I don’t do it often enough.

The Sleeping Fox Catches No Poultry You’ve got to be alert and aware of what’s going on around you if you really want to succeed financially. Blinders don’t really work outside of very specific, narrow tasks.

Nostalgia The happiness of the past is a very powerful emotional tool, one that marketers are absolutely unafraid to manipulate as much as they can. Don’t let ‘em.

A Beginner’s Guide to The Simple Dollar This post outlines some of the elements of what makes up The Simple Dollar and how it works.

Frugality as a “Spending Transfer” This is exactly how I’ve come to view frugality. When you cut back spending in one area that you don’t care about very much, you’re transferring that spending to another area that you do care about.

Two Years Ago (September 12 – September 18, 2008)
Using TreasuryDirect for Conservative Investing TreasuryDirect is a great resource. Now, if we could only roll back such investments to their 1982 rates…

Friends and Goals I am an enormous believer in the power of friends and family to help you achieve goals. In fact, it’s something I’m going to touch on again this afternoon.

What a Frugality Expert Is – And Why I’m Not One I don’t want to be an “expert.” I’d rather just be a real person.

If You’re Not Using It, Get Rid of It: Ten Ways to Declutter and Put Cash in Your Pocket I’m constantly looking for ways to cut down on my possession count. The best part? Quite often, cutting down on your possession count results in money in the pocket.

Eight Tactics for Handling Greeting Card Occasions I really don’t like pre-written cards from Hallmark. I’d far rather see a handwritten note with a personal sentiment, even if the words aren’t perfect (in fact, it’s better if the words aren’t perfect, but real).

Three Years Ago (September 12 – September 18, 2007)
Patience Personal finance success doesn’t come overnight. It comes with time, and to make it there requires patience.

Teaching Yourself To Cook At Home: Ten Tips From My Kitchen To Yours It’s really not too hard to teach yourself how to prepare food at home. Once upon a time, I would completely mangle scrambled eggs, for example, but today I can pull off a good eggs benedict.

Your Stuff And You: Figuring Out What You Really Value – And Eliminating The Rest So much of personal finance is about self-discipline and cultivating a deep understanding of what you really value, much deeper than the marketing that’s out there.

There Are Two Guaranteed Ways To Improve Your Financial Situation … But Which Is Better? I think the question really boils down to short-term or long-term. If you’re looking for an immediate improvement, frugality wins. If you’re looking for a bigger return but are fine with more time until you see returns, improving your income is the best way to go.

What Should Your Net Worth Be? Why “The Millionaire Next Door” Equation Falls Short – And What A Better Thumbnail Calculation Might Look Like The biggest thing I didn’t like in the otherwise-excellent book “The Millionaire Next Door” was their net worth calculation. It’s absolutely absurd for anyone under 30 – and pretty dodgy for people in their thirties, too. Here, I propose some alternatives.

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 (September 5 – September 11, 2009)
Five Ways I Disagree With Dave Ramsey I agree with him in many, many other ways, so I thought it would be fun to find areas where I disagree with Dave.

Helicopter Parenting, Baby Boomers, and Financial Dependence I absolutely do not want to be a helicopter parent. I want my children to love me, but I want them to be their own persons, independent and strong and capable of dealing with the problems that life throws at them.

You Can’t Take It With You This argument, often used for wanton spending, has always seemed very strange to me. There are many, many good uses for one’s money.

The Path of Least Resistance Is the Path Without Opportunities The easiest path is the path that might get you to your destination the fastest, but it causes you to miss out on countless opportunities along the way. Every challenge life puts in front of us is an opportunity to grow.

Synergy The Simple Dollar is a great source of synergy. It encourages me to constantly think about my finances, much more than I might have done otherwise. As a result, I’m led to more financial success and opportunity – and thus the source for more posts.

Two Years Ago (September 5 – September 11, 2008)
Fifteen Ways to Have Cheap Fun With Your Kids Using a $1 End Roll of Paper We’re still frequently using a giant roll of paper purchased for $5 a year or so ago. It’s been a tool for countless art projects, paper hats, boats, and other such things.

The Aldi Question: Does One Bad Experience Spoil the Soup? It did for me. It’s amazing the associations that people build up in their heads.

Please, Recommend a Personal Finance Product to Me! This is the stuff I use and why I use it. I don’t usually talk about stuff that I won’t use.

Why One-Budget-Fits-All Doesn’t Work – And Why It’s Difficult to Compare Spending Between People and Families You can’t base your spending choices on what other people do.

Creation versus Consumption There’s always more money to be made in creation than in consumption. The work is a lot harder, though.

Three Years Ago (September 5 – September 11, 2007)
Personal Finance And Nostalgia One of the best tricks that marketers use in convincing us to spend money is to tap nostalgia – our positive feelings about the past.

Eight Simple Ways To Reduce Food Costs Food eats up a major part of most budgets. Thankfully, there are many ways to reduce one’s food costs, and here are eight simple ones.

Fifteen Ideas For A Deeply Fulfilling Money Free Weekend There are so many wonderful ways to enjoy life without busting out the wallet.

Is A Roommate Worth The Financial Benefit? There are a lot of factors here. I think the biggest one is your own personality – if you can see yourself easily with a roommate, you’ll probably make money doing this.

Financially Savvy Gifts For New Parents It’s often tempting to give gifts to new parents (especially when there’s a baby shower). Why not get them a gift that makes good financial sense instead of yet another cute baby outfit?

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 (August 29 – September 4, 2009)
Revising My Money Goals – And Setting New Ones This isn’t just a one time thing. For me, it’s something to constantly revisit, think about, and reformulate.

Seven Tempting Places – And Eight Ways to Minimize Their Impact My best tactic is to simply avoid them. I rarely go to bookstores at all at this point, simply because I know they’re really tempting for me.

Some Thoughts on Building a Successful Friendship Relationships of any kind aren’t easy, especially if you aren’t blessed with a natural gift of social skills. Here are some thoughts on making friendships wirk.

21 Ways to Reduce Your Spending Without Making Your Life Miserable Many people associate cutting back with “lack of fun.” That doesn’t have to be true at all.

Your Mileage May Vary Not everyone has the same experiences with the same things in life. Something that works well for me might not work for you, and vice versa. That doesn’t mean that the ideas are bad, it just means you need to try lots of things and stick with what fits you.

Two Years Ago (August 29 – September 4, 2008)
Everything’s So Easy for Pauline: Thoughts on Luck, Fate, Money, and Life This is my single favorite post I’ve ever written on The Simple Dollar. I have felt like it was the pinnacle for two years now. It just clicks for me in a way that’s hard to describe.

The Personal Finance Secrets “They” Don’t Want You to Know About I just don’t think that paranoia and personal finance mix well. Making choices out of fear almost always results in more failure and fear.

How to Avoid the Trap of Splurging as a Reward for “Being Good” It’s tempting to splurge when you’re doing well, but when splurges undo all of your good work, it’s worthwhile to keep an eye on how far you’ve come and how much you can undo with just one choice.

Some Thoughts on Plasma Donation It works in a desperate pinch, but there are enough drawbacks that I don’t recommend it as a big money maker.

What’s An Appropriate Home Food Budget for a Family of Four? This post certainly stirred up some debate. It’s important to keep in mind that I only matched the USDA numbers buy buying expensive food items – organics, saffron, and so on.

Three Years Ago (August 29 – September 4, 2007)
Seven Nifty Tactics Credit Card Companies Use To Get Into Your Pocket – And How To See Right Through Them It’s all about the marketing – and big marketing firms, like the ones that represent credit card companies, are good at getting your attention and getting into your pocket.

Is An “Entertainment” Coupon Book Worth It? It really depends on your lifestyle and your willingness to really figure out the big values in the book.

The Real Scoop On Debt Elimination Programs Most of them repackage the advice you’ll find elsewhere and sell it to you as something fresh.

Potential Pitfalls For Paying Off Someone Else’s Debt The pitfall is that it adds a lender-borrower element to a personal relationship. Do you have a deep, unabiding love for your bank? I don’t either, and I don’t want to inject that feeling into my relationships.

What Constitutes An “Emergency” Where One Should Use An Emergency Fund? The answer varies for everyone, but I think it mostly comes down to the things you can’t handle in your monthly money cycle.

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!