An Open Letter to My Bank

Dear Bank, I am writing to inform you that I will not be “opting in” to your Overdraft Protection program. I can tell you are oh so eager to protect me from overdrafts…and subsequently charge me $35 each time. You have, after all, sent me 8 letters on the matter…but who’s counting? It may surprise [...]

Baby Steps to Get Your Financial House in Order – Step 2: Create a Budget

This post is second in a series that outlines baby steps to getting your financial house in order. In the first post we covered Step 1: Know What You Spend. Today’s post is probably the most important in the series. If your goals are the destination (such as early retirement, a new car, that dream [...]

Baby Steps to Get Your Financial House in Order – Step 1: Know What You Spend

If you’re in financial distress it can be overwhelming thinking about where to start to get your finances back on track. Even if you aren’t struggling, knowing where and how to start organizing your finances can be intimidating. When I look back on our financial journey, it wasn’t one giant leap into financial security. Rather [...]

How Far Would You Go To Maintain Your Lifestyle?

We recently got a Blu-Ray player with Netflix streaming capabilities. This allows us to instantly stream movies and TV shows versus having to wait for a DVD in the mail. I have to say it’s pretty cool. It’s opened up to us a wide array of shows from premium channels, like Showtime and Starz, that [...]

Six Questions to Get to Know Each Other (Financially)

I first saw this post at Budgets Are Sexy and then also over at Single Guy Money and How I Save Money, but I think the questions originated at Automatic Finances. I thought it would be fun and informative to share my answers with you, sort of like the Facebook 20 questions quiz that was [...]

Book Review: Start Over, Finish Rich

Most likely you are familiar with David Bach, author of The Automatic Millionaire. I’d personally never read any of David’s books (or any other personal finance books for that matter) but I was familiar with him from The Today Show’s Money 911 Series where he is a regular contributor. That’s how I got my hands [...]

My Story (part 5): Financial strain = Marital discord

The financial turmoil was taking its toll on our marriage. My husband and I had always been able to speak openly about finances, but the stress affected every aspect of our lives. I was tense and we were arguing a lot. I didn’t know how much we could sustain. It was during one of these [...]

My Story (part 4): House poor

At the beginning of 2009 our income took a hit. We had been renting out two rooms in our house to supplement our income. We asked one renter to leave due to personal conflicts. The second renter purchased a house and also moved out. At the same time my personal income declined in January and [...]

Net Worth Worksheet

Do you know your net worth? Use this simple Excel worksheet to figure it out and then track your progress each month. Networth Worksheet v1.0