Money Saving Secrets of Super Savers

In this month’s edition of Money Magazine they interviewed 100 dedicated savers to learn their stories and find out the tactics they employ to save 35-60% of their income. All of these couples and individuals are well on their way to a very comfortable early retirement. 1. They set goals, and they make them specific. [...]

Are Babies a Frugality Killer?

In the past month, since giving birth to our son, my husband has asked me on several occasions, “What happened to my frugal wife?” And I say to him, “I had a baby.” That’s right, having a baby has brought out the worst anti-frugal tendencies in me. And if you’ve ever had a newborn you [...]

10 Principles for a Frugal Wedding

The following Guest Post is from Fred, a personal finance writer. He helps people to compare home loans, savings accounts and credit cards online. Being frugal with your money is not about being too tight to spend it, but it’s about smart spending and the main principle of frugality asks you whether you want to [...]

Should I Put My Emergency Fund into a Roth IRA?

Today our Emergency Fund sits in a regular savings account earning a less than impressive 0.20% interest rate. This is a temporary solution as I look at the best way to give us easy access to our funds if we need them. The original plan was to place our Emergency Fund into the highest yielding [...]

36 Simple Ways to Save Money this Year

Looking for ways to cut your costs and save more money this year? Here are 36 simple ways to save. Lower Housing Costs 1. Request a Property Tax Adjustment – Lower home values mean lower taxes; also check to make sure you are not over-insured. 2. Bundle home and auto insurance – Save up to [...]

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 [...]

Who Can We Blame for Our Failure to Save?

I came across this chart from BillShrink.com while researching another article. It shows the personal savings rate trend by month from 1959 to 2009, along with an opposing trend of rising consumer debt. I find the information presented interesting, but what most fascinated me were some of the comments readers left that sought to justify the decline in [...]

How I Knocked 5 ½ Years off my Loan and Saved $12,000

I own a boat. Or I should say the bank owns my boat as I’m 5 years into a 20 year loan. What? You didn’t know you could finance a boat over 20 years? Oh sure you can. Although 15 year loans are more common, 20 year loans are readily available for those of us [...]

My Goals: 2010

I can hardly believe we’re more than half way through January and I’m just getting around to documenting my goals for the year. They’ve been floating around my head for months but I’m just now writing them down. I’m one of those people that loves setting goals. They ground me. They keep me focused and [...]

My Story (part 7): Where are we now?

We’ve made paying down our debt and rebuilding our savings our top priority. In order to do that we really focus on keeping our expenses low. By moving a little further out, we were able to rent a house that met all of our needs (my husband had some non-negotiable garage requirements) for $1295/month versus [...]