I can’t help it—I’m in a very freedom-loving mood today. As I contemplate the things I’m grateful for, I have to say, I’m grateful for free enterprise. When I was fifteen, I had the adventure of a lifetime. I was able to travel with several American teenagers over to Russia to meet up with Russian teenagers and take a cruise up the Volga River. While on the cruise ship, we attended classes on free enterprise, things that were pretty common to us, but completely mind-blowing for the Russian teens. Up until that point, they were used to paying whatever price … Continue reading →

Summer is here, and for many of us that means saying goodbye to sweaters and long sleeves and hello to tank tops, shorts, and flip flops. Although summer clothes are fun and on most days keep us fairly cool and comfortable, there are days when it is very hot outside and you need something more than breezy clothes to keep you cool. There are even some days when it can get dangerously hot and keeping cool becomes less about comfort and more about safety. Air conditioners are a very good way to keep your home cool, but they add quite … Continue reading →

Do you devour every piece of personal finance information that you can get your hands on in hopes of finding the magic key that will suddenly turn your financial life around? If so, the best thing that you can do right now is to stop acquiring new information and put what you already know into action. I am guilty of doing this very thing, so I am not bringing up the topic to point fingers at anyone except myself. If you stop and think about it, this very principle is true no matter what it is that you are trying … Continue reading →

I’ll admit it; I am one of those people that are curious about other people’s finances. My curiosity does not come form any desire to gossip or to be nosy; it is motivated by a sincere admiration for those who are financially adept and a desire to educate myself about how they keep their finances in good shape. Today I came across some interesting information about the finances of a very interesting family – the Obamas. Some details of the Obamas’ finances are public knowledge, and there are lessons that we can learn from what we know. For example, did … Continue reading →

In our current economy, more and more Americans are finding themselves in a situation where they are living from paycheck to paycheck. Living from paycheck to paycheck is very stressful, and even a small unexpected expense can leave you wondering whether you will be able to pay all of the bills this month. I heard that it was possible to save money while living from paycheck to paycheck, so I decided to take a closer look to figure out how it’s done. Since there is little room for error in calculating your monthly budget when you live paycheck to paycheck, … Continue reading →

Any time you move from one job to another, you can expect a little blip in the flow of your paychecks. Even if you end one job on Friday and start the new one on Monday, you’ve created a glitch in the time/space continuum, and you’ll find that your last paycheck from the old job will be a little smaller, while the check from the new job won’t come in for a little bit. This does cause problems. Theoretically, you changed jobs to move to a better place in your career financially, and this lag between the two checks can … Continue reading →

There are many costs associated with owning a home. Mortgages, homeowners’ insurance, utilities, care and maintenance, and of course property taxes. While property taxes do serve an important purpose, keeping as much of your hard earned money as you can also serves an important purpose. It is entirely possible that you are currently paying more than your fair share of property taxes, and there are things that you can do to get your property tax bill adjusted so that you pay no more and no less than you ought to. In a perfect world, your home would be reassessed as … Continue reading →

With the rising cost of gasoline and other items, family budgets are becoming tighter than ever. When families feel the pinch of a tough economy, they often have to reevaluate where their money goes. Often, the family entertainment budget is the first thing targeted for trimming. If you are in a position where you are considering making cuts to your family’s entertainment budget, do not despair. You can still have plenty of fun while spending less money on entertainment. One way to approach making changes to the family’s entertainment budget is to enlist the help of everyone in the family. … Continue reading →

I have three. There’s the family account, where my husband’s paycheck is deposited. From this account, we pay the bills and keep the family afloat. Then there’s my business account, which is hooked to my PayPal account, and this is where all my business checks are deposited. We use this money to pay extra on our bills, and often, when unexpected things come up, like the growth spurt my son’s feet decided to have last week and we needed to buy him new shoes. And then we have a savings account for the kids. Why three bank accounts? What benefits … Continue reading →

Your family’s grocery budget seems to be getting tighter and tighter these days. The kids are growing, and so are their appetites. Food prices have been steadily creeping up for a while, too. You want to be able to feed your family plenty of good food, but you don’t want to break the bank either. If you look at grocery store receipts from past shopping trips, you may notice that snack foods make up a bigger portion of your grocery bill than you thought. The good thing about this is that you do not have to stop snacking, nor do … Continue reading →