Budgeting
« Previous EntriesCutting Back on Eating Out – Progress Report
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009Back on August 5, I confessed that my family and I eat out too often and I pledged to cut back. Well, nearly a month later, I’d like to share our progress report. I’m happy to report that it’s much better than it was:
We spent an average of $10.11 per day during the [...]
I Have a Confession to Make: TOO MUCH EATING OUT!
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009One of my goals for the rest of this year is to cut out the waste in our budget. One of the areas where we are grossly over budget is in our eating out category. This has happened for several reasons:
1. Our kids are bigger and can no longer eat off the [...]
Question of the Day – What’s Your Total Debt to Income Ratio
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009I was looking over our financials this morning and calculated that our total household debt (including our mortgage) to income ratio is .81. By this time next year—assuming we make no purchases on credit—that number should be around .75.
I’m pretty happy with that number—especially when I hear that the average household’s ratio is around [...]
Consider This Before You Sign Up for Credit Card Insurance
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009I read a short article about credit card insurance in today’s Wall Street Journal and thought it would be fun to run some numbers to find out how much such a program would cost.
For those of you who aren’t familiar, credit card insurance is an insurance that supposedly makes your credit card payments in the [...]
Liz Pulliam Weston vs. Suze Orman – Who’s Right?
Friday, May 1st, 2009I saw Liz Pulliam Weston’s disagreement with Suze Orman’s advice that people who have no emergency fund (but have credit card debt) should pay minimums on their credit cards while they build up an e-fund.
Who’s right?
This is a very tricky situation for a couple of reasons:
1. People who have lots of credit card debt [...]
What’s Good Computer for a 14-Year Old?
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009I got an email this morning from Stacey (a frequent reader and commenter here) asking me if I had any recommendations for a laptop computer for her 14-year old son, who will be starting high school this fall. I told her I had no idea but that I would post this as a question [...]
This is One Crappy Car Loan! Lessons on How NOT to Buy a Car!
Friday, April 10th, 2009I received this email earlier today:
Hi!
I’ve been subscribing to AFM for quite some time now and I really appreciate almost all of your blog posts. My room mate just bought a car yesterday and because he has little to no credit (and may have been an easy target) got a 24.99% 6 year loan [...]
Getting Out of Debt on $26,000 a Year Income
Thursday, April 9th, 2009I saw this on the MSN front page this morning: Get Out of Debt — on $26,000 a Year
Today, the 37-year-old single hairdresser pays her new bills on time, without fail, and has no credit cards. But she’s made big money mistakes in the past, leaving her with about $3,000 in ancient bills, some dating [...]
Do You Take Advantage of 0% Financing Offers?
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009Here’s today’s Question of the Day:
Do you take advantage of 0% Financing Offers?
I have in the past when I purchased a TV from Best Buy. I had the option of paying full price in cash or finance the product for two years at 0% interest. I had the money available to pay for [...]
Lessons Learned: Saving on Your Child’s School Lunch
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009This is a guest post by John M. Box, Ph.D., Senior Vice President of Education, JA Worldwide. I meant to post this last week while I was on vacation but never got to it. Anyway, I think Junior Achievement is an important program so I’m happy to help them spread the word. [...]
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