There I was driving home from work, when an ad on the radio catches my attention.  It was an ad for a Visa Direct Deposit Prepaid card.  Apparently not satisfied with a plethora of prepaid cards that are terrible for users (some are O.K., just not most), Visa would now like you to believe that [...]

In my post “Are we Doing Personal Finance Wrong“, I talked a little bit about “Financial Freedom”.  Of all the comments that the post got, that was the one thing that was mentioned most of all.  Which, to me, means it bears some further discussion. Financial freedom, or financial independence, can be defined a little [...]

As you can probably imagine, as a personal finance writer, I think about personal finance quite a bit.  Often enough that I write several articles a week on the subject.  I don’t consider myself an expert, but I do think that I know a great deal about it.  And I’m beginning to wonder if we [...]

Americans love their stuff.  We can’t get enough of the latest doodad, the latest hot new product on the market. We love stuff so much, research has been conducted on our behavior.  According to Boston.com, a team of archealogists spent 4 years studying 32 middle class Los Angeles families for their new book, Life at [...]

We spend a lot of time, while talking about finances, talking about the Joneses. We often talk about how most of us make the mistake of trying to keep up with the Joneses by buying cars that are new, houses that are bigger, and generally spending our way into oblivion.  What we seldom talk about [...]

Conventional wisdom, at least in frugal personal finance circles says you should wait several days (or even weeks) before making most purchases.  Especially large purchases. Personally, I’m usually a pretty patient purchaser.  I hate paying retail for most things. When I decide I need something (or even want it), I usually start my search on [...]

I recently had a small discussion on Facebook with Glen, of Free From Broke.  It started when he mentioned in his status that he had been at the doctors office waiting on his appointment for 44 minutes.  He asked if he should just say to heck with it and reschedule the appointment.  I suggested that [...]

If you’re one of the people who needs them, eyeglasses can be one of the most expensive medically necessary things you will have.  Unless you need some other fancy piece of equipment, your eyeglasses can cost several hundred dollars up to a thousand dollars or more if you decide to go with the name brand [...]

The last thing you probably expected, today, was a post about how higher education is ruining the economy. After all, aren’t personal-finance bloggers supposed to be all about advancing yourself, spending wisely, and earning all that you can? Perhaps, but I’m of the personal belief that one can still advance yourself, spend wisely, and earn [...]

Staying out of debt is difficult.  Terribly difficult.  It isn’t made any easier if you rationalize yourself into debt, either.  Many of us spend a good deal of our time and energy trying to get out of debt, and stay out of debt.  We do that through so many devices, and each have our own [...]