A recent article on CNNMoney.com caught my eye – it’s titled “Many don’t have $2,000 for a rainy day.” Since one of my cardinal rules for retirement planning is that you should have 6 months of spending in the bank (or easily accessible, within 3 days), I read this article with interest. The CNNMoney.com article [...]

Common financial advice is to pay yourself first; set aside your own savings before you pay any bills.  Yet, what happens if you don’t have enough money to pay yourself first?  What if you can’t set aside $100 or more each month?  How can you continue to save for your goals whether they are establishing [...]

According to a new report by the American Express Spending and Saving Tracker, 15% of the American citizens plan to augment their savings in 2011; as compared to a poll in 2010 and 40% say there will be no changes in their spending behavior this year. Are the Americans planning to spend more dollars in [...]

Everybody knows they need an emergency fund.  Right?  Right.  There’s some argument about how much to keep in your emergency fund, but the general rule is no less than $1000 and ideally 6-12 months of expenses.  And common savings strategies says that you should keep that money in a nice comfy savings account that you [...]

Early Retirement Extreme By: Jacob Lund Fisker When many of us think of retirement, we think of some far off time in our future when we’ve saved enough money and reached an age where the government will allow us to withdraw our money without significant penalties.  When Jacob Lund Fisker thinks about retirement, he’s thinking [...]

Invariably, every few months, we get a wave of posts talking about “what would you do if you won $x,xxx,xxx?”  Or, what you would do with a smaller windfall.  And invariably, a majority of the people talk about how they would save the money.  And in some cases they are right.  But, most of the [...]

Inevitably, you’re going to screw up.  You’re going to make a mistake and it’s gonna cost you.  If you’re lucky, it’s only going to cost you a few dollars or a bit of bruised pride.  If you’re not so lucky, it could cost you much more than that. Let me tell you a little secret.  [...]

In the midst of spending 5 straight days remodeling our kitchen, our good friend Murphy’s Law decided to show up.  My father came over for the long weekend and helped.  Without him, the remodel would have probably been a disaster.  But, that’s not where Murphy comes into play.  One evening, after we had supper, we [...]

I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time, but today’s post from DoughRoller with A Dead Simple Alternative to CD Laddering was the icing on the proverbial cake.  And I think that DoughRoller is right.  Or at least, what DR says is in line with what I’ve been thinking too. Here’s the basics.  A [...]

Just what is reactive personal finance?  It’s the management of your personal finance in reaction to events or situations as opposed to the management of personal finance in anticipation of events or situations. The best example of this is a budget.  A budget is built and held to in anticipation of events in your financial [...]