A big ‘ol DIY welcome to the listeners of “The Down and Dirty” with Frank Fontana. If you want to read a bit more about the deck project that we spoke about today on the show, you can see it here: DIY Disaster, Or, Our New Deck. Since you’re into DIY, you can take a [...]

We’re a few days into the new year, and, like many will do, it’s time to reflect a bit on the year that we just completed.  Also, like many, it’s time to try and spot the things that were successful in 2011, and try and improve upon them in 2012.  I don’t normally share a [...]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  By now, you’ve likely got the turkey out defrosting, and are getting the rest of the ingredients for you Thanksgiving Day feast all in order and ready to go.  Tonight, or tomorrow, you’ll start traveling wherever it is that you’re planning on going (or your guests will start arriving) and you’ll be [...]

When I finally put in that two-weeks notice, I was floating on this nice little cloud, high above the world, happy with my decision and feeling like I could do no wrong.  Like Andrea of So Over Debt put it, it was the first good nights sleep I’d gotten in quite a while.  And, of [...]

I did something a couple of weeks ago. I’m sure that, based on the title of this article, you can guess what that something is.  In fact, today is my last day.  Starting at 5, I’m a free agent! Why I Quit my Job. Over the last several months and weeks, several things had happened [...]

I don’t believe I’ve written about NaNoWriMo here before.  That’s a bit surprising considering I’ve been around here for going on 4 years and participated in the last 2 NaNoWriMos.  But, I can’t find anything on the site about it, so I guess it’s about time.  First, a basic explanation.  NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel [...]

If you’ve been paying any attention to other personal finance blogs over the last week, you’ve heard a good bit about the financial blogger conference that took place in Chicago last weekend. While I don’t work full-time as a blogger, I do make money from blogging, which makes FINCON a professional conference for me. For [...]

I wrote briefly about buying my ticket to the Financial Bloggers Conference a few months ago.  In the time between then and now, FINCON turned into a really first class conference.  But, more on that later.  As a part of the conference, the folks behind FINCON and teamed up with the folks behind Team Love [...]

The Second Annual Plutus Awards are upon us! What are the Plutus Awards, you might ask?  Well, they are an annual award given out for personal finance services and blogs.  Think of it like an Academy Award for personal finance. The most brilliant part of the whole thing this year is that Beating Broke is [...]

Hi all, I’ve put up a small poll on our facebook page.  I’d like to get a better feel for what topics you’d like to see us cover here.  We can continue rambling on whatever topic suites our fancy, but maybe you’d like to help us guide that a little bit better.  If you feel [...]