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A few years ago, I visited the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Japanese gardens are designed precisely to appear natural, resulting in an interesting collision between nature and man. There is a set of principles or aesthetics that guide the creation of Japanese gardens, including the dry gardens commonly called ... Continue reading this article…
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While a budget in one form or another is a must-have financial tool, it’d quickly become big and ugly if you tried to anticipate and include every expense you might run in to. You’d quickly lose interest and wouldn’t stick with your budget, right? A budget is a basic recorder of recurring expenses, and trying to ... Continue reading this article…
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My wife and I went way over our budget in a couple of categories during June. Part of it was to be expected because I’m commuting to a new internship, and part of it was planned, but unfortunately, most of the over-spending can be chalked up to a simple fact: we made some spending mistakes. Any ... Continue reading this article…
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Today’s podcast features an interview with J.D. Roth from popular blog Get Rich Slowly. J.D. talks with Tom Dziubek and me about how he was inspired to begin writing about personal finance and his decision to leave the corporate world behind and take his passion to the next level. Tom also speaks with Bryan J Busch ... Continue reading this article…
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I offered to write articles for Quicken occasionally, and the first of these articles was published yesterday. It focuses on trimming budgets and expenditures. President Obama has proposed cutting the federal budget by $17 billion. That’s a large amount of money, but it’s a tiny slice, 0.5 percent, of the total federal budget. Here is an excerpt: I ... Continue reading this article…
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April is National Financial Literacy Month in the United States. In most cases, schools do not extensively teach financial skills. Teenagers, highly susceptible to messages from the media, often do not have guidance from teachers, who are not trained to teach financial skills, or from parents, many of whom do not model healthy financial behavior. ... Continue reading this article…
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I work for a small Interactive Agency of twenty-four people. This is a company that managed to survive the dot-com bust and, like any company, has good times and bad times. Our president always makes every effort to keep great people, even if it means cutting her own salary. I consider myself lucky to have ... Continue reading this article…
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Many of us are going to be faced with tough decisions this year, and probably next year. We might even have to grapple with “how do I get these creditors to stop calling me?” or “well, where do I live now?” If owning a home is the American Dream, then being homeless is surely ... Continue reading this article…
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This is the next installment in a series at Consumerism Commentary about taking control of your finances. Please consider subscribing to the Consumerism Commentary RSS feed for updates. It’s no secret that budgeting is a chore. Although this piece of personal finance carries an ugly reputation, even a simple form of budgeting will help you achieve ... Continue reading this article…
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One of my concerns with the possibility of leaving my day job and pursuing self-employment through writing and managing websites is the unpredictable income. At the extreme, my biggest concern is the idea that it’s quite possible that the income could drop off permanently due to forces beyond my control. But even if that doesn’t ... Continue reading this article…
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I may have fallen back into old habits. Several years ago, when I was refreshing my life and beginning to control my finances, I made deep cuts into my expenses. I took on three roommates, paying only $325 a month for my portion of rent. I didn’t own a car and relied ... Continue reading this article…
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NPR syndicates a show called “Marketplace” all over the country (and online, of course). I like to listen to the Morning Report while driving to work. The show does a great job of explaining current economic stories without a lot of technical explanations and acronyms. I found a game on the Web site called “Budget Hero” ... Continue reading this article…
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I have never been a fan of a monthly budget. In early 2002, when I admitted I was spending more than I was earning, I forced myself to enact categorical limits for my expenses. It helped for a short time, but it wasn’t long before I found myself with a new spending philosophy ... Continue reading this article…
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I decided this year that a rudimentary budget would help me further analyze my spending beyond my monthly income and expense reports. Since moving to my new apartment last July, my discretionary expenses have been increasing. Perhaps designing a spending plan and evaluating my real expenses against the budget each month will help ... Continue reading this article…
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New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine announced yesterday a plan to raise money in New Jersey to issue bonds in a public benefits corporation that will manage the toll roads. The bonds will be paid back through a series of toll increases. Starting in 2010 and every four years until 2022, toll prices on ... Continue reading this article…
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Unlike my first mistake, Failing to Utilize the Energy Tax Credit, my next mistake is one where I at least have a second chance. It’s not too late to fix this one for 2008. 2. Failing to Establish a Spending Budget I tried to spend less, consider my purchases more, and get the best deals ... Continue reading this article…
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