This is the third installment in Luneray’s homebuying adventure. In the first part, she looked at houses. Last week she made an offer. In today’s third part, she discusses coming face-to-face with a lifetime of debt. (Bold emphasis added by J.D.)
This house buying experience has been a real eye-opener when it comes to finances, besides the overwhelming shock of sheer indebtedness. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get everything paid off as soon as possible.
I’ve been reading about the debt snowball method of debt reduction. Conventional fiscal wisdom says that the smartest plan of action is to pay off the debt with the highest interest rate first. From a fiscal standpoint, that’s probably the wisest choice, because you pay the least amount of interest this way. However, humans are flighty creatures, prone to frustration and despair. If you are like me and have multiple individual debts (seven separate student loans!), and if [...]

During my twenties, I accumulated nearly $25,000 in consumer debt. I had a spending problem. With time, I was able to get my spending under control (mostly), but I still owned overwhelming debt. How could I get rid of it?
The personal finance books all suggested the same approach:

Order your debts from highest interest rate to lowest interest rate.
Designate a certain amount of money to pay toward debts each month.
Pay the minimum payment on all debts except the one with the highest interest rate.
Throw every other penny at the debt with the highest interest rate.
When that debt is gone, do not alter the monthly amount used to pay debts, but throw all you can at the debt with the next-highest interest rate.

This made perfect sense. By doing this, I would be paying the minimum amount in interest over the long term. The trouble was, my highest-interest rate debt was also my debt with the biggest [...]

A confession by way of preface: in addition to personal finance, food, and comic books, I’m a fan of musical theater. Thus, you’ll forgive me for the following entry. I spent the evening on YouTube, looking for songs about money from old movies. I didn’t have much luck, but I had fun anyhow.
We’re in the Money
I was able to find an old clip of this song. Here’s Ginger Rogers — choreographed by Busby Berkeley — from Gold Diggers of 1933.
But wait! There’s more! How about the 2004 Huntington North Varsity Singers performing the song? Yikes! The Center Grove “CG Sound System” do a better job of nailing the vocal stylings of the early thirties. And here’s the inexplicable “Con el Dinero“, a mostly-tap version from Mexico City. Finally, here’s a random seven-second clip of some awkward freshmen butchering the song.
These are hilarious. No disrespect meant to the kids who are performing — they have my [...]

Sometimes a great deal isn’t. Because I have a small computer consulting business, I’ve been placed on a mailing list for “corporate rate” magazine subscriptions. Corporate rate subscriptions are unbelievably cheap, on the order of $10 or $12 a year for many magazines.
Being the frugal fellow that I am, when I received my first offer for a corporate-rate subscription, I signed up. Sure, it was a subscription for Business 2.0, a magazine I’d never read in my life, but so what? I saved money!
Soon I was receiving offers for corporate rate subscriptions on all sorts of magazines. Money? Sign me up! Smart Money? Kiplinger’s Personal Finance? You bet. PC World? I’m in. (Even though I’m a mostly a Mac user.) Forbes? Sure, why not.
I even subscribed to Newsweek, which was dumb. The Newsweek subscription was more expensive — about $30/year, I think — but still a great deal. I loved to read weekly news [...]

Consumer Reports has a new publication entitled Complete Guide to Reducing Energy Costs. To promote the book, they’ve made twenty tips available for free online:

Wash clothes in cold water. Most of the cost in running a washer is in heating the water.
Hang clothes on a line.
Don’t overdry your laundry. Remove clothes from the dryer while they’re still a little damp.
Let the dishwasher do the work. Don’t pre-rinse dishes. (This shocks me. I always pre-rinse dishes.)
Put your PC to sleep.
Turn down the heat in winter. Turn down the air conditioning in summer. Especially when you’re asleep or away from home. (See also.)
Don’t use a conventional fireplace.
Lower the shades and raise the windows instead of using appliances to regulate temperatures.
Use fans instead of an air conditioner.
If you use an air conditioner, keep it well maintained.
Lower the thermostat on your water heater.
Think twice before turning on the oven (especially in summer). A microwave is more energy-efficient.
Use the right [...]

My Money Forest - Festival of Frugality #41
(tags: pfblogs carnivals frugality frugal)

Calculate CPI from 1665-2012
“Have you wondered how much the value of your ancestor’s property or money mentioned in an old will, deed or tax record is in today’s dollars? Use this handy calculator to get an estimate of how much a dollar amount from a particular year compares to the
(tags: inflation history funnymoney)

How do I stop judging my significant other’s spending habits? | Ask MetaFilter
This is sort of related to our previous discussion of money in marriage.
(tags: relationships money psychology)

Ask the Readers: Renter’s insurance? - Lifehacker
Renter’s insurance is cheap and useful — if you don’t own a home, you should check out this discussion.
(tags: renting insurance tips)