I’ve received a lot of e-mail lately about very specific financial situations. Remember: I’m not qualified to give financial advice. I can share my experiences with you, and I can summarize the things I learn, but I’m not a trained financial adviser. And I don’t have time to reply to every e-mail. If you want people to kick around ideas with, drop by the Get Rich Slowly discussion forums. The forums are a great place to get feedback on your situation, and to share your financial success stories.
Here are some personal finance stories I’ve liked recently:

At 43 Folders, Matt Haughey shared his adventures in $40 eyeglasses. “Overall, I couldn’t be happier with the process of buying glasses online. I’m happy to have several backup pairs and different styles to fit my mood. About the only drawback is that there is almost too much selection online.”
I’ve been doing more research about keeping our house warm. [...]

Lisa is trying to decide what to do with her life. She’s in her mid-thirties, has two young children, and for the past few years has spent most of her time parenting. Now that the kids are older, she’d like to go back to school. But she’s worried it might not be a smart financial decision:
Common wisdom says that education is always a good investment. Is that always true? If I already have a college degree, is it truly a good idea to invest in another degree, taking into account lost income, the cost of tuition, childcare expenses, and any interest accrued in loans? Is there a base salary that you should expect to earn before additional education is a good investment?
Jethro wrote with a similar dilemma:

I’m a middle school teacher in Utah, and I don’t make much: $27,859/year. I am getting my masters in my Educational Administration. If I stay in Utah, the lowest [...]

This is a rare “re-run” at Get Rich Slowly. Because I love The Cinnamon Bear so much, I plan to post this every year on the 29th of November. If you have young children — and even if you don’t — I encourage you to listen to these old radio broadcasts with your family.
Holiday traditions don’t have to be expensive. Some of the best traditions don’t cost anything at all.
When I was a boy, Christmas meant The Cinnamon Bear. During the weeks before Christmas, a Portland radio station (KEX) would broadcast a fifteen minute episode of this story every night. The Cinnamon Bear chronicles the adventures of Judy and Jimmy, and their fantastic trip through Maybeland as they search for the missing Silver Star that belongs atop their Christmas tree.
I loved the cast of characters and the exotic locales: the Root Beer Ocean and the Inkaboos, the Wintergreen Witch, the Looking Glass Valley, the Crazy [...]

For three years I’ve had a single goal directing my actions: I wanted to get out of debt. Now that my consumer debt is nearly gone, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what to do next. I was worried that I’d lose focus, lose direction. That’s not going to be the case. I’ve set three major financial goals for 2008. After I pay off the last of my final loan next Tuesday, I intend to:

Max out my retirement plan for 2007 and 2008.
Pay taxes.
Bolster my savings.

These goals are ambitious, but I think I can achieve them. In fact, I hope to do even more.

Retirement
I got a late start on my retirement savings. The box company has been setting aside a pension for me, but I only began my self-directed retirement savings last year. I managed to make the full contribution to my 2006 Roth IRA. I’ve contributed $2,000 so far this year, and intend [...]

This is a guest-post from Free Money Finance. It’s a follow-up to Mrs. Micah’s post earlier today.
A few weeks ago, J.D. and I were chatting when he asked me what it felt like to be debt-free. He’d read on my blog that I had no debt and was curious if I’d write about it for Get Rich Slowly. In particular, he asked me to communicate both how I managed to pay off my mortgage (the biggest debt most people have) as well as how it felt when we did so. I was happy to accept his offer.
Just to note, the purpose of this post isn’t to debate whether or not paying off all debt is a good idea (versus only making mortgage payments and investing the rest, for example), so I’ve purposely left it out. My goal is simply to tell you our story — what happened and how we did it. From there, you [...]

This is a guest post from Mrs. Micah of Finance and Life. Look for a related post later today.
Getting an interest-only mortgage can seem like a great idea when you’re trying to buy a house and can’t afford a down payment (or if you have bad credit). Earlier this week, I read the story of a couple who are celebrating home-ownership under just such a situation. But while they’re happy, odds are that this is actually a disaster waiting to happen.
The Pros
There are two reasons an interest-only mortgage might work out for you:
Reason #1: You’re a house flipper.
No down payment, lower monthly payments for ten years — since you’re flipping, you probably plan to have the house for less than a year. Why bother paying more? Using interest-only means that you can direct more capital into fixing up the place.
And since your goal is to increase the value of the house, you probably won’t [...]