My mother is in the hospital. Her health, which had been deteriorating lately, took a turn for the worse over the weekend. On Tuesday, she was admitted to a local hospital, where she’s likely to remain for a week (or more).
My brothers and I have been sorting through mom’s financial documents, trying to piece together [...]

Yesterday, Amy Jo pointed me to a site called SmallNotebook.org where Rachel is nearing the end of a self-imposed No-Spend Month. Though the name is something of a misnomer — this exercise is more of a Spend Less Month — it’s still an interesting concept.
For the entire month of July, Rachel’s family of three [...]

This is a guest post by Christopher L. Jones, author of The Intelligent Portfolio. The following is an excerpt from his book.
During the meandering path of our lifetimes, there are many types of financial goals that we strive to reach. Some goals are short term in nature, such as having enough money to pay the [...]

“Look at this,” Kris said yesterday when she returned from grocery shopping. She held up two yogurt containers for me to see.

“So what?” I said. “Black cherry yogurt.”
“Look closer,” she said.
 

“That one’s smaller,” I said. “Did they change the container size?”
“Yes,” she said. “But they didn’t change the price.”
The incredible shrinking yogurt
I’ve received several [...]

“The Mole” is a certified financial planner and public accountant who, in his spare time, provides a behind-the-scenes view of the financial planning industry for Money magazine. In his most recent column, The Mole explains how to deal with a bad 401(k) plan.
“401(k) providers don’t actually care how they make money,” he writes, “just as [...]

My friend Nicole and her family visited our house for breakfast this morning. She and her husband are the founders of Green Ronin, a Seattle-based game publisher. As we enjoyed a couple lovely hours outside at the picnic table, we chatted about life and work. We talked about what it’s like to own a small [...]

“Are we a nation of financial illiterates?” asks Stephen J. Dubner over at the Freakonomics blog. Yes, he answers. And no. High school students are getting more economics education than ever before, yet their basic personal finance competency is dropping.
Dubner interviewed Annamaria Lusardi, a professor of economics at Dartmouth, about financial literacy. It’s an interesting [...]

Though Kris and I live just a few miles from downtown Portland, we’re fortunate to have three-fifths of an acre of land. This allows us to set aside some large spaces to grow fruits, berries, herbs, flowers, and vegetables.
Not all city-dwellers are so fortunate. In fact, millions of people don’t have access to a yard [...]

Last summer, Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, learned that the pancreatic cancer he was fighting had metastasized, and that he only had months to live. A few weeks later, he delivered his “last lecture”, a talk meant to impart the wisdom he’d gained during his lifetime.
Pausch’s presentation, entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood [...]

Money management can be difficult, even when you’re on your own. Throw a life partner into the mix and things get more complicated. What can you do if you and your spouse just aren’t on the same financial page? Hal recently wrote with a question:

I got married about a year ago to a wonderful girl [...]