Basics



The hardest part of money management is just getting started. Once you have some momentum, it’s easier to make the right choices. Kay has been reading personal finance blogs for almost a year now, and she knows that she needs to make some changes, but she doesn’t know how to begin. She writes:

I want to [...]

[read all of The First Three Steps to Financial Freedom]

It’s been several months since I’ve discovered a new money movie to share with you. I love these things, but I’ve exhausted most of my sources for Public Domain material. However, while browsing the Prelinger Archives again the other day, I discovered a little gem that had slipped my notice before: “What Makes Us Tick”, [...]

[read all of What Makes Us Tick: A Short Film About How the Stock Market Works (from 1952)]

Each of us has a unique relationship with money. Some have always used it wisely, have saved, have avoided debt. Others, like me, have struggled. I carried consumer debt for 20 years. I didn’t open my first savings account until I was 36 years old. But now, after just over four years of intense effort, [...]

[read all of Where We’re Starting From]

“If we’re going to have a free-market capitalist society, we’ve got to give people the tools to not be victims” — John Cammack, T. Rowe Price

I get a lot of e-mail from PR firms. I ignore most of it, but occasionally something stands out. One recent message invited me to make a trip to Orlando [...]

[read all of The Great Piggy Bank Adventure]

I don’t watch much television; I’m more of a books and magazines and newspapers kind of guy. But I’ll make an exception this Friday. ABC will be broadcasting a special entitled Un-Broke: What You Need to Know About Money. According to the website:
Schools teach us almost everything, but not “Money 101.” For the basics on [...]

[read all of Un-Broke: What You Need to Know About Money]

This is a guest post rom Bill Schultheis, author of The New Coffeehouse Investor: How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street, and Get On With Your Life. Schultheis is an investment advisor in Kirkland, Washington. To learn more, visit his website.
What a difference a decade makes.
Ten years ago everyone was chasing the next [...]

[read all of How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street, and Get on With Your Life]

One of the best things about running this site is reviewing all of the reader submissions. You folks send me tons of links and story ideas. But in the past three years, there’s one item that you have submitted more than any other. Every month several people forward a Saturday Night Live skit called “Don’t [...]

[read all of Don’t Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford]

At CNNMoney, Walter Updegrave hosts an “Ask the Expert” column in which he fields reader questions. (Updegrave is an editor at Money Magazine.) Lionel from San Diego recently wrote in with a question that all of us have:
What percentage of income should someone save in order to be considered financially responsible? I’m wary of spending [...]

[read all of How Much Money Should You Save?]

In March, I hosted a guest post from Mike Young about the ongoing battle with lifestyle inflation. Young runs The Secure Student, a program that teaches high school students how to manage their money.
At the time, I thought The Secure Student might be worth sharing during Financial Literacy Month, but I forgot about it until [...]

[read all of The Secure Student Program]

This is a guest post from Richard Barrington, a Chartered Financial Analyst and 20-year veteran of the financial industry. Barrington blogs regularly at MoneyRates.
Conservative savings vehicles such as certificates of deposit (CDs) and money market accounts look especially appealing these days, despite low interest rates. But how do you pick the right savings vehicle for [...]

[read all of How to Find the Right CD or Money Market Account]

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