This article is by GRS staff writer Adam Baker. In addition to his work at Get Rich Slowly, Baker blogs over at Man Vs. Debt, where he compiles the most famous and inspiring quotes on debt. This article is a part of National Save for Retirement Week, and a sort of follow-up to yesterday’s post about the choice between retirement or a down payment.
Whether you should halt your retirement contributions in order to focus debt is one of the most heavily debated dilemmas in personal finance.
Unlike “spend less than you earn” or “track every penny you spend“, there’s no cookie-cutter answer to this question. Variables such as age, career, risk tolerance, and even personality type make each individual situation unique.
You’ll never win a race against high-interest debt
Regardless of your personal situation, there are very few circumstances where high-interest debt should not be the top priority. What’s high interest? Well, that’s another fun question to debate. For the purpose of [...]

This post is from GRS staff writer April Dykman.
My husband and I are in the early stages of building a house. As we modify our floor plans, the amount we’ll need to borrow to build is on our minds. It’s probably going to be the most expensive thing we’ll ever purchase, and we need to decide what we want to borrow and what loan term we’ll want.
The main differences between 15- and 30-year loans are straightforward. Fifteen-year loans have higher monthly payments, but you pay less interest, while 30-year terms have lower monthly payments, but you pay significantly more for the house in the long run. As with most areas of personal finance, however, this decision is about more than just the math. There are other important considerations, such as retirement savings, risk tolerance, and discipline.
First, let’s take a look at the hard figures.
Crunching the numbers
Let’s say that a 30-year-old borrower is buying a house [...]

Mark Frauenfelder is the co-founder of my favorite sites, Boing Boing (which is a “directory of wonderful things”). Mark’s also a GRS reader. He dropped me a line the other day to tell me about a new project he’s been following.
Today, Credit.com is launching a free new online financial tool called Credit Report Card. This tool is designed to provide users with a quick snapshot of their credit reports. According to the site’s FAQ, “it breaks down your credit report into five simple-to-understand categories and gives you a letter grade for each one.”
In his e-mail, Mark offered a personal example of how the service works:

Here’s a screenshot of what a Credit Report Card looks like. It’s my own credit report card. (I’m only showing part of the report card, as I don’t want to share my personal data.) As you can see, I have excellent credit :), but I’ve made too many “Inquiries” in the [...]

With the arrival of the GRS staff writers, the semi-regular “ask the readers” column has a new home. Look for this feature most weekends. “Ask the readers” is your chance to get (and give) advice about real-life financial dilemmas.
An anonymous GRS reader submitted a question last week that hits close to home:

I have a family member that this past year has been in serious financial trouble. He is one of the most ambitious and intelligent people I know and I would have never imagined him getting in this kind of trouble. His ambition may have been his downfall as he keeps shooting for the stars and has fallen short on some of his business ideas, which may have put him in a more vulnerable position when the economy turned south.
He is now living in debt and struggling to put food on the table for his wife and four young boys. He has had to live [...]

This post is from April Dykman, a new GRS Staff Writer. April was a typical GRS reader who used the things we talk about to improve her financial situation. Now that she’ll be writing for the site, she wanted to start by sharing some background on her financial history.
In April 2008, I got married. My in-laws graciously gifted my husband, Luis, and me with an adventurous honeymoon in Mexico, complete with scuba diving, climbing Mayan pyramids, and navigating local markets.
Once we unpacked and settled into married life, we knew it was time to get our finances in order.
Photo by Amelia Tarbet.

We had some consumer debt, and then a few months before our wedding my husband’s company was bought out. He was unemployed for two months. We didn’t have an emergency fund, so money saved for the wedding (paid for mostly by my parents, but we wanted to cover some expenses) paid bills instead, and with [...]

Eila dropped a line this week to get advice on how to tackle her debt. She and her husband are trying to turn things around, but they’re overwhelmed by medical bills. They’re hoping GRS readers can offer direction. Eila writes:

How do I prioritize my medical bills? I have about $8000 in medical debt that’s broken up into $300 here, $200 there, $1000 over there, etc. The bills are to different medical centers, doctors and hospitals — and they all want their money today. Some are already on my credit report. One isn’t even willing to work with me on payments. I haven’t even called back because I don’t know where to start.
I’m really trying to make the debt snowball work and stop living paycheck-to-paycheck while building savings ($20/paycheck), but I have questions:

How do I make these payments on 15 medical bills? Can I only send $10/month to each? What if they won’t accept anything less than $50? (Or in one case $120?)

If I were [...]