Hints and Tips


If you’re new here, you may want to learn what this site is about. I encourage you to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!I pulled out my camera gear last night. It’s been two years since I used it regularly. Before I started Get Rich Slowly, I seriously considered trying to become [...]

[read all of Making the Move from Spender to Saver]

This article is part of Financial Literacy Month.
Most Americans receive a daily flood of junk mail. Some savvy citizens take a stand against the torrent. My friend Pam gets great delight from calling the sender of every catalog she receives in order to be removed from their mailing lists. This works well, but there are [...]

[read all of How to Stop Junk Mail in Its Tracks]

Dan wrote with a question unlike any I’ve received before. He lives in Alaska, where the residents of Juneau have been confronted with a sudden energy crisis (more here). Here’s Dan’s story:

I am facing a unique energy situation. I live in Juneau, Alaska. Last Wednesday, we had an avalanche which affected the electricity generation [...]

[read all of Ask the Readers: Energy Conservation Tips?]

Last week, Jason shared a guest post on how to negotiate to save money. Daylily Diva wrote to share her own experiences, which I’ve reproduced here with permission.
I love haggling — it’s second nature to me.  If I’m buying bagged mulch at the garden center and some sacks have small puncture holes,  I negotiate a [...]

[read all of How One Reader Uses Haggling to Save Big Bucks]

Ralph sent me e-mail last week describing a clever budget trick he picked up from a friend:

My wife and I had dinner last night with a couple of of young women we know. We talked a little about personal finance. One of the girls has an interesting idea on forced savings. She calls it “reverse [...]

[read all of Use “Reverse Credit” to Stick to Your Budget]

The March 2008 issue of Money has an article by Stephen Gandel about how to recession-proof your life. “We may or may not be entering an official recession,” he writes, “but either way 2008 has gotten off to a scarier start than most anyone predicted.”
To lower your anxiety level Gandel recommends that you first learn [...]

[read all of How to Make Yourself Recession-Proof]

The March issue of Real Simple magazine contains a great article by Elizabeth Fenner about solving your biggest money worries. She writes:
For many of us, “manage finances” is right down there with “clean out the basement” on the bottomless to-do list. We put it off until life is less hectic…Well, help is here. Real Simple [...]

[read all of Real Simple: Save More, Worry Less]

On Saturday morning, a young man knocked at our door. He wanted to sell us new windows. Kris tried to brush him aside gently, but he was persistent. He didn’t leave until he’d scheduled an appointment to give us an hour-long in-home presentation about his company’s product.
“We do need storm windows,” Kris told me after [...]

[read all of How to Handle a Door-to-Door Salesman]

Deb Perelman at eWeek recently shared some advice on how to quit your job with your bridges intact. Too often smart employees let their guard down during their final days, and they do things that may actually damage their career. Perelman polled coaches, recruiters, and workplace experts to create a list of steps that can [...]

[read all of How to Quit Your Job Gracefully]

In 2004 Dr. Michael Lynn, associate professor at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, produced a paper entitled “Mega Tips: Scientifically Tested Techniques to Increase Your Tips” [PDF]. If you work in a restaurant, reading this pamphlet could help you increase your earnings. But if you don’t work in food service, knowing these techniques [...]

[read all of Proven Methods for Servers to Increase Their Tips]

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