Get Rich Slowly

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!Tax season is in full swing! Again this year, the Internal Revenue Service is offering a program that allows many U.S. taxpayers to electronically file their tax returns for [...]

You don’t normally find celebrity gossip at Get Rich Slowly, and for good reason: I’m completely out of touch with pop culture. (Plus there’s the fact that this is a personal finance blog, I guess.) But the January death of 28-year-old actor Heath Ledger highlights the need for even young adults to consider basic estate [...]

Did you know that when you buy a gift card, you’re essentially loaning money to a company? Chris H. forwarded a MSNBC story that describes how after bankruptcies, gift cards can be worthless:
The Sharper Image announced late last month that it was suspending the acceptance of gift cards, at least temporarily. It urged shoppers to [...]

The Consumer Reports annual auto issue landed in my mailbox on Saturday. Like last year, I spent the afternoon leafing through it. Unlike past years, I think I managed to avoid the new-car itch. Here are their top-rated vehicles in ten categories (with last year’s top cars in parentheses):

Pickup Truck: Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Crew Cab [...]

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 [...]

Is today’s McMansion tomorrow’s tenement home? Wrtiting in The Atlantic Monthly, Christopher B. Leinberger argues that modern suburban neighborhoods may be in decline, and not just because of the subprime mortgage crisis. Rising gasoline prices, for example, may prompt Americans to return to the city. And when they do, what will become of the subdivisions [...]

In a comment on my interview with Adam Shepard, Liberal Arts Dude pointed to the Economic Mobility Project, a nonpartisan collaboration between several leading think-tanks. According to the project’s web site:
While as individuals [these groups] may not necessarily agree on the solutions or policy prescriptions for action, each believes that economic mobility plays a central [...]

I just finished reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America for the third time. In this book, the author chronicles three one-month stints working as one of the American poor. Her goal is to demonstrate that it’s difficult to succeed as a waitress, or a maid, or a Wal-Mart employee. [...]

President Bush has signed the economic stimulus package into law. This plan provides tax breaks to businesses that invest in capital equipment, temporarily allows larger mortgages through the Federal Housing Administration (and related entities), and provides a personal income tax cut for 2008. Instead of passing this on when we file taxes next year, the [...]

I love stories of extreme personal finance. In the past I’ve written about a guy who was homeless by choice, how to pay off your mortgage in three years, and about the most fuel-efficient driver in the world. Regular readers know of my fondness for these stories and sometimes e-mail other examples.
None, however, compares [...]