This is a guest post from Robert Brokamp of The Motley Fool. Robert is a Certified Financial Planner and the advisor for The Motley Fool’s Rule Your Retirement service. He contributes one new article to Get Rich Slowly every two weeks.
Every summer, my wife and I cull our closets for stuff we and our kids no longer use. This is followed by a yard sale (complete with the obligatory lemonade stand from our kids), and the items that aren’t sold get donated to a local thrift store that uses the proceeds for charity. In the end, we have more closet space, some extra cash, an entrepreneurial opportunity for our kids, and a tax deduction.
And a little bit of regret.
Many of the items that get sold or donated were gifts we purchased for our kids or each other. They were enjoyed for a short time — or, sometimes, not at all — then relegated [...]

This is a guest post from Andy Jolls, founder of VideoCreditScore.com. Andy ran the myFICO.com business for a number of years and now educates consumers with free credit videos. You can follow him on Twitter at @vidcredit.
My wife and I were married a few years ago. I was working at myFICO at the time we got engaged, so I was already swimming in the world of credit, debt, and personal finance.
In fact, Suze Orman was a partner of myFICO, so I was exposed to a lot of her principles. For example, she believes that all couples should go through the prenuptial agreement process, which seems like heresy to most of her viewers. The “pre-nup” has negative connotations for most people, but Orman has a different spin on it — which I adopted.
Her concept is that a pre-nup doesn’t need to be focused on a negative outcome of divorce. Instead, it can [...]

Ron Lieber writes the excellent “Your Money” column for The New York Times. Last week, he shared a list of four money talks to have before marriage. Lieber writes:

Divorce tends to be emotionally gut-wrenching for the people who go through it (not to mention those around them). But most couples don’t realize that divorce can also be among the most ruinous financial moves anyone can make.

This article struck home for me. No, Kris and I are in no danger of getting a divorce (I love my wife!), but we’re at that stage in life where the people around us are passing through rocky stages of their marriage. Some are even getting divorced.
On Monday I spoke with a friend — let’s call him Mike — whose marriage is floundering. Mike and his wife are wrestling with a variety of issues. The acute crisis was caused by infidelity, but the chronic crisis — the ongoing problem — [...]

As I shared yesterday afternoon, although I believe National Save for Retirement Week is important, I find the topic dreadfully dull when stretched out for a week of blog posts. Lesson learned.
Still, I don’t think all retirement discussions have to induce snores or tears. In fact, when you think about it, retirement — especially early retirement — ought to be something to celebrate. When a person has managed to save and make smart choices, they have a chance to opt out of the rat race and pursue the things they really love.
(Note that some people, such as my wife, are fortunate to work at jobs they love in the first place. They’re already doing something they really love.)
Rather than talk more about the numbers or the various types of retirement plans, I thought it would be fun to have a chatty open discussion about our actual plans for the future. Each of us has a [...]

This is a guest post from Robert Brokamp of The Motley Fool. Robert is a Certified Financial Planner and the advisor for The Motley Fool’s Rule Your Retirement service. He contributes one new article to Get Rich Slowly every two weeks.
In recognition of National Save for Retirement Week, let’s take a gander at some numbers:

The average Social Security retirement benefit is $1,159 a month, or $13,908 a year.

According to the Employee Benefits Research Institute (EBRI), approximately a third of the 60-and-over crowd receives a monthly check from a defined-benefit plan, also known as a traditional pension. The average annual benefit is about $18,000.

Put those together, and you come to two conclusions:

If you aren’t covered by a traditional pension and choose not to save for retirement, you’re left with just Social Security and an annual retirement income that is not far from the poverty line ($10,830 for a single American in 2009). Not fun.

If you’re [...]

This is the second of a thirteen-part series that explores the core tenets of Get Rich Slowly.

Yesterday I completed my first marathon. It didn’t happen exactly as I’d planned, but it happened. Instead of running 26.2 miles, I walked the entire course. Some might view this as a failure. Not me. I’m ecstatic to have finally, at the age of forty, met one of my life-long goals.
Though I had hoped to run the marathon, training injuries the past two years thwarted me. Instead, I walked the Portland Marathon in six hours and 54 minutes. Chris Guillebeau from The Art of Non-Conformity walked the first nine miles with me, and Mac from Get Fit Slowly joined me for the final 8.2 miles. Though it didn’t happen the way I intended, I accomplished my goal.
What does my marathon experience have to do with personal finance? Everything. The journey to financial success is not a sprint — you [...]