Real-Life
Archived Posts from this Category
- Ask the Readers: How Do You Handle Peer Pressure?
- Reader Story: A Very, Very Fine House
- Is There a Generation Gap in Saving?
- Dumb Money: J.D. the Junk-Food King
- Ask the Readers: What Do You Do for Frugal Fun?
- Are Pre-Nuptial Agreements For Everyone?
- Which Comes First: The House or the Nest Egg?
- The Guilt of Wealth
- Born in a Small Town
- What Made You Care About Money?
- Ask the Readers: How to Face a Family Financial Crisis?
- Gone Phishing: How To Avoid Being Caught By Scammers
- My Debt Story: An Introduction
- On the Road to Financial Independence
- Personal Finance on Film: The Up Series
- Mr. Market’s Wild Ride
- A Call from Capital One
- What Got You to Get Better? Reasons for Change
- A Small Mistake
- Frugality in Practice: Alternate Modes of Transportation
- Discovering (and Challenging) Your Financial Values
- Reader Success Story: Debt Free on $2,000 a Month
- Beyond Frugality: What I Learned from Failure
- What We Wish We Knew When We Were Younger
- Impulse Spending: The Present and the Past
- Our Frugal Weekend
- A Day at the Community Garage Sale
- How My Parents Saved $14,000 on Home Repairs
- The Problem With Market Timing
- My Sister’s Keeper: Sharing Financial Goals with an Accountability Partner
- The Wisdom of My Father
- Reader Story: The Secret Millionaire and the Mathmobile
- Turning Garage Sale Junk Into eBay Gold
- My Great Disney World Adventure
- Office Space: Why I Rented a Place to Write
- The Boat Experience: The Means Justify the Ends
- Should Repaying Debt Be an Obsession?
- A First-Hand Account of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis
- Coping with Life’s Little Setbacks
- The Secrets of Financial Freedom: An Interview with the Millionaire Next Door
- A Very Small Adventure: Riding the Bus
- The Turning Point
- 84-Year-Old Social Worker Saves $1.4 Million
- My Mini and the Power of Saving
- Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression
- Why Our Heating Bill Ballooned This Winter
- Finding Balance Between Time and Money
- A Frugal Dinner with Friends
- The $1500 Frisbee
- My Financial Infrastructure
- Reader Comment: A Lifetime of Doing the Right Thing
- Lighting the Way
- Continuous Service? Dumb Moves from Smart Money
- Ask the Readers: What Do You Do When Frugality Gets You Nowhere?
- The Light at the End of the Tunnel
- Mission Accomplished: Our Shiny New Mortgage
- A Candle in the Dark
- The Ongoing Battle with Lifestyle Inflation
- Fumbling in the Dark
- Outside Looking In: How Others View Our Spending
- How I Cut My Television Bill in Half
- Money Hack: The Monthly Checkbook Sweep
- Refinancing Made Easy: Our Story
- The Razor’s Edge: Lessons in True Wealth
- Ask the Readers: When Is It Okay to Spend Your Savings?
- My 2008 Discretionary Spending: Progress and Challenges
- Follow-Up on the 63-Page Credit Card Agreement
- Credit Cards Can Pay You Money?
- Ask the Readers: How Much Money Would it Take For You to Compromise Your Principles?
- How to Make Your New Year’s Resolutions Stick
- One Year Later: Checking My Goals for 2008
- Coldplay and the Cost of Fun
- Why 2009 Will Be a Fantastic Financial Year For Me
- December 24, 1958: A Six-Dollar Christmas
- In Praise of the Adult Allowance
- You Can’t Always Get What You Want: The Dark Side of Personal Finance
- My Family Financial History (As Told by My Mother)
- The Irritation Threshold and Lifestyle Inflation
- Drama in Real Life: Burgled Again
- Creating a Will: It’s Not as Scary as You Might Think
- Ask the Readers: Twenty-Something Needs Help!
- Meeting the Diehards: Profiting from Shared Wisdom
- Success Sunday: GRS Readers Share Their Stories
- Back Up Your Computer to Save Time and Money
- When Is It Okay to Give?
- What Does it Mean to Be Rich?
- Setting and Achieving Family Financial Goals
- The 63-Page Credit Card Agreement
- Drama in Real Life: Foreclosure!
- Burn After Reading: The $22 Movie
- The Never-Ending War Against Advertising
- Frugality in Practice: Home Canning
- Why I Don’t Track My Net Worth
- Ask the Readers: How to Cope with Spending Addiction?
- The Idea of Having
- This American Life: Something for Nothing
- A Momentary Lapse of Reason
- Reader Success Story: How I Gave Myself a Raise
- Cleaning House: When Little Messes Become Big Problems
- Do-It-Yourself Landscaping Can Save Thousands
- Energy Conservation in Alaska: What Worked? What Did Not?
- Missing the Target: Lousy Store Policies Can Thwart Frugal Intentions
- Why I Fought to Save Three Bucks (and Why You Should Too)
- Enough is Enough: Wealth is What You Make It
- Drama in Real Life: Caring for a Parent in Crisis
- The Dirty Secrets of Debt Reduction (and What to Do About Them)
- We’re All Going to Die Someday: Making Informed Insurance Choices
- Drama in Real Life: Cancer Scare
- Ask the Readers: How to Cope with Socially Obligated Spending?
- My Mid-Year Financial Checkup: I Am Spending Too Much on Food
- The Art of Frugal Living
- A Small Bite: The Sensible Way to Splurge
- Financial Advice from My Father (When I Was Nineteen)
- Talking With Friends About Money
- Elvis Talks About Money at the Gym
- Saving with Albert: Teaching a Four-Year-Old the Value of Money
- Ask the Readers: Buy a Car or Pay Off Debt?
- Now and Then: How My Current Financial Situation Compares with a Decade Ago
- My Paperless Personal Finance System: A Work in Progress
- Extreme Personal Finance: Crissy Thompson, the Coupon Queen
- Ask the Readers: “I’m Doing Well Financially But My Family Is Not”
- A Real Millionaire Next Door
- Reader Story: Beware of Scams and Pyramid Schemes
- A Rather Obvious Metaphor for Personal Finance Couched in a True Story About Physical Fitness
- Reader Success Story: To Wii or Not to Wii?
- Reader Success Story: “We Paid Off $23,000 of Debt in 16 Months”
- If I Can Do It, Anyone Can
- Ask the Readers: Energy Conservation Tips?
- Some Thoughts on Goals and Adult Education
- How One Reader Uses Haggling to Save Big Bucks
- Grocery Store Mysteries: Cheap Milk
- Frugality in Practice: The DIY Footrest
- How to Turn $500 into $7 the Hard Way
- Drama in Real Life: Wrecked Rental
- Would You Make a Ten-Minute Phone Call for $57?
- Excited and Scared: One Week as a Full-Time Blogger
- How My Net Worth Went from $-40,000 to $285,000 in Five Years
- The Key to Wealth is Being Satisfied with What You Already Have
- Frugality in Practice: Home-Based Physical Fitness
- What To Do About Stolen Mail?
- An Angel on One Shoulder and a Devil on the Other
- Ask the Readers: I’m Not Good With Money — How Should I Handle a Windfall?
- Some Thoughts on Making the Transition from Debt to Savings
- Making Progress: An Update on My Goals for 2008
- “Simplify, Simplify!” — In the Footsteps of Thoreau
- 2007 Discretionary Spending: The Highs and Lows
- Money Talk at the Barber Shop
- In Which My Sister-in-Law Decides to Get Rich Slowly
- Car Trouble: A Real-Life Lesson in the Value of an Emergency Fund
- A Life Well-Lived is Not About the Bling
- Penny Pinchers: Mart and the $10 Boots
- Is a 6.25% Checking Account the Best Deal in Portland?
- My Three Goals for 2008 (and How I’ll Tackle Them)
- It’s a Wonderful Life and the Value of Social Capital
- How Good Habits Keep Small Mistakes Manageable
- How I Became a Millionaire While Working in My Pajamas
- Walking the Talk: Saying “No” to Temptation
- Free at Last! Saying Good-Bye to 20 Years of Debt
- My Millionaire Schemes
- Frugality in Practice: Keeping Warm in Winter
- How 15 Minutes Saved Me 15% on My Television Bill
- Letter to a Godchild: Passing on Financial Wisdom
- Quitting the Day Job: Finding the Guts to Pursue Your Dreams
- Beating the High Cost of Weddings: How We Did It, and How You Can Too
- Beware of Citibank’s Retroactive Late Fee
- Get More Bang for Your Buck by Using Coupons and Sales Wisely
- Yardwork and Financial Setbacks: A Metaphor
- Basic Personal Finance: Know How Your Accounts Work
- A Credit Card is Not an Emergency Fund
- Mystery Checks in the Mail
- Learning to Love the Not-So-Big House
- Recurring Monthly Costs: Which Are Worth It? Which Are Not?
- Always Check Your Receipts
- Ask the Readers: How to Live Debt-Free?
- On the Relationship Between Temperament and Financial Behavior
- Countrywide and Me: A Real-Life Look at Risk Tolerance
- Ask the Readers: How Do Couples Combine Finances?
- Using Quicken to Analyze and Correct Bad Spending Habits
- 12 Investing Mistakes I’ve Made (and How You Can Learn From Them)
- Shaking the New Car Itch: A Tale of Priorities
- Drama in Real Life: “You’re Fired!”
- Frugality in Practice: Do-it-Yourself Home Maintenance
- How to Feed Yourself for $15 a Week
- An Introduction to Financial Archaeology
- The Frugal Collector: 10 Ways to Curb the Habit
- Bank of America Demonstrates How to Alienate Potential Customers
- When a Saver and a Spender Say “I Do”
- Grocery Store vs. Farmers Market: Which Has the Cheapest Produce?
- Money Mistakes: That Old Black Magic
- Blow-by-Blow Account of a Housing Addition, part four: Combating Murphy’s Law
- The Tyranny of Stuff
- Blow-by-Blow Account of a Housing Addition, part three: Construction
- What I’m Doing Right
- Extreme Personal Finance: From Penthouse to RV
- Blow-by-Blow Account of a Housing Addition, part two: Capitalization
- Small-Town Personal Finance
- Blow-by-Blow Account of a Housing Addition, part one: Costs
- Good Customer Service Still Exists
- Confessions of a Personal Finance Guru
- How to Start a Family Without Breaking the Bank
- Ask the Readers: How Can You Help a Family Member in Financial Trouble WITHOUT Loaning Them Money?
- Frugality in Practice: Small Victories
- How to Save a Dollar
- Some Brief Thoughts on Life and Death
- Ask the Readers: What if You’re Frugal But Your Roommates Aren’t?
- You Are Your Own Worst Enemy
- Why I Applied for a Credit Card (and Why It’s Not the End of the World)
- Ask the Readers: Personal Finance During a Health Crisis?
- The Debt to Pleasure: What is the Cost of Fun?
- Reader Story: What My Father Taught Me About Debt
- The Power of Yes: A Simple Way to Get More Out of Life
- Convenience Store Economics
- Where Can I Invest My Money to Realize at Least a 10% Return?
- Ask the Readers: Is It Better to Invest or to Prepay a Mortgage?
- Commandment #4: Be Frugal
- Personal Finance on Film: The Farmer’s Wife
- Crossing the Line from Frugal to Cheap
- Frugality in Practice: One Man’s Trash
- Feeling Broke: Little Things Add Up
- Coping with Unemployment: Blogging is NOT the Answer
- Introducing: Fiscal Fitness Journals
- Money-Making Hobbies: Mystery Shopping and Belly Dancing
- How One Father Taught His Son About Money
- Real-Life Choices: Retirement Savings vs. Debt Reduction
- Frugality in Practice: The Garden in Spring
- Dumb Things I Sometimes Do
- When Did You Start Caring About Your Finances?
- Ask the Readers: When Does This All Pay Off?
- Money-Making Hobbies: Binding Books and Printing Buttons
- 101 Things in 1001 Days
- Frugality in Practice: Fashion on a Budget
- What’s It Like to BORROW Money with Prosper?
- A Contrarian View: Why I Love a Huge Tax Refund
- An Introduction to Making Money Selling Digital Photos
- Reader Story: Tackling Debt Through Volunteer Work
- The New Math: Cheap Alternatives to Cable Television
- Sometimes a Cheap Meal is Expensive
- Extreme Personal Finance: Homeless By Choice
- Getting Out of Debt: Oh What a Relief it Is!
- More Real-Life Prosper Experience
- Prosper: Investing on YOUR Terms
- My Parents Ruined My Credit!
- Money Interviews: Imagination Movers, part four
- Building Success from the Ashes of Failure
- Money Blueprints: What Our Parents Taught Us About Money
- Sometimes It’s Okay to Splurge
- The Curse of the Money-Saving Gadget
- Scary Story: Billed for Service I Never Received
- Procrastination Can Cost You Money!
- Frugality in Practice: Cheap Neighborhood Entertainment
- I Do Not Use Credit Cards
- How a Wellness Coach Whipped Me Into Shape
- I Make $6.50 an Hour — Am I Poor?
- The Cost of Customer Loyalty
- Book Review: Quarterlife Crisis
- 2006 Discretionary Spending: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
- Personal Finance Puzzlers: The Check is in the Mail
- The Dangers of the Payday Loan Trap
- Want to Save Money? Just Ask!
- Reader Story: Ask to Save!
- Reduction Quest: How to Save at the Money Game
- The Night That Mama Cried While Angels Sang
- You’re Never Too Young to Save
- How One College Student Handles Credit Cards
- Jump-Start Your Life With a Financial Plan
- Warning: Identity Theft Doesn’t Stop During the Holidays
- The Light at the End of the Tunnel
- What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?
- Cheap Clothing Jackpot
- Nintendo Wii: A Study in Planned Saving
- What are Your Experiences with Internet Banking?
- Reader Survey: How Do You Cope with a Limited Income?
- You, Inc.: How to Be the CFO of Your Own Life
- Track Your Spending with a Cash Notebook
- Reader Story: Two Approaches to Car-Buying
- Follow-Up: Buying a Part at the Junkyard
- Remodeling a Home, part two: A Leak in the Attic
- You Can Learn a Lot From a Rich Girl
- Money Interviews: Imagination Movers, part three
- Personal Finance Breakdown: New iPod
- Remodeling a Home, part one: Little Surprises
- Reader Story: Broken Window, Stolen Goods
- My $300 Morning
- Buying a Home, part seven: First-Time Homeowners
- Money Interviews: Imagination Movers, part two
- What Happens When You Try to Get Rich Quickly
- Buying a Home, part six: The Close
- The High Cost of Being Fat
- Reader Submission: Fritz Buys a New Car
- Buying a Home, part five: Preparing to Close
- Frugality in Practice: The Library Book Sale
- O, Cruel Fate, Why Do You Mock Me?
- Money Interviews: Imagination Movers, part one
- No One Ever Went Broke Taking a Profit
- I Was a Grade-School Entrepreneur
- Buying a Home, part three: Dealing with Debt
- How Not to Be Frugal: Too Many Magazine Subscriptions
- Buying a Home, part two: Making the Offer
- Frugality in Practice: Neighborhood Exchange
- The Worst Job I Ever Had
- Buying a Home, part one: Looking at Houses
- On Meeting and Resisting Temptation
- Survey: What Does Money Mean to You?
- Money and Values: Voting With Dollars
- You Don’t Have to Explain the Math to *Me*!
- An Entrepreneurial Leap of Faith
- Raising a Family on One Income (Part Two)
- Raising a Family on One Income (Part One)
- Frugal Tendencies on Vacation, Day One
- How to Give Yourself a Raise
- Programmable Thermostats: A Three-Month Review
- Use Purpose-Driven Investing to Achieve Your Goals
- Frugality in Practice: Building a Cheap Personal Finance Library
- Extreme Personal Finance: How to Pay Off Your Mortgage in Three Years
- My Cheap Uncle Norman
- Pop Buys Pop (a GRS re-run)
- Lattes, iPods, and Masterworks: New Ways to Look at Money
- Our First Lesson in the Costs of Homeownership
- Sometimes Free is Expensive: A Cautionary Tale
- GRS Reader Success Stories
- The Entrepreneurial Spirit, a Tribute to My Father
- Tricks for Tracking Your Money?
- Ask For What You Want
- Is It Possible to Be a Frugal Collector?
- A Real Fighting Chance
- Penny Pinchers: I Want My Four Dollars
- My Frugal Life
- Penny Pinchers: Pop Buys Pop
- Organic Produce: Price vs. Ethics
- The True Cost of Car Ownership
- Couples and Their Cash
- Penny Pinchers: More Frugal Than You
- Pep Talk: Pay Yourself First
- Frugality in Practice: Using the Public Library
- Frugality in Practice: Shaking That New Car Itch
- Auto Insurance Tip: Monthly Sucks
- Playing the Stock Market: Don’t Second-Guess Yourself
- From Bank to Credit Union
- Money Changes Everything
- Frugality in Practice: The Lunch Special
- The Science Fiction of Coupons?
- Best Decisions vs. Financially Smart Decisions
- Frugality in Practice: Back Porch Furniture

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