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 — [...]

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 is a guest post from Neal Frankle, a Certified Financial Planner and the blogger at The Wealth Pilgrim. Neal is a potential Staff Writer for Get Rich Slowly. His first post explored the benefits of starting a side business. For background on Neal’s personal story, check out his recent article about how he went from homeless to homeowner.
Have you ever sat down at a restaurant, reviewed the menu, wanted to leave but stayed anyway? Did you stay because you didn’t want anybody to think you were a cheap tight-wad?
Did you ever go shopping with a friend and bought clothes that were too expensive? Did you do this because you didn’t want your friends to think less of you?
Did you buy the wrong car because you felt pressure to make an impression on the friend who went shopping with you?
Do you avoid going shopping or dining with other people specifically because you hate [...]

This is a guest post from Cristina Adams, editor of DailyWorth. DailyWorth offers daily personal-finance tips for women.
It’s official: Warren Buffet has a feminine side. Not that the billionaire investor parades around in drag. He doesn’t. But the investment patterns of men and women show that Buffet has apparently, over time, tuned into his so-called feminine insight when making investment decisions.
You say potato…
According to Dr. Ellen Peters, a research psychologist at the University of Oregon who co-directed a survey of 800 people beginning in late September 2008 when the economic meltdown was just heating up, men and women have very different approaches to investing.
Men get reactive and angry. That rage takes the edge off any obvious risk, making them feel more bulletproof. (How else would our ancestors have had the guts to take on a woolly mammoth armed with just a spear and a loincloth?) Men are generally more competitive and more aggressive than [...]

“Don’t you have any tips for single folks?” I’m often asked. Like any writer, I tend to write from my own experience — that of a married man. Fortunately, there are plenty of single people in the GRS community who are willing to share the things they’ve learned. Here’s a guest post from Kinley Levack about how she and her sister hold each other financially accountable.
Over Christmas 2007, my sister Michelle and I started chatting about our finances. We had independently come to the same conclusion: we each needed to get our act together. We decided that beginning 01 January 2008, we would help each other move in the right direction.
Sharing accounts and goals
We started by baring it all. We both made lists of our debts, accounts, etc. I had already spent about two years knocking down a credit card balance that had crept up to nearly $6,000. But I had virtually nothing in the [...]