This article is by GRS staff writer Adam Baker. Baker is a big, fat hypocrite.
The statistics on credit reports errors are staggering. A 2004 U.S. PIRG survey showed that 79% of credit reports contained either serious errors or other mistakes of some kind. 79%? Seriously? How can that be?
I guess it doesn’t help that as of 2006, 27% of adults had never checked their report for errors. Not once. Ever.
Getting your hands on a free copy of your credit report and checking it for errors is one of the easiest ways to help your financial health. Correcting even a small mistake can make a huge difference to your score. A higher score means lower interest rates, insurance quotes, and can even help you land some types of jobs. And it’s never been easier to get a copy of your free credit report.
AnnualCreditReport.com is a government-approved site that enables most people to gain access [...]

Mark Frauenfelder is the co-founder of my favorite sites, Boing Boing (which is a “directory of wonderful things”). Mark’s also a GRS reader. He dropped me a line the other day to tell me about a new project he’s been following.
Today, Credit.com is launching a free new online financial tool called Credit Report Card. This tool is designed to provide users with a quick snapshot of their credit reports. According to the site’s FAQ, “it breaks down your credit report into five simple-to-understand categories and gives you a letter grade for each one.”
In his e-mail, Mark offered a personal example of how the service works:

Here’s a screenshot of what a Credit Report Card looks like. It’s my own credit report card. (I’m only showing part of the report card, as I don’t want to share my personal data.) As you can see, I have excellent credit :), but I’ve made too many “Inquiries” in the [...]

A few days ago, I released The Get Rich Slowly Guide to Roth IRAs as a free e-book. Readers who are interested in opening a retirement account can download this short book — which draws from a series of articles I wrote two years ago — and use it as a reference as they work through the process.
Though this is my first e-book (it won’t be my last), there are a variety of other great personal-finance e-books available for free download. You can pick up others for just a couple of bucks — or by subscribing to an e-mail newsletter. Here’s a quick overview of some I’ve found lately.
Free e-books about money
First up, Robert Pagliarini is offering his Plan Z: How to Survive the Financial Crisis as a free download. Pagliarini is a certified financial planner and the author of The Six-Day Financial Makeover. Plan Z is his guide to preparing for — and living [...]

This post is from GRS staff writer April Dykman.
My husband and I are in the process of building a home on 4.5 acres in the Texas hill country. At the moment, we’re still in the planning phase — not quite ready for blueprints.
Last month, our architect asked us to start thinking about the make and model of the kitchen appliances we want for our home. Visions of sleek, Thermador cooktops and double ovens danced in my head. Even when I saw the hefty price tag, I thought maybe we could find other ways to cut back so that we could afford the dream oven. After all, we’re both avid cooks. To us, eating well is one of the best ways to enjoy life. There’s no doubt we’d use it, so the purchase makes sense. Right?
Reality check from a minimalist
Then I happened upon an article by Mark Bittman, who writes The Minimalist column in The New [...]

A couple of months ago, I posted a list of 16 alternatives to Microsoft Money. GRS readers left nearly 200 responses evaluating the various personal finance programs available on the web and for the desktop.
One feature that many users crave is the ability to project their future cash flow. While it’s important to track where your money’s gone, some folks find it valuable to predict where money will go in the weeks or months ahead.
Why would you want to track your cash flow? The power of positive cash flow cannot be overstated. Back when I was living paycheck-to-paycheck, I was spending as much as I earned. Or, more often, more than I earned. It was only when I was able to create — and maintain — positive cash flow that I could repay my debt and begin to save. Positive cash flow is how we build wealth.

Last week, I received a press release from an [...]

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.
With the S&P 500 still down more than a third from its 2007 high, we’re all a little unsure about our retirement plans these days. So it’s time for some good old-fashioned elbow grease. A little effort now should make for a lifetime of security and peace of mind. And the first step is to run your numbers through financial calculators to estimate whether you’ll have enough saved to kiss the boss goodbye. (Metaphorically, of course.)
The calculators’ answers are important information. But what’s even more useful is changing the variables to see what most improves your chances for success. A retirement plan has a lot of moving parts — how much you save, where you [...]