How do you teach your children about money? It’s an especially tough question when what you learned as a child left you totally unprepared for life in the adult world. And it leads to many more questions… At what point do you tackle which questions? What bad habits do you have from your own childhood that you want to make sure they don’t learn? What’s the right way to go about this? [Read more →]
Every day, you are exposed to hundreds if not thousands of marketing messages. You see and/or hear them on TV, on the computer, as you drive down the road, as you browse through the newspaper or magazines. They are literally everywhere. Are you even aware that they are there? Maybe not. To you, I say, “Consumer be aware!” which is my version of the latin “Caveat Emptor” you may have heard before. Its translation is “buyer beware” and it is often used as a reminder that the buyer has the responsibility for educating themselves when making purchases. But we are consumers more than just buyers and we have a personal responsibility for noticing when we are being marketed to. [Read more →]
Have you noticed that the Sunday paper just doesn’t have the wealth of coupons that it used to? Back in the day, I was a mad coupon clipper. I looked forward to the hour I’d spend on a Sunday looking through the coupon flyers and cutting out the stack of gems buried within. I saved a good bit of money on my weekly grocery trips, especially when I could go on a double-coupon day. My personal best was probably in the neighborhood of $15 on a cartful.
Today, newspapers may have coupons, but they’re few and far between. [Read more →]
The cost of communication can be remarkably high these days. Many US households have both landline and wireless phones, often duplicating services and the charges for them. It’s time to take a long hard look at what you’re paying for, decide if you really need it, and determine who is the best provider for what you need. [Read more →]
In my “previous life” (read: first marriage and the subsequent divorce), I went down the road of lousy credit and all the stress that comes with it. I have since reformed my ways and now my credit is excellent. So now when someone asks me what I know about rebuilding credit, here’s what I tell them…
The best advice I’ve got on how to rebuild your credit is to
1. STOP DIGGING and learn to live within your means,
2. PAY OFF YOUR EXISTING DEBT and stop thinking you can borrow your way out of debt, and
3. CHANGE YOUR THINKING because credit does not equal money.