This weekend we got our share of the bailout. It was “free admission” day at all of the National Parks. We elected to go see the new visitor’s center at Mt. Rainier National Park. Our bailout amounted to a grand total of a whopping $15. (We then bailed out our local economy by spending $20 [...]

We choose this auspicious date not because it’s fun to say 7-8-9, but because it’s pretty much the middle of the year, and it’s easy to remember. We made a pact today to stop eating out until the end of the year. Yep, 12/31/09. No more doughnut runs on Sunday mornings, or Friday pizza deliveries [...]

A few years ago my husband and I purchased our first house–the little condominium that we still live in. When we purchased it in March of 2004, it felt like a palace. Now it’s feeling more like a dollhouse, but we still love it. We purchased this place when real estate values were quite depressed, [...]

Reducing our debts and refinancing into a shorter-term mortgage has really helped our credit score! My credit score is up 61 points in three months from 710 to 771. Almost maxed out the CreditKarma.com scale! Soon to be debt-free and then that score will start going down again….. but that’s OK with me. Who needs [...]

I wish I could recall how I learned about this movie, but I heard it was a must-see indie film. Since my interest is in finance, and my family is following the “Total Money Makeover” plan to get out of debt and live life without it, I decided to take a look. This independent documentary [...]

OK folks, here it goes. Our first ever Pennywise Family CASH contest. The winner gets a $100 gift certificate to either SmartyPig.com (online high-yield savings accounts) or Kiva.org (microfinance investments). Winner’s choice. Use this blog post about someone who made credit-card bracelets and show me how you’re repurposing your old credit cards now that you’re [...]

In an effort to get us back on track for financial fitness, I’ve enlisted fellow writer Rachel Musgrove to help out by covering vehicle financing with our first-ever guest post. Rachel doesn’t usually write personal finance but her voice and tone are a great fit with Pennywise Family. Please take a moment to comment and [...]

I know a lot of people who’ve tried to “borrow themselves out of debt” recently. It makes sense at first glance to pay off your credit cards at 10% with a home equity loan at 6 or 7 percent. Especially if you’re in really deep. And after all, you’ve got all that home equity just [...]

If you’ve checked out the past three posts about aggregators that work directly with your online banking and you’re not comfortable with that, I understand. There’s a pretty spiffy Web site that works similarly called BudgetTracker. It’s a calendar based system that works from information that you provide. It also allows you to track business [...]

Ok, this catches us up to Monday, and we’re almost back on financial-literacy track. For those of you who are brave, empowered and socially-fearless, you might like to try the “twitter of budgets” (As I’m so-dubbing it). Geezeo.com is a frightfully-social way of playing with your budget. I do think this could make budgeting fun [...]