My apologies for the delayed posts. I took a few days to enjoy the Easter Holiday with the family, and I’m back to writing feeling refreshed, renewed and most of all, saved. Today’s topic (well, Friday’s actually) is budgeting. We all know we should budget. Most of us even have a rough mental budget. But [...]

I’ve been a personal finance “hobbyist” since I first saw Suze Orman on TV a few years ago, and discovered that you don’t have to have money to be involved in your finances. Seriously though, I got involved in my retirement planning, and household budgeting. We paid off our cars early and “burned the candle [...]

This isn’t the kind of “making money online” that I had envisioned, but it’s making money and isn’t any work at all, so I’ll take it! One of my Lending Club borrowers is especially ambitious and paid a large chunk of principal back yesterday. This means I’ve just gotten an infusion of cash that I’m [...]

This weeks’ featured topic will be Debt. The first free Web resource that I’d like to feature is DebtGoal.com. DebtGoal is an online debt calculator system that helps you to beat your debt. It calculates payoff times and a goal and “debt repayment budget” from the debt information you provide. I initially set up my [...]

We’ve now reached the point (just a few months in) where I’ve completely replaced my previous work-outside-the-home income with my mobile notary business and my freelance writing. By implementing the tips I’ve been outlining here–even post-layoff our family is coming out ahead of where we were six months ago financially, as well as in peace [...]

Today Rob and I checked out SmartHippo.com again and decided how to approach our refinancing project. We had our first mortgage, as well as a home equity loan of $15,000. Our first mortgage was at something like 5.5% and the HELOC at 8%. We were able to refinance both into 4.5% with our regular bank, [...]

I’m not a big fan of talk radio (I find it too stressful). But I do like to listen on certian subjects, especially when the host is positive. I’ve found Dave Ramsey for free on iTunes and I’ve subscribed. It’s just one hour of his three-hour show, but it’s very educational and informative. My favorite [...]

I’m an investor at Lending Club. I started out putting in just $100 because a friend suggested I try it. Now I think I’ll be contributing more frequently. You see, despite my broker’s best efforts (I am not loosing money in the market right now), my lending club is earning 10.98% while my IRA is [...]

Back in January I blogged here after reading a magazine article that explained how to know if you should refinance. It’s a tricky question for many of us. I’m personally on the fence about refinancing the condo we’ve had for five years. We’re *this* close to listing it for sale, but at the same time, [...]

Yesterday’s post was on the subject of saving money on laundry detergent. Today that got me thinking about an older, smarter choice we made on the subject of wash that has saved (and cost) our family a lot. When we first bought our home five years ago, it had a five-year-old washer and dryer. Within [...]