I’ve been listening to the Audiobook “Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey. This is available from Audible.com, and I highly recommend it. If you want to download the book, I’ve attached a coupon here for two free books. One tip that Mr. Ramsey offers that I find especially interesting is that to know if you’re [...]

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 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 [...]

As I was taking a look at my Lending Club account, I realized I’d made a big mistake in my understanding of the process. In my Mint.com account where I usually view my account I can see the $1.27 of interest that I’ve earned in the past month on my $100 investment and I’ve been [...]

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, [...]

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, [...]

I met with someone today who mentioned in passing that he was refinancing into a lower-rate 30 year fixed mortgage. But he really wants to be debt-free in twelve years. He just needed to think of how. I suggested, why not attack his mortgage from both ends? Rob and I have been doing this as [...]

I’ve been trying to make the best of the permanent layoff that came my way in early December. I started a business, I’m also writing and blogging. Without commute time I find myself with a lot of free time. I’m definitely enjoying the flexible lifestyle. One of the things I’ve decided to tackle is households’ [...]

The average American household has about $9,200 in credit card debt. I hope you’re in the bottom end of average. I’ve busted more than this already in 2009 (and it’s only February) and I have just slightly more than this left to go before my debt-free goal of July 2009. It’s going to be close [...]

We got our tax refund last week. Now, we’re pretty savvy and don’t “donate” more to the IRS than we need to. We do take advantage of the adoption tax credit, and deductions for higher-than-average charitable giving. Our tax return was over $10,000, and there’s rollover credit left that we’ll claim next year. Talk about [...]