Easy Change

So, if you've already figured out what to do with your savings, and you're aware that you should pay yourself first. But the question is what to do when things get busy and you're already on automatic with your money? Even the best plans need some occasional changes and tweaking. So, make sure that you're taking the opportunity to revamp your freedom fund and expense estimates each year. I find that the best time to do that is tax time. This year, I reduced my additional increase from 3.0% to 2.0%. Inflation seems to be in check and fortunately, things seem to not be expected to change in the near term. So, I determined that I needed to save approximately an additional thousand dollars in my freedom fund in order to stay current. Then I did something similar for my emergency fund (or e-fund as some like to call it). Once those two were satisfied, I had to decide what to do with any additional funds that I might have available. One option that many like to use is to fini...

The press has been covering various countries and their possibilities of defaulting on their debt for some time. Last year, Iceland had a financial crisis that caused many to become quite nervous that it could cause a series of defaults across Europe. Lately, the big target has been Greece. For quite some time, the burgeoning levels of greek debt have made many investors nervous. A country, like a company or a person, can spend more than they have, but must borrow in order to do so. Companies can borrow by issuing stock or bonds. Countries can borrow by issuing bonds or other similar securities. All are forms of IOUs. In the case of Greece, the increased debt levels have made people nervous because they seem to be at a level that could never be repaid. This fear was lessened to some extent today with a new agreement that provides some backing for Greek debt. Read Bloomberg's Greek European Union Accord article to learn more. What does this all mean for the average personal finan...

One of the easiest ways I find that you can spend money is through recurring expenses. Although it is something that I am aware of, it is something that recently began to creep back up. When I first became really interested in personal finance a few years back, I really thought that there would be a bit of work to be done and that a simple magazine might help. I subscribed to Money magazine and probably got something like 16 issues for like 12 bucks, who knows? Even after factoring in the entertainment value, I have decided to not renew. Much of the content feels recycled and the choices that they are highlighting seem to really be geared to people in retirement or with kids which doesn't really fit my life at this point. Another subscription I've curbed is my World of Warcraft. I really enjoyed playing the game for a few months and also seeing all of the new content that had become available but the game has lost its appeal for me so I've quit. Perhaps I will go back, but ...

I've been a fan of Suze Orman for years. When I first started working after graduating college and then I started to make some money, my experience with other members of my family, mostly my grandparents, showed me that I needed to figure this money thing out. So, I set out to understand how money works and I found Suze. Many financial gurus are out there and for the most part, much of the advice overlaps, but Suze really seemed to be right along my line of thinking.  I bought the books, watched the show, and despite the fact that I feel like I've largely outgrown it so long as I follow the lessons, I really wanted to check up on how things were going. I went to the CNBC website and found an interview where she said this: "I do really live within my means. I have absolutely no debt. If I don't have the money to write a check, then I can't afford it. I never, ever, ever spend old money, so I'm only allowed by my own standards to buy something new with new mone...

It has been a very long time since I last updated and I've accumulated some stories that I can share about the past few months in my next several posts. I hope that they will be found to be useful and interesting. After a very long period of time, the economy has come back. It seems now, although there are some small shifts day to day and week to week, that the stock market has found some sort of steady point. Of course, there are many that think that this could all change and that there is still a chance of a double bottom. All of this is really a side show in my opinion. What matters most to people is what is happening in their own personal financial life. That is, what is the most important thing in each person's life that keeps them from being happy. For many right now, it is a combination of a lack of a good-paying job and/or an overabundance of expenses. This past six months has been quite good; expenses remain low and the debt snowball continues as I am working toward pa...