Living for today - Planning for Tomorrow
Believe it or not, my favorite personal finance book isn’t loaded with money-saving tips. It isn’t even a personal finance book at all. It’s called Dopamine Nation by Dr. Anna Lembke, and it’s about neuroscience (dopamine specifically) and how to find balance in our age of instant gratification. Reading it fundamentally changed my relationship with money and helped me stop overspending, so I wanted to
If you have children, you’ll need to get them dental care at some point in their childhood. Up to half of all children require orthodontic care. Braces aren’t cheap, so it’s important to find the best ways to save up for your child’s dental care and find the best financing options available. Below are some of the many tips you can use to finance braces
It’s probably no surprise that summer is the most expensive time of the year. The cost of road trips, outdoor concerts, and summer camp for the kids adds up. A study by MassMutual showed that half of Americans spend more money during the summer than other seasons. Women were more likely than men to report that they spend more in the summer months, especially due
In May, inflation hit a 40-year high of 8.6%. The cost of essentials like gas and groceries has risen sharply, so we’re all losing purchasing power and feeling the pinch. This high-inflation environment is also eroding the value of our savings. Bank accounts don’t offer enough interest to outpace inflation, so we’re effectively losing money by parking our cash in savings accounts. With economists predicting
My partner and I just got married in March. We decided to keep the event low-key and have a small ceremony in our backyard with close friends and family. Thanks to their generosity, we’ve received a couple thousand dollars in wedding gifts. Since we didn’t expect to receive this much money, we’ve been trying to figure out the best way to utilize it. If you’ve
A few months ago I wrote a blog post about why I don’t do no-spend challenges. To me they seemed like the personal finance equivalent of crash diets. Instead of outright banning unnecessary spending for a month or more, I believed in taking a more moderate approach. I gave myself a small monthly fun money budget so I could still treat myself occasionally without going
Financial experts often recommend that you open multiple savings accounts, one for each financial goal you’re trying to achieve. I’ve followed this advice for years with pretty good results. But recently I’ve been rethinking whether or not this style of money management is right for me. My freelance writing business has gotten busier over the past few months. I don’t have as much time to
Lately economists have been warning that we may be heading for a recession in the next one to two years. Goldman Sachs recently estimated that the chances of the US entering a recession is about 35%. I knew that a recession was likely on the horizon in the next few years. But I didn’t expect it to be a possibility so soon. Economists can’t predict
Recently I heard a financial saying that was new to me online: you can’t out-earn bad spending habits. This is such a true statement. No matter how high your income is, if you don’t have financial discipline and try to live frugally, you can easily inflate your lifestyle to the point where you’re living paycheck to paycheck. After all, many lottery winners end up in
Before I moved to rural Michigan, I had always lived in cities or suburbs. I never imagined that I would end up living in a farmhouse out in the country. But my partner dreamed of moving back to the Midwest and settling down on a big tract of land in a quiet, small town. Since I can work from anywhere as long as I have
