August 29th, 2010

I’ve always been very careful to live within my means and not take on any significant amount of debt but around six months back, I learned the hard way that this isn’t always enough to keep you in the black. My beloved cat suddenly got very sick and I instinctively knew that I’d do whatever it took to help her. Everything ...
August 19th, 2010

One of the biggest decisions that college freshmen need to make is whether or not to live at home while attending college. If your university is far away from your home town, the decision is a pretty easy one, since you don’t have much choice. However, if you are attending school within an hour of your home, the decision has ...
June 9th, 2010

After what we’ve all been through with the recession, the good to come out of it is that many of us have vowed to stop spending foolishly using credit — and even better we seem to be sticking to that vow. Families are struggling to keep it together and pay off the bills. It hasn’t help that credit card companies ...
June 5th, 2010
Many newer readers of The Simple Dollar haven’t been exposed to the hundreds of great articles in the archives of the site, so this is a weekly series that highlights the five best posts from one year ago this week, two years ago this week, and three years ago this week. I call it … the Time Machine.
One Year Ago ...
April 27th, 2010

Even though there are some scattered signs that the housing market is picking up, in most areas, it is still very much a buyer’s market. That means that you have some pull when it comes to buying a house. So, if you have low credit card debt, a good credit score, a decent down payment, and a stable job, now ...
April 21st, 2010
This post may rub some people the wrong way and I’m sorry about that but it’s how I feel. I’m getting so tired of people blaming others for their problems. I think this country, and the world as a whole, would be much better off if everyone just accepted responsibility for their actions.
What ever happened to personal responsibility? Why ...
April 16th, 2010

One of the most constructive, and destructive, forces in finances is the power of compound interest. Compound interest is interest that is not only paid on the principal, but also on the interest that previously accrued on your investment. On the other hand, compound interest can work against you — for instance, as finance charges against your credit ...
April 15th, 2010

As many of you know, over the last year, I’ve been writing a book outlining the specific details of how exactly I went from being tens of thousands of dollars in debt and working at a job that caused me to miss my family and made me long for the career I wanted to doing exactly what I wanted to ...