For the foreseeable future, every Friday afternoon I will be reviewing a section of Jean Chatzky’s Make Money Not Excuses and how it relates to me and my financial situation and outlook. The first review is here, Chapter 1 is here, Chapter 2 is here, Chapters 3, 4, and 5 are here, and [...] ... (more)

This week I entered 5 carnivals and a festival, and was fortunate enough to be chosen as an editor’s pick in two of them, raising my year’s total to 23. Thanks to all the hosts who put the carnivals and festival together! I know from experience it is a lot of work to [...] ... (more)

Another side effect of being in considerable debt is that you may have a lack of available funds to make the frugal choice vs the cheap choice. I talk a lot about being frugal vs being cheap, and how I work out the difference for myself. A core tenet of frugality, to me, [...] ... (more)

Today is Free Iced Coffee Day at Dunkin Donuts.  If you will be near or pass by a Dunkin Donuts today, by all means, stop in and get a free iced coffee!  The offer is good until 10pm tonight, so make sure to take advantage of it if it will incur no hidden costs for [...] ... (more)

Since the economic stimulus checks started going out via direct deposit and now also paper check, I have had a lot of questions from people who thought they would receive their check already based on the IRS published schedule, but have not. I did some digging on the IRS website to try and find [...] ... (more)

Last month I signed up for Revolution Money Exchange, a service similar to paypal for person to person financial transactions but without the fees paypal charges. Since then, I have used the service several times, and honestly, I have had mixed results with it. At this point, I think it shows promise, but [...] ... (more)