money management

Photo by alamo’s basement
Our family is days away from fully funding our six month emergency fund.  We never thought we’d be here, but we can look back on this financial journey and say with satisfaction that it honestly wasn’t as hard to save this money as we once thought.

When it comes to saving money, the [...]

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Photo by Sergio Tudela
I‘m currently working on the chapter in my book that explains the connection between being debt-free and living simply.  For me, it’s been a good reminder why it was so important to my husband and I to get rid of our debt back when we were doing so, and of the bondage [...]

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Photo by D. Sharon Pruitt
I used to get easily frustrated when I tried my hand at a family budget. I’d never be able to predict the right amounts for the right line items, and out of sheer frustration, I’d quit before we’d even give the poor budget a decent shot.
It wasn’t until several years [...]

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Photo by Edward Lim
The following is a guest post by Nicole of Burning Bushes
In today’s economy, say the words, ‘rich’ and ‘quick’ to someone, and they’re soon looking over your shoulder at that evil sub-prime mortgage lender who started this whole mess. But hear me out on this one — I promise this is [...]

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Photo by Martin Gommel
The following is a guest post from Rachel of Porter Coaching.
Note from Tsh: If you hang out with me for an hour, you know I’m a huge Dave Ramsey fan. His plan is the one that led us to become debt-free, and is helping us save tons more than we’ve ever [...]

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Photo by Jon Rawlinson
Awhile back, we became debt-free.  It was amazing to realize we weren’t indebted to anyone, that after we paid our living expenses, we could decide what to do with our money.
But the benefits to becoming debt-free extend beyond the financial.  There was an internal refining process to our family that transformed us. [...]

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Photo by Mike Licht
The following is a guest post from The Weakonomist, the anonymous blogger behind Weakonomics.com.
The media has tried to explain the current economic crisis. But many of them don’t fully understand it themselves, so elements and details are lost in translation. The ultimate failure is trying to explain it in a matter [...]

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Photo by Jeff Belmonte
Many of you have written me with this question – how do you budget for annual expenses when you don’t have a regular income, or when you don’t get paid monthly?
Budgeting might seem a bit easier for us because my husband gets paid monthly – one paycheck to one monthly budget. [...]

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Photo by Lali Masriera
This post was first published on June 19, 2008.
Budgets have a bad rap because they’re seen as shackles. Instead of getting to do fun things with money, budgets make you do boring things, like pay the gas bill, and not go out to eat.
Not necessarily. Whether you realize it, you [...]

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Today is Thursday, which means it’s Book Club day!  Head over to the forums and join in the discussion.  Even if you haven’t finished chapter one (today’s reading), you can still share your thoughts about the prologue and preface. See you there!
edited to add: Guys, I’m SO sorry I didn’t have the permissions [...]

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Photo by Ryan Holloway
Happy New Year!
I hope you had a lovely evening last night.  I’ve got a set of questions to help you set some realistic, life-affirming, and encouraging goals for 2009 – but they’re coming tomorrow.
Today, I’m over at the brand new Simple Mom forums, for the first day of the Sound Mind, Sound [...]

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Photo by Andrea
I hope you had a great holiday this past week, and that they were as restful as they were fun; as reflective as they were festive. And I hope you weren’t inundated with too much new clutter to add to your home.
Sometimes it’s hard to not go overboard during the holidays – [...]

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This post was first published on June 5, 2008.

I love reading your blogs full of excitement about looking into Dave Ramsey’s concept of financial freedom. The idea of a “total money makeover” truly has been eye-opening and freeing for our little family. We never relied heavily on debt, but we still never thought [...]

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Photo by Christopher Matson
I love the maxim shared recently by JD Roth at Get Rich Slowly – he says, “You can have anything you want – but you can’t have everything you want.”
We really can purchase just about anything, or pursue just about any thing.  The key is knowing the attached price tag to [...]

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Photo by Jon K
My husband and I are in our early 30s, and we are not homeowners. We never have been homeowners, actually. Much of this is because of our expat lifestyle, but even if we were stateside, chances are, we’d still be renters.
And we are okay with that.
There were times when we [...]

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Photo by Brittney Bush
Reader Melissa asks, “How do you cut back more when you have cut back to the bare minimum? I have a family of five to feed, and it seems to be getting more and more expensive. Any suggestions?”
I hear you, Melissa.  With the crazy economy, it’s pretty hard to budget, even if [...]

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Photo by Brandon
The following is a guest post from Miranda Marquit. She edits information on debt consolidation for DestroyDebt.com and writes for YieldingWealth.com.
Every where we turn, there are “special offers” and “bargains” that save us money. But sometimes, these are just gimmicks designed to help us spend more. Here are some ways that you [...]

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The following is a guest post from Jason, a.k.a “Frugal Dad.” Jason writes about frugal living, personal finances, and a few other topics at his blog, FrugalDad.

Photo by The Library of Congress
One of the more challenging aspects of handling money is figuring out what to do when we get more of it. If you are [...]

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Just a quick note to encourage you guys to sign up at Revolution Money Exchange before this Thursday, May 15. When you do, you get an automatic $25. Seriously – I just did it, and it was quite painless.
And I’ll be honest – if you use the button here on this post, I’ll [...]

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