Learning to save is a lot like running a marathon — you need to build up to it by training gradually. It’s too overwhelming to go from saving nothing to saving $2,700 a month, so you need to start slowly and keep it simple.
— David Bach; Yahoo! Article: “Tools for Personal Finance Empowerment”

The fact that most of us are not raised to talk about money is a real tragedy.  Show me a couple who doesn’t talk about money and plan their finances together, and I will show you a couple headed for financial trouble — if they’re not already in it.  When you work together on your [...]

How many times have you heard someone say, “If only I could make a little more money, I could really get my financial act together?”  How many times have you said it yourself?  Ask most couples the source of their financial problems and they will tell you it’s that they don’t make enough money.  The truth [...]

The truth about money management is that it’s not really that difficult.  If you know what to do and what not to do, it’s actually pretty easy.  The challenge is that we’re not taught about money in school.  As a result, much of what we learn comes from friends, word of mouth, and marketing.  This [...]

Change is a funny thing.  Although most people say they want to change — so they can have a better life, with more love, more dreams, and more fun — the fact is that many of us are afraid of change.  Faced with the real prospect of it, we look at our lives and decide [...]

People in Texas have a great way of describing someone who tries to look like more than he really is. They call him a “big hat, no cattle” guy.
 
In other words, he may look like a wealthy rancher, but in fact, there’s no ranch, no cattle, no nothing. Just a big hat (and probably a [...]

If you pay just the minimum due each month on an $8,400 credit balance, you will wind up having to make 365 monthly payments before it goes to zero. That’s thirty years and five months’ worth of payments. And that’s assuming you never charge another dime on the card, never get hit with a late [...]

For most of us, debt can be a trap that forces us to work longer than we should have to. What puts us into debt are bad habits such as running up balances on our credit cards and then paying them down slowly, if at all. You can be hurt and held down by habits [...]