I’ve been dabbling in a number of very genre-specific social networks as of late, ones that are designed to take real advantage of specific interests. So, here are several worth noting. If you’d like to keep tabs on what books I’m reading and have read and reviewed (outside of…
A reader asked me if I could break down my ideas into a handful of principles. After some careful thought, I came up with a list of fourteen basic “rules” that summarize my money and life philosophy. I’ll be presenting these as a weekly series. Whenever I’m in a…
On our DVD shelf, which is admittedly quite thinner than it used to be, there are quite a few DVDs that we’ve watched once and are simply accumulating dust. Assuming a cost of $15 per DVD and a two hour movie, our hourly cost is about $7.50. On the…
As I’ve mentioned before on here, my family did not have a lot of money growing up. My parents were always able to make ends meet and keep dinner on the table, but there was never really a sense of getting ahead. Instead, there was always a sense of…
When I first started writing The Simple Dollar, one of the biggest struggles I had was figuring out how to redefine some of my friendships – a struggle I discussed at length . The problem was that a good number of the people I spent lots of time with…
Charles writes in: The real reason people want to be rich isn’t so they can buy stuff. It’s so they can have power over others. People want influence and respect and they see that people with money have influence and respect, so they seek money. I agree with the…
My wife and kids and I went camping for four days this past weekend, starting on Thursday afternoon. We camped in a state park in rural western Illinois. The highlight was watching our kids enjoy campfire meals, then fall asleep in the flickering light of a campfire, dreaming happy…
On that day, I wrote the following entry in my personal journal (edited just a bit): Sometimes I feel like my life is completely without purpose and I’m just following some invisible pattern that someone else has put into place. Today was a typical day. But every day is…
One tactic I mention regularly for saving money on your food purchases is to watch the grocery store flyer for sales, then plan your meals (and shopping lists) around those sales . This tactic really works – I’ve saved quite a bit doing this over the years. However, things…