Financial planning and maintenance are easy to put off. That’s why they appear on so many top 10 lists about how to help stop procrastination and how to keep your financial New Year’s resolutions. We know that organizing our finances, like exercising and eating right, will improve our quality of life and make us feel better. [...]

Setting and Achieving Your Long-Term Financial & Personal Goals In Life Now is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

Managing your finances can be a juggling act. One of the most important skills is being able to properly balance your wants and needs. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell the difference between a want and a need. Wants are those items that you don’t really need for survival but desire to have. Wants [...]

Balancing Your Wants And Needs is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

One of the great things about buying new gadgets and toys is that you get to show it off, right? All around me people are buying a new iPhone, iPad, and other things that begin with “i.” I hear the words “my new <insert your favorite gadget here>” all the time. Suppose I bought a [...]

The “Wow” Factor: Do You Overpay For It? is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

Why do we save our money and not spend everything we have the second we have the money? What is it we are accomplishing with our money when it sits in a bank account adding a tiny bit each month, instead of using it to buy delicious meals, beautiful clothes, fun experiences, or other equally [...]

Why Do We Save? is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

I believe that budgets are a wonderful tool for really getting a good, close-up view of your financial picture. With a budget, it’s easy to tell if you’re overspending in some areas and underspending in others. Budgets help you achieve your financial goals such as debt elimination, saving for retirement, and building wealth. The problem [...]

The Anti-Budget: A Less Stressful Way to Manage Your Finances is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

Rock stars didn’t start out rich, and they often bring a certain mindset about money and finances to their songwriting. Believe it or not, some of their songs offer some really interesting perspectives that apply to our own lives. I’ve taken some of my favorite lines from eight popular rock and pop songs that incorporate [...]

8 Great Songs about Personal Finance is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

For many people, our personal demons show up in many areas of our life, including our finances. Some of us try to make ourselves feel better by buying things we don’t need, ignoring our money problems, or wishing for magical solutions. A common end to this road is debt addiction. What is debt addiction? Debt addiction [...]

What Is Debt Addiction? is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

It’s a short fly ball to shallow left field. The shortstop is racing back, he leaps through the air to make a spectacular diving catch. Crash! What happened? Apparently the left fielder had a similar plan and was sliding towards the ball to make the catch. His knee is unfortunately for me much harder than [...]

Get an Emergency Fund and Stop Having “Emergencies” is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

There’s an interesting poem by Robert Fulghum from a book called All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. I first came across it while I was training to be a teacher. Working in a number of kindergarten classrooms made me realize that there was a lot of truth in the poem, but [...]

All I Need to Know about Money I Learned in Kindergarten is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

There are plenty of things we buy that increase in value over time. Unfortunately, not everything we purchase will gain value. Here are the worst “value-loss” offenders that people regularly buy: Cars Not just cars, but just about any vehicle will lose a good chunk of their value. If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard [...]

8 Things That Lose Value as Soon as You Buy Them is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

Our relationship with money often involves our relationships with friends, coworkers, relatives, and romantic partners. When the two worlds collide, it can lead to some stressful and difficult situations! Our new advice column, “Penny For Your Thoughts,” answers your questions about money and relationships. We’ll respond to specific letters we receive from the readers with [...]

Introducing “Penny For Your Thoughts” – A New Money Crashers Advice Column is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

With the economy having thrown many of us for a loop over the past couple of years, there is more demand than ever for quality, unbiased financial information. People have a lot of questions about personal finance, investing, and basic economics. Some of them are very simple: How can I save more money? How much [...]

How to Increase Your Financial Literacy is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

Everyone talks about the Estate Tax and how evil it is, even causing financial disasters within very wealthy circles, but few know how it is actually calculated. So today, I am going to show you you how to easily calculate the Federal Estate Tax. I say Federal because there are certain states with estate taxes, [...]

How to Easily Calculate the Federal Estate Tax is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

Have you ever made a stupid financial decision that you came to regret later? If so, then join the club. We have all made decisions that were stupid and have harmed our financial future. These decisions set us back years and often cost us more than time and money. All financial decisions are not the [...]

The Do Not Do’s Of Finance is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

I personally really like getting things in the mail. What I don’t like is getting random offers for credit cards, mortgage refinancing, and other junk. Not only are these wasteful and annoying, they’re a big source of identity theft problems. Help save your sanity, your identity, your postman’s back, and the planet by opting out [...]

How To Opt Out And Get Less Junk Mail is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

You have finally settled on buying an automobile. You have found the exact make, model, and color that you want. Now comes the most difficult part: signing the papers. If you don’t have your financing in place before visiting the dealership, then you will have to apply for dealer financing. The salesman and finance manager [...]

5 Tips on How to Negotiate a Car Loan is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

I recently wrote a post about the best financial advice from your parents. These topics ranged from getting out of debt to buying a home. Well, today I want to take a look at some of the things that you wish that you learned at an early age. This could range from learning about personal [...]

5 Things That You Wish You Learned At An Early Age is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

I still remember those long talks from my parents that I used to get about being financially responsible. From teenage years onwards my parents were always trying to instill money management principles into me and my siblings. Now whether or not we took that advice was totally up to us. I realize now that following [...]

Best Financial Advice That You Got From Your Parents is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

Store discount cards are popping up everywhere now, from your local grocery store to warehouse clubs. These cards are promoted as a way for customers to get increased savings on everyday items. Discount cards can be a good thing if they really allow you to save on items that would have cost you more elsewhere. [...]

The Danger Of Discount Cards is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.

For those of you that smoke, I would imagine that you are well aware of all of the health risks involved. Your chances for contracting lung cancer go way up, your chances for heart disease go up, your skin ages at a faster rate, and on and on. Yet, there are still many of us [...]

The Financial Benefits of Quitting Smoking is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.