We know that we should teach our children the “value of a dollar”, but the best way to go about it seems to escape us. Using an allowance may teach them to stretch a dollar, but in a pinch there’s more where that came from and they know it. Even when it’s tied to chores, […]
Category Archives: General
Non-specific posts or general posts not related to other categories.
On the first Friday of every month, the U.S. Labor Department reports key employment data for the previous monthly period. The report includes information about all aspects of the job market: the unemployment rate, the number of jobs added or lost, total hours worked, average hourly wages, and the jobs picture for various sectors of […]
Personal finance encompasses everything in our lives that pertains to money including setting and achieving financial goals. At some point every one of us has to reconcile the money we’re earning with the money that we’re spending. With this in mind, we would expect some level of personal finance to be a part of our […]
The most popular approaches to debt elimination are: paying off the largest debt first, paying off the smallest debt first, paying off the debt with the highest interest rate first, and loan consolidation. In my book “Personal Finance Simply Understood” I walk through a detailed analysis of these approaches using various loan and debt amounts, and […]
What is personal economic value and why is it important? Our personal economic value is our earnings potential or what can we expect to earn between now and when we plan to stop working. As an example, if I currently earn $44,000 each year, I’m 32 years old, and I plan to retire at age […]
When we hear sales promotions that say it will cost us pennies per day, or for just $1.00 a day we can have this or that, the idea is to keep us thinking in small numbers. But those small numbers add up and become big numbers over time, and it work the same way with […]
We don’t hear much about personal economic value, but when considering survivorship and life insurance it helps us understand and prepare for some really large numbers. Our personal economic value is our earnings potential, or what we expect to earn between now and when we plan to stop working. If I currently earn $124,000 each […]
For some people, their financial goals are to someday be out of debt or have a better handle on their financial situation. But these types of goals don’t lend themselves to an achievable plan, and progress can’t be measured. When we establish financial goals, we assess the things that we need and want in life […]
I was considering a blog on the topic of student loan debt, and came across a great article by the folks at Vanguard. The article “Student debt: How much is too much?” covers the topic, but adds valuable statistics and information including college graduate earnings, understanding what we’re getting into when we take advantage of student […]
Let’s face it, prudent personal finance is like swimming against the current. We spend wisely and save according to a plan that meets short-term and long-term needs; we’re paying down debt, and more than the minimum on credit cards, and we’re making some sacrifices along the way. There are trade-offs in every financial decision we’re […]
Personal Finance Simply Understood 