If you don’t have health insurance through your employer, or your spouse’s employer, you can either buy an individual health insurance plan, a family plan, or a group plan through a trade group or credit union to which you belong. The costs will be higher, but the cost of not having insurance is much higher. …
I know, I know, it’s still summer. But it’s already time to start planning for the holidays, especially if your holidays involve travel by air. Thanksgiving is 14 weeks away. In airline speak, it’s just around the corner. That also means Christmas is just 18 weeks away. Planning Thanksgiving Travel You don’t have to book …
Christmas is next week, which means many bakers will be pulling out their pans and getting to work this weekend. If you’re a holiday baker/candy maker, here are a few tips to help make your holiday bake-a-thon go a little smoother. Gather Your Recipes Now If you have them online, consider printing them. If you …
Just when I thought we were finally making progress on that whole TARP debacle. Another bank paid back the money, and taxpayers were informed that we really hadn’t lost all the much money on the bailouts. I thought “Yay, we finally catch a break.” Enter Congress, stage left. The audience heaves a great sigh. I …
We finally got an offer on our first house accepted, but before we accepted the acceptance (weird, but that’s how it works in California), we decided to get a second opinion. My parents came down for the weekend and we went to the house for an hour and a half to check it out. It …
Just one carnival to share today, so let’s get right to it: Suburban Dollar hosted the Carnival of Personal Finance #234, which included by post about increasing your home value. I also recommend The Personal Financier’s analysis of the dangers of crossing the line from frugal to obsessive. I completely agree. I was obsessive while we were paying …
Last year I posted a top ten financial frights list, but that was more of a general frights list. Things that could happen to anyone. This year, I’m getting more personal, and limiting my list to 5 frights, because if I had 10 I’d be sleeping off about 30 Xanax, not writing this blog. Stock Market Roller-Coaster …
A couple months ago I discovered the Budget Hero game from American Public Media and thought it would be great if we made McCain and Obama play it. Then we could see how they really stack up. Now we’ve got something close! Each candidate provided the game’s creators with the costs or benefits of some of their …
This week, I have only one carnival to share: the Carnival of Personal Finance #162, hosted by Taking Charge of Credit Cards. In addition to my post on storing your vital records, you might also enjoy My Dollar Plans 12 tips for preparing your finances for vacation.
I’m sort of working my way around all the various rescue packages. Why do they all have to have fancy names and acronyms? TALF, TARP, Making Home Affordable, Making Work Pay. Argh! But that’s not today’s rant. Today’s stabby post about the way some of these programs and statistics are presented. The government likes to say …
That Makes Me Stabby: Averaging Figures Across the U.S. Read More »
