Open Source Blogging

Many newer readers of The Simple Dollar haven’t been exposed to the hundreds of great articles in the archives of the site, so this is a weekly series that highlights the five best posts from one year ago this week, as well as the five best posts from two years ago this week. I call it … the Time Machine.

One Year Ago (June 28-July 4, 2008)
The Minimalist Kitchen: What You Need (and Don’t Need) to Set Up Your First Workable Home Kitchen You don’t need tons of things to cook well at home. In fact, … Continue Reading

This is the second of twelve parts of a “book club” reading and discussion of Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover, where this book on debt reduction is teased apart and looked at in detail. This entry covers the third chapter, finishing on page 51. The next entry, covering the fourth chapter, will appear on Wednesday.

Dave Ramsey is probably the loudest proponent out there of the “debt is bad” mantra and he makes the case for it loud and clear in this chapter. In his eyes, outside … Continue Reading

In April and May, National Public Radio featured a series on inexpensive gourmet dishes entitled “How Low Can You Go?” Although many of the dishes looked quite tasty, most of the dishes weren’t actually all that inexpensive, often narrowly getting below $10 to feed a family of four, and many involved arduous cooking processes. I decided to try out some of these recipes throughout the summer to see how I could take the recipes and reduce them down to a simple and very inexpensive form.

… Continue Reading

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.

I cover time management quite a lot on The Simple Dollar. I write about Getting Things Done and other time management books. I talk about how I manage my own time and some of the techniques I use in my own life.

Almost always, I’ll receive an … Continue Reading

A long time ago, I wrote a brief article about creating a visual debt reminder, something that will help motivate you towards getting rid of debt. Since then, I’ve found myself using such reminders all the time for keeping my finances in order.

The Psychology of the Reminder
A reminder? If a goal is really important to us, why would we need a reminder?

It’s simple. Most of us have really busy lives, and in order to actually make those lives work, we have to adopt some serious routines. If you have only thirty minutes after you … Continue Reading

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 just barely enough.

That’s not to say that I had a deprived childhood, though - I didn’t. My parents - my mother in particular - found lots of little ways to get me the things I wanted or needed. We went to the library all the time. … Continue Reading

This is the first of twelve parts of a “book club” reading and discussion of Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover, where this book on debt reduction is teased apart and looked at in detail. This first entry covers the preface and the first two chapters, finishing on page 16. The next entry, covering the third chapter, will appear on Saturday.

Let’s get this straight right off the bat. I like what Dave Ramsey has to say when it comes to personal finance. I find much of … Continue Reading

For Father’s Day, my children gave me a copy of the game Dominion, and it would be an understatement to say that it’s a big hit around here. It’s actually a card game that two, three, or four people can play and you can get a game in in about half an hour, but it’s the creative thinking that really makes it stand out.

My wife and I have played it quite a bit on random, and we played it over and over again on our game night. In fact, I’m not ashamed to admit, my wife is … Continue Reading

The fifth episode focuses on talking to parents about money and their estate planning as they get older. Along the way, I mention my own challenges in figuring out how to handle this as my parents age. Total time: 16:25.

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Though I hope you do subscribe using one of the above methods, don’t worry - each episode will be featured … Continue Reading

About a week ago, I challenged my followers on Twitter to give me their best single piece of money advice in ten words or less.

I was flooded with responses.

After spending quite a bit of time sifting through them, here are the fifty best pieces of advice that came my way (out of well over a hundred - I actually used a spreadsheet to help me figure out the best ones to include). All of these are stellar money tips - and all of them come in with ten words or less. Enjoy.

writealvaro: Don’t invest in what … Continue Reading