You are able to contribute up to $5k/year to a flexible spending account.  This is different from a health savings account, which you own and are able to accrue money in tax free for medical premiums and expenses for your life.  What you put in grows tax free, but usually is with taxed money.  Then [...]

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Prior to this week I would have to say I’m a pretty frugal person naturally. I look for deals, watch my pennies, and try to make wise financial decisions.  But then you have a kid and suddenly a few things  change.  Suddenly it feels like time is of an essence.  That you need to have [...]

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MP Dunleavy actually broke it down last month items that women pay more than men do in general.  I’d have to say I fully agree.  And not just agree, but there are a ton of other items not mentioned.
Definitely health insurance women cost more.  Why?  Childbearing age women are for sure going to use more [...]

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Since I use pear budget I can see how I stuck to our budget for the year or not.  I can also plan accordingly for 2010 based on our spending in 2009.  Since I do an annual budget broken down monthly, this is the most important time for my budget.  I don’t worry about going [...]

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This is going to come off as stupid, but I read a lot of people on message boards posting about how they have a budget, but don’t seem to have any extra money at the end of the month.  Somehow during the month the money was spent somewhere else.  They “should” have extra money say [...]

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Many people say getting out of debt is like losing weight.  It’s a long term lifestyle change which takes times to implement and stick to.  Getting out of debt and living on a budget is like forever living on a diet to manage your weight.  It’s so easy to yo-yo and gain and lose weight [...]

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Meg from World of Wealth wrote this post about “The best investment” talking about a quote from Ben Stein.  He says “the best investment is buying something you want.”  He got this from Milton Friedman, as a comparison that you can’t judge your returns on stocks and investments, but you do know the pleasure you’ll [...]

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What would you do if you were diagnosed with cancer and given 6 months to live? Would you change your lifestyle? An interesting question, posted on a message board. If you had stage 4 cancer and it was a reccurance from an earlier diagnosis would you change your spending and saving habits?
Would [...]

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An interesting topic came up on my baby board.  Should people who have kids before getting married bother spending money on a big, splashy wedding and engagement ring?  Or did they put the cart before the horse, and instead focus on saving that money for a home, retirement, college, kids, etc?  Basically did they miss [...]

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MP Dunleavy wrote an interesting article about spenders and savers marrying each other.  She followed it up by talking about what happens when your mate can’t manage money.  Basically she said that opposites are attracted to each other, but people typically say they want to be with or marry someone with similar financial values.  Yet [...]

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