General Tips
Popular posts in General Tips
Posted 1 week 2 days ago by Julie Rains
Frugal Living, General Tips, Health and Beauty
Healthcare will most likely be my family's largest expense in a couple of years, when we've finished paying our home mortgage. We're not heavy users of the healthcare system, so what have we done to incur such high costs? We're Americans who want to protect our family from a medically-induced financial disaster. Fortunately, I just read a book ("Stay Healthy, Live Longer, Spend Wisely" by Davis Liu, M.D.) that gave me a better understanding of the healthcare system and how I can get the most value for my dollar. Here are 50-plus ways plus to save money without compromising your well-being.
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Posted 1 week 5 days ago by Philip Brewer
Career and Income, General Tips, Art and Leisure
Here are two ideas you already know: You won't achieve maximum happiness by always doing the most pleasurable thing you can think of at each moment, but neither will you find it by always deferring present happiness in favor of greater future happiness. The key is balancing these two things. And the genius in this book is that it gives you tools for finding that balance.
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Posted 2 weeks 1 day ago by Linsey Knerl
Personal Finance, General Tips, Lifestyle, Consumer Affairs
I know of parents who don’t ever discuss money with their kids. “They should be carefree at this age,” they claim. Money isn’t an appropriate topic for family conversation at these homes. But is this a cop-out for preparing kids for real life? And are they missing an opportunity to keep one another accountable to a single goal?
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Posted 2 weeks 2 days ago by Xin Lu
Personal Finance, General Tips
A commenter on Wise Bread wrote a Chinese proverb about marketing that reminded me that there are many Chinese proverbs about money and personal finance. Here are a few of the ones I hear quite often
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Posted 2 weeks 5 days ago by Xin Lu
Personal Finance, Career and Income, General Tips
I graduated from college just three years ago, so the confusion and anxiety I felt after graduating college is still quite fresh in my mind. I moved out of my parents' house a week after graduation and started at my new job, and since then I have learned a lot of things about the "real world". Here are some of my best advice for you new graduates who are transitioning from the safe structured environment of school to a seemingly infinitely larger world.
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Posted 3 weeks 4 days ago by Paul Michael
Frugal Living, Life Hacks, General Tips, Food and Drink, DIY
Todd Wilbur is a name you may well have heard before. For lack of a better word, he’s a copycat…and a cool one at that. From homemade Twinkies to homecooked Big Macs, Todd can recreate just about anything from your favorite American restaurant chain. Now you can learn how to make those famous meals and snacks and save a bundle.
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Posted 3 weeks 4 days ago by Xin Lu
General Tips, Shopping
Recently, I read about a promotion from a home builder in San Diego where consumers could buy a 4000 square foot house for $1.6 million and get a smaller home by the developer valued at $400 thousand for free. This sounds like a fantastic deal, but I am always wary of anything labeled with "buy one get one free", and here is why.
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Posted 4 weeks 2 days ago by Linsey Knerl
Life Hacks, General Tips
It has happened to the best of us. You step into the shower, fiddling with the temp controls, only to find there is no hot water. You can curse and you can cry, but even the speediest of repairs may take a day or two (to wait for parts and/or labor.) What’s a girl or guy to do?
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Posted 4 weeks 3 days ago by Paul Michael
General Tips, Lifestyle, Consumer Affairs
How many of you do your research before you rent a movie or go to the cinema? I usually read a bunch of reviews and ask friends. Sometimes I’ll see a movie without reading any reviews, but those ones are usually adorned with independent film awards. Which makes me wonder…why did I just waste my time on one of the worst movies ever made?
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Posted 5 weeks 3 days ago by Xin Lu
Personal Finance, General Tips
In the past few decades the Ad Council has been running an ad with the tag line "Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk". This ad campaign has been instrumental in decreasing drunk driving fatalities and almost every American has heard it at one time or another. What if this ad were applied to mistakes people make in personal finance? Here are some possibilities...
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Posted 6 weeks 1 day ago by Paul Michael
Frugal Living, Life Hacks, General Tips, Cars and Transportation
There have been several great articles written by my fellow Wisebread writers on gas efficient driving , slowing down and hypermiling . I think the sign of a good blog is that we take our own advice, and in the case of gasoline, I’ll take all the help I can get. But even I was shocked at the amazing results I got.
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Posted 6 weeks 3 days ago by Philip Brewer
Personal Finance, General Tips
I eat lunch at a local fast-food place occasionally. My usual order runs to just over $4, so I was annoyed when I realized while walking over there yesterday that I'd forgotten to pick up a nickel or dime--I was going to end up with a pocketful of change. In fact, though, I needn't have given it a thought: My order cost $4.60.
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Posted 6 weeks 4 days ago by Paul Michael
Frugal Living, General Tips, Shopping, Green Living, Consumer Affairs
That classic scene from Seinfeld got me thinking over the weekend. Is there a strategy for using toilet paper? Is it worth our time? But when I spend money to literally flush the product down the drain, I often wonder…how much should I be flushing? Am I wasting money?
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Posted 6 weeks 4 days ago by Xin Lu
Personal Finance, General Tips, Lifestyle
Before I got married last year, I ranted about how my wedding would cost more than my college education . There is no doubt that a wedding is an extremely expensive affair, and recently I read that many people are taking out loans to pay for their weddings. I also heard of an extremely egregious story of a woman who took nearly $200,000 out of the equity of her home to pay for her dream wedding in a castle in France. Since many of my friends are getting married this year, I felt that I should write an article about how to raise cash for a wedding if your parents are not footing the bill.
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Posted 9 weeks 4 days ago by Xin Lu
Personal Finance, General Tips
The United States Postal Office will be raising their postal rates once again on May 12th, 2008. Is it time to stock up on the Forever stamp? Is this stamp that retains its value a good investment? Read on for some specific information on the rate hike and other facts about this special postal product.
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Posted 9 weeks 6 days ago by Margaret Garcia-Couoh
Life Hacks, General Tips
Dreading an expensive summer with the kiddies? It doesn't have to be. And even if you have to make the obligatory trip to Disneyland or some other such money sucking theme park, there are ways to get around that provided you have loving and gullible friends.
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Posted 10 weeks 3 days ago by Philip Brewer
Personal Finance, General Tips, Budgeting
My very first experience running a household was in 1980, just as the last big inflation was spiking up over 10%. My carefully constructed budget was completely destroyed by prices that were rising by 1% every month. Since then, I've given considerable thought to how to deal with just that situation. Since history seems dangerously close to repeating itself, it's a timely topic.
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Posted 10 weeks 3 days ago by Xin Lu
Personal Finance, General Tips, Taxes, Investment
After the recent interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve many of my bank and money market interest rates plummeted. Now the best yield I have is on my Series I Savings Bonds issued by the United States Treasury. These bonds are also known as I-Bonds and their yields fluctuate according to inflation. Currently, the yield is 4.28% and that beats all of my other cash investments. Here is some information on the interest rate on I-Bonds and the advantages of owning these bonds.
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Posted 11 weeks 2 days ago by Kate Luther
Personal Finance, Career and Income, Life Hacks, General Tips, Lifestyle, Budgeting
A while back I posted the first of what I promised would be "Ten Tenets to Arranging Your Rich". And wouldn't you know it, right after posting Tenet #1, things got a little crazy and life interfered with my blogging plans. Go figure :)In any event, I think we're back on track now and as promised, we've got nine more tenets to go. So, without further adieu, here's tenet #2: The same actions will produce the same results.
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Posted 11 weeks 4 days ago by Paul Michael
General Tips, Lifestyle, Health and Beauty, Food and Drink
The chances are, you're dehydrated right now. In fact, over 75% of the American population is deyhdrated, and worse still, over 80% know they are. No big deal? Well, it is actually. Lack of hydration can lead to all kinds of problems, including obesity, fatigue and a much higher risk of certain cancers. So grab a glass or three of water and read on.
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