Last week I saw several reports about a sharp jump in people running out of gas on the highway. The stories attributed the increase to high gas prices, suggesting that people who
Insurance is all about spreading the risk. A bunch of people buy insurance against the risk that a few of them will be the ones who get hit with a big bill that they couldn't pay.
Rising fuel costs are hard on everybody, but one group gets hit especially hard: Rural folks--especially rural folks who work in town. On my previous posts on expensive fuel,
I'm old enough to remember when a piece of bubble gum was a penny. In fact, it was a penny for most of my youth--and had been a penny for a couple decades before I was born. As i
Every financial calculation that you make is influenced by your expectations for future inflation: how much to borrow, where to put your savings, and whether your last raise was a
Is there an amount of money that's too small to concern yourself with? People make that case, usually saying something like "Life is too short to waste time counting pennies." Th
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
The Federal Reserve has proposed some new rules to protect people from a list of abusive lending practices. The changes aren't in effect yet, and may not actually go into effect.
Self-sufficiency is producing the actual stuff you use--your own food, your own clothes, etc. It's not a common lifestyle. Most people chose instead to follow the path of self-re
When I advocate for frugal living, people sometimes ask, "What if everybody lived like that? Wouldn't it hurt the economy?" My natural inclination toward frugal liv
In the Philippines, they're threatening life sentences for people hoarding rice. In the United States, grocers need to put limits on rice purchases just to keep their shelves
Since 1998, the US Treasury has had a pretty good deal for small savers who were worried about inflation--the Series I Savings Bond. The interest it paid was based on inflation pl
Every so often, I get hit in the face with two facts. First, Americans (even poor Americans) are unbelievably rich. Second, Americans (as a group) utterly lack a cultural traditi
Do you need a kick in the pants to get you saving for retirement? Do you need someone to wave their arms and run around screaming that your whole future is at risk, in order to mo
I worked at a non-profit--a local nature center--over the summer of 1979. After we wrapped up our main task, those of us who wanted to were allowed stay on for the few weeks befor
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 price
Early retirement is a topic I've always been interested in. The particular version of it that this book deals with--living well on less money, as a means to getting by wit
The trend toward replacing traditional employees with varying combinations of temps, contractors, outsourcing, and off-shoring is old news now. That gives us a bit of perspective
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