My first job was terrible. The boss was a bully and a sexual harasser. The work was brain numbingly boring, and the office politics were bloody and cruel. It was a lot like a game of Survivor without the eating of bugs. On top of it all, the company scammed its clients and lied to [...]
If you do much shopping, banking, and investing online, then no doubt you are drowning in a sea of passwords. That doesn’t even include the passwords you have to remember for your network, your router, and all the other technological solutions you use. While most sites and devices will help you recover a password or [...]
Birthday parties can be a lot of fun. They can also be a source of great aggravation and angst, both for the party host and the celebrant. Some of this comes from the emotional aspect of birthdays, but some of the angst comes from the financial cost of the party. Sometimes it’s a combination of [...]
Entertainment is a large category in many people’s budgets. We all want to have fun, after all, with what limited downtime we have after work and chores are completed. The problem is that, “entertainment” money is easy to waste on things that have little lasting value. Now, by lasting value I don’t mean that something [...]
I love hitting the after Christmas clearance sales (and the sales after any major holiday), especially as they move into the deeper discounts. There are usually plenty of items left and prices are slashed to 75 – 90 percent off. When I hit the sales I sometimes look for holiday items, but more often than [...]
I don’t go to the movies that often, but when I do I’m reminded that it’s not only the movies themselves that can teach lessons about money. Sometimes you can learn about money simply by going to the theater and paying attention to the whole experience. Here are some money lessons that you might pick [...]
For the first time in years, gas here went under three dollars a gallon. It was cause for a minor celebration. There’s just something nice about seeing that $2.98 on the marquee. It’s only psychological, but it was comforting. Of course, after my minor celebration I realized that there was no point in getting overly [...]
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions anymore. I found over time that the pressure to accomplish something ended up defeating any progress. Every time I’d backslide or screw up I’d think, “I’ve blown it.” It was like the very act of making something a resolution made it into a success or failure proposition. Either I [...]
One of my clients (where a friend of mine also works in IT) recently upgraded their office phone system. The phone system they had was perfectly functional but, like so many people and businesses, they wanted something with more bells and whistles (and something that several of their competitors had). After taking bids, forking over [...]
If you’re like many people, you’ll be making a New Year’s resolution to lose weight, save more money, or both. If you’re trying to do both, the good news is that weight loss and saving money often go hand in hand. It’s like accomplishing two resolutions at once. Even if you only choose one, chances [...]
