Although we are financially secure and tend to make wise decisions regarding our finances, we still screw up sometimes and do things that we later regret. We’re human. However, while we may have regrets I choose to look at them as learning opportunities. Whatever we regret from this past year is something that can be [...]

As the old year draws to a close and a new year is about to dawn, I like to take a few moments to look back on the past year and to reflect on what went right and what went wrong, how things have changed and whether those changes were for the good. I [...]

In my neighborhood, all of the houses have two car garages. What amazes me is how few people use their garages for their intended purpose. When I go out for a run, I see so many garage doors open and the garages are full of stuff, not cars. There is barely room to walk in [...]

Sometimes it seems like a minor miracle if you can make it from the airport doors to your seat on the plane without being searched, patted down, waiting in an exorbitantly long line, having your gate changed, being charged a fee, or a host of other annoyances. There are many things at the airport that [...]

Weekend reading is a round-up of personal finance and money related stories that caught the eye of our forum members this week:

2009: A year of Economic Hell
Truck and SUV sales rising, hybrid sales fall as gas prices drop
The Rise of the Four-Day Work Week?
New Capitalism: Overvalued assets must not be allowed [...]

Eating out used to be one of my favorite things to do. I loved to relax and be served great food with a minimum of effort on my part.
This was before my husband and I implemented a budget, tracked our spending and were shocked at what we spent on restaurants. We didn’t even remember [...]

Before the days of the Internet, I never really enjoyed shopping for the sake of shopping, especially after the open air “shopping centers” of my youth gave way to the enclosed, artificially lit “shopping malls” of my teenage and early adult years. Shopping meant that I had to get into a car and drive [...]

Last week I was out walking my dog on trash day. As I was walking past my neighbor’s trash heap (I say heap because they always have more trash than will fit in the trash can and they just pile it up on the road), I noticed a cute wire basket that was decorated with [...]

In my youth, I liked to live life well and, admittedly, to excess. My friends and I ate out often and we did not limit ourselves to salad and sparkling water. We enjoyed fine meals that we could not afford and the full range of alcoholic beverages that the world’s distilleries, wineries and [...]

Lately I’ve noticed that I have become quite the potty mouth. I wasn’t always this way. In fact, I didn’t even learn any good swear words until I was in college and my roommate taught me all she knew. (Yes, I led a very sheltered life.) Unfortunately, I’ve taken her teachings to a new extreme [...]