By Amy L. Fontinelle
In Investing in Socially Responsible Mutual Funds, I explained that most socially responsible funds provide subpar returns compared to traditional funds. I also talked about how you may not agree with many of these funds’ definition of socially responsible. If you’d like to invest only in companies you support or try […]

By Amy L. Fontinelle
You may not be able to sleep at night knowing that you own a tiny piece of Halliburton, nor will you be able to sleep at night in 25 years if you can’t afford to send your kids to college. Investing is essential to your future financial security — even […]

By Amy L. Fontinelle, Special Contributor
I seem to have inherited the garage sale gene from my grandparents. Every time I went to their house as a kid, they would show off their latest garage sale finds — puzzles, wall art, books, and whatever knickknacks struck their fancy. I never went to many garage sales as […]

By Amy L. Fontinelle
You’ve probably heard before that it doesn’t always make sense for both adults in a household to work because the second spouse’s income is all taxed at the marginal rate. When childcare costs are factored in, there can be little-to-no financial motivation for both parents to work. But did you know that […]

By Amy L. Fontinelle
If you visit this website regularly, you probably aren’t a novice to the basics of personal finance. You’re already familiar with what you need to do to retire, how to protect yourself through insurance, and what constitutes good debt versus bad debt.
There’s probably at least one person in your life, however, […]

By Amy L. Fontinelle
In my recent article about how to start an IRA with $1 in 15 minutes, I said that you would be putting your money into a money market fund. I thought I should explain in more detail what this is for those of you who decided to go this route, so that […]

By Amy L. Fontinelle
Many of us know that a good way to increase net worth is to not start spending more every time we get a raise. For me, this means that in my monthly budget, it says “Income” on one line, and then below that, it says “Raise.” I don’t even consider the raise […]

By Amy L. Fontinelle
I’ve never been “cool” or “popular.” In certain situations with certain people, I can fake it for short periods of time, but the truth always comes out soon enough. Thankfully, I managed to get over this complex at the relatively young age of 16 and I’ve been benefiting from it ever since. […]

By Amy L. Fontinelle
Bad things can happen in an instant. Last year, while everyone else was celebrating and enjoying the 4th of July, an errant firework burned down an elderly man’s house. Like other depression-era folks who long ago lost faith in financial systems, he liked to hide his money in cash around […]

By Amy L. Fontinelle
A good friend of mine who is an avid DVD collector and very regular customer of Best Buy shared these tips for making sure you get the best deal on all of your Best Buy purchases. Even if you aren’t a Best Buy customer, these tips will give you some ideas […]