Buy One Step Down

It's natural to only want the best for your money, but unless we address these unrealistic expectations, we'll soon find ourselves in a deep hole with no way to climb out.

If You Can Stand, You Can Win

This is a lesson I learned why playing tennis…As long as you can stand, you can win the game.

5 Reasons Why 0% Financing is a Horrible Idea

I recently overheard a conversation about buying a car on 0% financing because it was too good to pass up. Here are 5 reasons I think this is the wrong approach.

The Balance Between Doing and Planning

There is a force at the heart of nearly everything we do in life. It tugs on us in two directions (assuming we are not "at rest")--in one corner is doing, in the other is planning.

Is Personal Finance for the Middle Class?

Over the weekend, a friend asked me what I thought about personal finance only being "for the middle class." Here are a couple of thoughts on why I think he's wrong.

There is no End to Personal Finance

A lot of people see personal finance as a journey until they can get to a place where they will no longer have to worry about managing money. I’m sorry to say, I think they’re dreaming.

We Need to Wake Up Every Morning Like My Son

How my son's regular morning schedule taught me an important lesson about consistency.

Timeframe Shift: A Simple Method to Stop Buying the Latest Gadgets and Tech

The last two years aside, as a society, we’ve done a fairly sucky job at controlling our urges to buy the latest and greatest gadgets and label them as “needs.” How do we fix this problem?

The Hierarchy of Financial Needs

Something in a recent book made me think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which in turn got me to think about the hierarchies present in personal finance. Do you like my pyramid or would you like to suggest another angle?

Spending When Abundant, Saving When Scarce

I haven’t been able to find it, but I’m almost certain that someone out there has invented a scientific theory for why we use more of something when it’s abundant, and less of it when it’s scarce. Here are two suggestions for dealing with it when it comes to your money.