Personal Finance Advice and Commentary

If you have a nice house and a nice car (or two),  you and your spouse both work, the fam has all the latest “stuff” and you even contribute to a 401(k), you’re doing OK, right?  If you have no easily accessible cash savings, that assumption may be wrong. None of these “things” easily or quickly convert to

Was using a budget one of your 2012 New Year’s resolutions?  About 40 percent of Americans do not maintain a budget or track their expenses, according to Bankrate’s July 2011 Financial Security Index. But if you want to get a better handle on your spending and saving, evaluating your budgeting method and making changes will

You can imagine that because I am a personal finance reporter, I read stacks and stacks of personal finance books. But only two get taken out repeatedly and are dog-eared with coffee stains because they give me that proverbial kick in the butt to do something about my finances and they tell me what and