Gas prices suck. For many people, who have built their lives around long distance travel and large vehicles, gas prices really suck. I’ve been reading lots of articles about people who travel 120+ miles round trip to their jobs every day. Ouch. Most of those people aren’t driving hybrids either. I’m sure just about everyone has made their way to the Internet looking for ways
Lately I’ve been looking at all the various gimmicks out there to get me to spend money in specific stores. Frankly, it would be pretty easy to sign up for saver cards and gift cards in lots of stores but I choose to only sign up for things like this in stores I already frequent. Here are a couple of the cards we are using,
From the If you don’t ask, you won’t get department: When we bought the lake house property and structure we used some money from a home equity line of credit that we’d set up months before. We didn’t borrow a ton of money but at the time we locked in the interest rate. I’ve read too many horror stories about payments adjusting up as the
I’m sure, if you are like me, you’ve read more than a few articles about whether money buys happiness. I happened to read the latest version on Newsweek. I particularly liked their comments on each consumer being trained to want more and earn more. It is true that our economy thrives on increased growth and production. Anyway, here’s a quote from the article that I
I’m going to confess something. I absolutely love to hear about other people’s finances. Why? I don’t know. I guess I’m just a competitive jerk that loves to see how I stack up. Okay, that’s not true but I do love to see how I stack up relative to others in my age category. Knowing the details of someone else’s finances doesn’t help my financial
Great news. I received a letter in the mail today from Countrywide home loans. Apparently they’ve done the math for me and I could be paying less every month for my mortgage by switching to a 40 year loan. Here are the benefits that they listed: -Lower your monthly payments -Consolidate or pay down higher interest debt -Get cash to do the things you want to
Yeah, I know. You aren’t supposed to care what other people think. When I see pictures like the one below though, I often wonder what the rest of the world must think. Looks like Materialism at it’s finest. Bling bling! I can only imagine how much those wheels and tires cost. They probably cost more than the whole car is worth. But, if they bought
In my never ending quest to find examples of people selling you what you don’t need, I’ve come across Rent and Roll. In this case, if you don’t have the cash but need to get some nice “bling” for your car, you’re in luck. With Rent and Roll you can rent the nice shiny expensive wheels for your car with their “rent to own” program. What
My brother in law and I had a good conversation about money today while we were all visiting at my mom’s house. For those few readers that have been reading ELYM for awhile, you’ll remember that my mom and dad had a massive fire at their house back in December and then my father passed away two weeks later (from a heart attack). Anyway, my
I remember back when I was 18 years old. I was convinced I wanted to buy a nice car that required a car loan. The only problem with my idea was that I was 18 and had no credit (and really shouldn’t have been buying a car at the time). Since I knew no reputable bank would give me a loan for a car unless
