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Money Matters: Making a Little House Work With a Big Family

5/24/12 7:01am by Rita Arens
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Laura Ingalls House

My dad is the oldest of four kids who grew up in a two-bedroom farmhouse in Iowa. (I think there were more bedrooms back then.) (I have no idea where they put them. This was not a big house.) I'm sure they were positively on top of each other. I was interested in Karla's recent post on their life with four kids in a two-bedroom, supposed-to-be-a-flip house. She writes of Laura Ingalls Wilder: Laura made it sound so sweet and wonderful. I don’t recall a single argument or shouting match being mentioned.  Read more

A Tip to the Graduating Class of 2012

5/21/12 11:03am by elleherr
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Graduates and Debt

It was the start of my first semester in college and I was being led by my friend into my University's on-campus bank to apply for a credit card.  "You'll find that you can't live without it.  It's soooo convenient.  It's better than having cash!" she excitedly exclaimed.  Read more >

Charisse Conanan and Adrissha Wimberly Are Changing How Millennials View Personal Finance

5/11/12 5:13pm by KathrynFinney
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Adrissha and Charisse, CEOs of Smarteys.com

One of the hottest topics this election season is about student loans and student debt. According to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, student loan debt recently topped 1 trillion (yes, trillion) dollars by the end of this year. And while there's plenty of financial self-help books (Suze Orman's The Money Book for The Young, Fabulous, and Broke comes to mind), few financial tools are targeted to a generation that consumes information in a more tech-centric way.  Read more >

Newly Married and Bah-Roke

5/9/12 2:24pm by elleherr
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Just Married

The day after our wedding, instead of frolicking together on a white sandy beach, we were sitting at my husband's office desk. For the first time in our three-year relationship, we were examining and discussing each other's finances. $153 positive was what we had together and what we would have for a whole month (we were both also newly unemployed). Yes, we received wedding financial gifts that totalled a little over $2,000, but that was immediately set aside to pay our then credit cards' minimum monthly dues -- which neither of us knew the other had.  Read more >

Why Won't the GOP Let the Senate Vote on Student Loans?

5/9/12 6:47am by Mona Gable
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My Daughter Kate and Her Dad Leaving for College

Tuesday morning Senate Republicans did something extra special. They blocked a vote on a Democratic bill to keep the interest on some student loans from doubling. This means the interest rate, which is now a barely tolerable 3.4 percent, will jump to 6.8 percent in two months unless something drastic happens. Like Mitt Romney realizing that most American families don’t have a spare $20,000 around to loan their kids.  Read more >

Student Loans & Politics: Are You Still Paying Yours?

4/25/12 10:07am by Rita Arens
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Student Loan

When my husband and I got married, we married each other and we married each other's debt. I think we had something like $28k in student loans from my husband when we got together, which we started paying off immediately. Those were the good old days before mortgage and a kid, and we were fortunate to have jobs that paid damn close to what we make combined now, eek, ten years later. If we had to pay those loans off now on top of childcare and all the stuff that comes with rising utilities and food costs and house repairs, we would be in serious trouble. Even back then when everything was (relatively speaking) flush, I lived in fear of being in default of those loans, because what would that do to our credit rating and our ability to buy a house or a car or get a job in the future? Messing with your government loans is serious business: the government can seize your tax returns, garnish your wages and more.  Read more >

The True Cost for Convenience

4/25/12 6:28am by SabrinaBlogs
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Gas station

According to the news, thieves have the ability to steal your credit or debit card number without actually stealing your card. Somehow, I've managed to allow this to happen to me twice.  This last incident comes not long after my post Save for the Inevitable Rainy Day so, while I'm inconvenienced, I'm not distraught. In fact, I consider this the cherry on top of my financial sundae.  Read more >

Will Women Still Like You If You Have Money?

4/21/12 7:55am by Rita Arens
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Geneen Roth

Geneen Roth, the author of BlogHer Book Club pick Lost and Found, talks about losing her life savings to Bernie Madoff.  Read more >

Why Are Glasses So Expensive?

4/16/12 7:31am by Rita Arens
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Glasses

While reading Geneen Roth's Lost and Found for BlogHer Book Club, I came across a passage in which Geneen, who lost her life savings in the Bernie Madoff scandal, is overcome with desire to buy very expensive eyeglasses: "Three hundred and forty-five dollars," he says. Without the lenses. And with the lenses? He takes out his calculator. With all the bells and whistles -- thin glass, tinting, et cetera -- it comes to close to a thousand dollars. I try not to gasp or appear shocked. So that got me to thinking: Why the heck are eyeglasses made of plastic so dang expensive in the first place?  Read more >

Poor Girl on SNAP: Using EBT At The Farmers Market

4/11/12 8:00am by spacegurlmd
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EBT Accepted Here

It's never anyone's goal to have to seek help in the form of food stamps or other financial assistance programs. What's even more out of the picture is having to go back to that kind of assistance, after almost making it out of one's hole. But even if economists say things are slowly improving, this is where I find myself: back in the saddle of county aid bureaucracy and food stamps, a.k.a. the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.  Read more >