Starting a business can be as easy as selling a ceramic bowl you created or having friends pay you to clean their house. If your product or service is good and you’re friendly and professional, chances are more people will want to hire you or buy your products. But what are the first steps you [...]
You will find many exciting new opportunities when starting your own small business. You’re taking your ideas and your passion into the marketplace, perhaps realizing a lifelong dream or making a lifestyle change. However, some aspects of running a business can take you away from your core focus. Still, they need to be done, and [...]
In honor of Military Saves, I thought it would be appropriate to share how I, an Army veteran who had over $32,000 of credit card debt, was able to pay off debt by taking a few lessons from the military and applying them to my finances. Military Saves is a week when the military community [...]
Saving enough money for retirement usually means that you will have to open new accounts to diversify your portfolio and to let your money accumulate and grow over time. But these retirement accounts don’t take care of themselves without any oversight; someone has to pay for account management. It’s important to periodically evaluate the fees [...]
Plenty of people know the anxiety of overbearing debt. According to one source, households in the United States average $15,422 in credit card debt; $34,703 in student loan debt; and $149,782 in mortgage debt. With all of that pressure, many people think it’s impossible to improve their financial situations. However, with some work and smart [...]
Most of us face this tough question from time to time: Should I buy it or make it? Are these bagels worth the $10 for a dozen, or could I just as easily make them from scratch? Is this outdoor table a good deal, or should I learn a little woodworking and make my own [...]
One of my latest bargain finds is batteries at my local dollar store. I’ve been buying packs of eight AA and AAA batteries for—you guessed it—$1. That’s a huge savings compared to the $8 per eight-pack at my local grocer. However, I’m starting to wonder if the dollar store batteries are wearing out more quickly [...]
If you’re thinking about buying or selling a house soon, you’ve likely heard talk of “buyers’ markets” and “sellers’ markets.” Simply put, a buyers’ market occurs when there are more homes for sale than available buyers. Conversely, in a sellers’ market, demand outstrips supply. In 2013, should the fragile housing recovery proceed as most experts [...]
Few aspects of modern life have been transformed as much by the Internet as house hunting. Last year, 90 percent of all homebuyers—and 93 percent of first-time homebuyers—used the Internet to find a home. However, as powerful and pervasive as it is, online real estate has its failings—some obvious and some known to only a [...]
We waited and waited all through 2012. Finally, after the calendar flipped over to 2013, our legislators agreed on tax legislation. Some of it gave us permanence in long-disputed areas. Other parts of the legislation are temporary—they work as stopgaps to allow taxpayers to function for the next year or so. Included in the legislation [...]
