../../../..//2007/10/29/keeping-up-with-the-jones/
Keeping up with the Jones may seem hard, but here’s an easy way to be better than 73 % of rich parents: talk to your kids about money. A survey by PNC Wealth Management found that only 27% wealthy parents had discussed family budget with their children.
The best way to escape from our mindless purchase economy is to ignore your credit cards in favor of pure, reliable cash. Credit cards undoubtedly have value – purchase protection, rewards, convenience – but only for consumers who use credit responsibly. No Credit Needed wrote a useful guide for anyone willing to live the credit-free life.
Organizations like the Jump$tart Coalition and NFCC have rolled out programs that help you teach your kids about the ins and outs of credit cards, credit ratings, interest rates, etc., but Janet Bodnar at Kiplinger says that there are some basic facts that you should focus on. She thinks too much detail bores a kid; we think it depends on the kid, but agree that at the very least, hitting each point on the following list would give your offspring a decent foundation for making good credit decisions.
Geezeo is a personal-finance management site that helps you keep track of all your accounts in one place. Like Mint.com, you give it all your account user names and passwords to use it. Also like Mint, Geezeo is a front-end system, but based on CashEdge instead of Yodlee. Unlike Mint, it has support for tracking your car loan, mortgage, and brokerage accounts (although they don’t interface yet my my fave, Vanguard), with plans to add support for student loans….
If you’re the type of person who thinks “discretionary spending” means “I can buy what I want, when I want,” read this person’s idea for how to create an Impulse Buy Savings Plan. It gives you a methodology where you can effectively trap your impulse purchases in a cooling-off period, while also seeing how that money would look if it were saved instead.
Some people think that using Mint.com is crazy because of the security risk of handing over all your banking user names and passwords. FiLife asks them some tough questions about their security procedures and gets straight answers, like:
Let’s say you get hacked. Banks normally would protect me if they get hacked, but do I lose my protection if I’m using Mint to access the bank but the breach happens through your systems? You’re legally protected for $0 liability on credit cards and $50 on bank accounts if fraud is reported within two days. These rights are not voided by using Mint, Yodlee, Quicken, Microsoft Money or similar programs.
They also say all user names and passwords are kept on Yodlee’s servers, not anyone else’s. Every lock can be picked, but we’re more concerned about identity theft resulting from our local big box retailer’s lax security procedures than from Mint.com.
Swiping the plastic so much your credit cards have skid marks? Via Kiplinger, here’s six warning signs to watch out for that might indicate you’re abusing your credit cards.
Mint.com, a new free personal finance management site, is easy to get started, though we’re not sure we’re completely satisfied with where we end up.
The free personal finance management site Mint.com opened to the public today.
About.com has an good tip to remember when trying out personal budget spreadsheets:
Besides losing your job, another argument for building an emergency fund, an on-hand reserve of several months pay, is “budget breakdown.”
RateState put together a free “zero based budget” excel sheet which you can use to get a handle on your personal finances. The idea behind it is that every single dollar you earn will get allocated to a specific category. There is no money sloshing around, you have total mastery over all of your money.
Most money-management systems presuppose a steady paycheck, but No Credit Needed shows how you can track your dollars even if you aren’t sure of when they’ll arrive.
Reader Lyn sent us a budget system he drafted that has worked well for his household, as well as friends and family.
../../../..//2007/07/25/spending-diary-is-a-free/
Spending Diary is a free and simple online way to track your expenses. [Spending Diary]
Here’s an idea for people trying to get a lock on their spending but find writing down everything too fascist. What about taking a picture of everything you buy with your cameraphone and uploading it to Flickr?
Do you have a problem with compulsive spending? Debtor’s Anonymous, yes, there is such a group, has 12 warning signs to watch out for.
../../../..//2007/07/06/this-is-pretty-much-the/
This is pretty much the quintessence of how many people get stuck in debt (it was certainly true for us): “…we were spending more than we made because we thought we would make more money later to pay it off.”
Part of 
