I do my best to cover a variety of topics here at Get Rich Slowly. Personal finance is a v-a-s-t topic, and there’s a lot of specialized knowledge. But there’s no question I have blind spots. Because Kris and I have no kids, I don’t write much about children and money. Student loans are another blind spot

This article is by staff writer Adam Baker. Baker previous featured an article on his own blog entitled “How I paid off $15,000 in 9 months by selling my Stuff on Ebay“. There I was, bustling around the kitchen making lunch for my daughter when our late morning routine was interrupted:Boom! Boom! Boom! Milligan

This post is from staff writer Sierra Black. Sierra writes about frugality, sustainable living, and getting her kids to eat kale at Childwild.com. Travel is a gift. We get to see new places and cultures, meet new people, and expand our lives. Most of us, when we’ve put the time and money into traveling somewhere spec

This is a guest post from Jeff Yeager, author of the newly-published The Cheapskate Next Door. Yeager calls himself the Ultimate Cheapskate — and his wife agrees. Yeager is also a contributor at Wise Bread and on the Early Retirement forums. “Sure, we could afford to spend more, but why would we? It wouldn’t m

This post is from GRS staff writer April Dykman. I’ve discovered that one of the biggest benefits to being a full-time freelancer can be one of its drawbacks: setting ones own schedule. Don’t get me wrong, it’s the reason I wanted to get into freelancing in the first place, but I keep wondering if I’

Whenever I write about personal-finance programs, there’s always a large contingent of GRS readers who chime in to say they prefer the do-it-yourself method. Rather than go with pre-packaged money-management software like Quicken or Mint, they prefer to track their accounts with a home-brewed spreadsheet. (In fact, my

July 21st was the fifteenth anniversary of my father’s death. He died of cancer at age 49, just ten days shy of his fiftieth birthday. When Dad died, he left behind a meager estate. Aside from the custom box business (which, admittedly, was not “meager”), he managed to leave each family member with $5,000

This guest post from Kristen Swensson is part of the “reader stories” feature at Get Rich Slowly. It’s also the funniest post I’ve published since Robert Brokamp’s last appearance. Swensson is the proprietor of Cheap Healthy Good, a great blog about food and frugality. She likes nothing more th

This is a guest post from my wife. It’s been a long time since she chimed in around here. Have no fears: She’s the frugal heart of homestead, and she’s always looking for ways to grow and preserve our food. As Get Rich Slowly readers know, J.D. and I have a thriving garden with maturing fruit trees, monstr

Ah, relationships. Without other people, money management would be easy! Easy-er, anyhow. But love, family, and business relationships tend to make people do things they know they really oughtn’t. Take Patrick, for example. He fell in love, and it led him to commit a financial faux pas. Here’s Patrick’s l

This post is from staff writer Sierra Black. Sierra writes about frugality, sustainable living, and getting her kids to eat kale at Childwild.com. (It’s also her birthday today.) Who doesn’t dream of quitting their day job? Every day, countless hours are spent in corporate cubicles daydreaming about lives of ad

As part of my downshifting project, I’ve spent the past couple of days replying to several hundred stale messages in my inbox. There were plenty of great reader stories, guest posts, and “ask the readers” questions in my stack of stuff, but there were also some good article ideas, too. For example, I had t

This is a guest post from Robert Brokamp of The Motley Fool. Robert is a Certified Financial Planner and the adviser for The Motley Fool’s Rule Your Retirement service. He contributes one new article to Get Rich Slowly every two weeks. Stocks stink. That’s something you hear a lot these days, and with good reason. The

This video post by staff writer Adam Baker is the last of a four-part series. Baker previously featured a post on his own blog entitled, Debt Tsunami: The Ultimate Method to Paying Off Debt. Courtney and I have recently stumbled upon a new hurdle in our personal finance journey: complacency. You see, we’ve experience

This post is from GRS staff writer April Dykman. During the 2008 financial crisis, target date, or life-cycle, funds were hit hard. People who were just a couple years away from retiring held 2010 target date funds that lost 24% of their fund’s assets on average, with a range of 9% loss to a staggering 41%. Same date,

“This is it,” I told my wife last Monday. “This is what?” Kris asked. “This is the first day of the rest of my life,” I said. She knew what I meant. For the past few years, I’ve been living in a self-created whirlwind of busy-ness. I know a blog like this often seems calm and quiet

This guest post from Anna is part of the “reader stories” feature here at Get Rich Slowly. Some stories contain general “how I did X” advice; others are examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success — or failure. These stories feature folks from all levels of financial maturity and wi

Man, you guys are full of good ideas. When I put out the call for story requests on Thursday, you came through with over 150 suggestions. And some of them are stellar. I’ll get to work on some of these, farm some out to guest authors, and see if the staff writers want to take a stab at a few. Between us all, we may be

I’m always reluctant to cover credit cards here at Get Rich Slowly. There are other sites that do it better. Besides, I’m still not wholly convinced they’re a good idea. Plus, my wife — who is always right — told me the other day, “I don’t like it when you write about credit cards.

As you’ll read tomorrow (or Monday), I’ve entered a new phase in my life. After years of hard work and long hours building this blog (time that I’ve enjoyed), I’ve been shifting things around so that I have more free time. As a result, I’m going to have more time to devote to creating quality b

This post is from staff writer Sierra Black. Sierra writes about frugality, sustainable living, and getting her kids to eat kale at Childwild.com. When I was packing for my trip to Argentina, a friend advised me, “Put everything you’re taking on the bed. Now put back half the clothes, and take twice the money.” Good a

This video post is the third of a four-part series from staff writer Adam Baker. Baker previously featured a post on his own blog entitled Cost of Living Abroad: Dozens of Bloggers Share Their Expenses. Last week, I introduced the concept of a Budget Buster, which is any irregular expense that I fail to plan for. These are&

This post is from Kent Thune. Kent urges and guides readers to place meaning and purpose before money and planning at his blog, The Financial Philosopher. Can freedom be bought? Are there any (financially) poor people who are free? Are there any (financially) wealthy people who aren’t free? If someone were to ask you,

With the changes included in the Credit Card Act, credit card companies are now required to give users more info on their monthly statements. My colleague over at Five Cent Nickel has whipped up an informative graphic that provides an anatomy of a credit card statement: Credit card statement changes from Five Cent Nickel

This post is from GRS staff writer April Dykman. Less than a year ago, I was stuck. I knew I wanted to start a side business that had potential to grow, but I had no idea what to do or how to do it. I was feeling stagnant, suffocated, and tired of dreaming about possibilities, but never making progress. In hindsight, itR

I’ve been a bit quiet around here lately, but for good reason. Over the weekend, I attended the Savvy Blogging Summit in Breckenridge, Colorado. This gathering of roughly 65 women (and three men) is a new event designed to help participants build better blogs. I was honored to give the keynote talk (“My Life as

This guest post from Meg is part of the “reader stories” feature here at Get Rich Slowly. Some stories contain general “how I did X” advice; others are examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success — or failure. These stories feature folks from all levels of financial maturity and wit

Is budgeting a hassle? Do you sometimes forget to make your Roth IRA contribution or to transfer this month’s installment for the new car you’re saving for? Do you wish there were some way to make the process easier? One way to reduce human error is to set up a separate savings account for each of your goals. Yo

This post is from staff writer Sierra Black. Sierra writes about frugality, sustainable living, and getting her kids to eat kale at Childwild.com. Hola! My family is spending the month of July vacationing in Argentina. My husband grew up here, and his entire family still lives here: his parents, his brother and sisters, and

This video post is by staff writer Adam Baker. Baker previously featured a post on his own blog entitled, 67 Ways NOT to Sell a Car. Courtney and I apply a fun name to any expense in our lives that we should’ve planned for in our budget, but didn’t. We call them Budget Busters. Even with persistent effort, we fi