Views of Money – Part 1: Objective Setting and Simple and Advanced Cash Flow

Money is important.  It is the lifeblood of our society.  It is our economy.  In the context of our modern culture it is a requirement for our day to day living.  If you doubt this notion, imagine yourself penniless for the next 30 days. Money also is dynamic.  It is huge in the context of government spending programs or corporate initiatives.  Equally so, it is small measured against our next...

Baby Step Two – Pay-Off Debt with the Debt Snowball

Welcome back to my continuing break down of Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps.  These are the steps he teaches in his books, and radio and TV shows to millions willing to listen and follow his advice. I personally find these steps simple and easy to follow but also elegant and effective. In previous installments I covered: Baby Step 1 – $1000 Emergency Fund Today, we’ll examine Baby Step Two. Baby Step...

Dollars Spent

The other day I was about to grab lunch at work.  Lunch at work for me is a boring affair.  On Sunday evenings I run a sandwich making assembly line which churns out 5 identical turkey sandwiches for my daily noon time feedings. On this particular day I thought about the pattern I was weaving and I realized that it has been several weeks since I’ve spent money on lunch.  My guess was that it...

Baby Step One – Starter Emergency Fund

Today I’m launching a new series. Actually it is the very first installment of what I envision as an ambitious 3 series set in which I plan to cover some personal finance basics from different angles.  Call it a “Back to the Basics” bundle if you will.  I expect this series to take shape over the next couple months so stay tuned.  I hope you’ll enjoy and engage the discussion. In some ways...

Seven Financial New Year’s Resolutions for 2010

Hello everyone.  I am away travelling on some very important business for a couple days and thought this would be a perfect opportunity to share a guest post from the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE). While I tend to spend less time with basic financial concepts, (which is a real sweet spot for NEFE), I am a firm believer in Financial Education and want to share their message with...

You Are What Your Record Says You Are

The title is a quote from Super Bowl winning coach Bill Parcells. The idea is that a team is as good or as bad as its record indicate.  Fans, commentators, and even players like to interpret – or rationalize – circumstances and game events so as to suggest that a team is better, or sometimes worse, than its record might suggest.  A lucky bounce here or a bad call there and those close losses...

Consumptive Footprint

I remember a day in the late 90’s.  More precisely, I remember a particular episode of self talk back in the summer of 1998.  At the time I was living in St. Louis and was only a couple short years out of grad school.  I don’t know exactly what prompted this specific contemplation but it was about money.  It was often about money in those days.  I was learning about money but in a...