Life in the Baby Lane: The Real Cost of Raising a Family

Forbidden, discouraged or dismissed by proud parents-to-be, the financial burden of having a child has always been an afterthought, replaced or dismissed by exciting thoughts of cute onesies or that first proud “mama” moment. But as many parents have found out the hard way, children get expensive when those onesies later become a tween’s “has to have” wardrobe, or those first words lead to a pricey college English degree. According to the recent United Sates Department of Agriculture report, ...
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Occupy the Past: How Past Financial Uprisings have Effected the US

The Occupy Wall Street phenomenon has proven that large scale demonstrations in the United States are not simply a thing of the past. For mainly a younger segment of the population the movement has given hope that the people can incite change in the way the system works. And for many of the young protesters this concept seems like a novel and new approach to changing the financial situation of the country. But what can the movement learn form the past? How has previous financial turmoil re...
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Choosing The Right Career In Finance

Everyone has different personality types. Surprisingly, these personality types direct which type of careers are best for you. If you have taken a reliable personality assessment and you have discovered that careers in finance are best suited for you it is time to do your research. There are a number of different finance careers ranging in pay and responsibilities. The good thing is that typically online business degree programs or a business degree in general can help get you a finance job. Som...
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Taking Control of Your Financial Life: Six Common Bad Habits That Are Costing You Money

In today’s unsure economy, most of us have made significant changes to the way we view money, spending, and our financial future. We’ve switched from name brand to generic, clipped coupons, and shopped for sales. Most of us feel pretty good about the changes we’ve made. Unfortunately, in spite of those changes, many of us have also developed some costly bad habits. Here, I am not talking about bad habits you can put a price on, like smoking or eating out too much (that’s another story); I’m t...
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How to Get More Money for Your Trade-In

In most cases, using the trade-in value of your old vehicle to lower the down payment on a new one is a sound business practice. The more you can negotiate for your trade-in, the less cash you'll have to come up with for a new car. The key is to make sure you get what your vehicle is worth when the time comes to trade it in. Sell It Yourself When it comes to actual cash value, you may be better off selling the car yourself than using it as a trade-in. A private sale almost always brings a ...
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Recent Grad Confused about Personal Finance? Empower Yourself through Education

The financial crisis has had many across the country questioning what, exactly, went wrong. While there is no one person to blame, we know for a fact that shady loan and banking practices and irresponsible government behavior played a big role in today's sagging markets. Still, individual decisions, like taking on loans whose commitments, often buried in small print contracts, we did not fully understand, were a big part of the problem. And as with nearly any social problem, solutions are best a...
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What is Finance?

Finance is a science that deals with money, risk and time. To be more precise, it deals with how money deriving from various activities is spent. The importance of such science lies in the fact that it greatly influences each country’s economy, defines business networks and can determine both failures and successes. Just to make an example, a successful company that has a satisfactory turnover might easily lose everything it has by simply mis-investing its assets. That is why we might def...
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5 Lessons About Managing Money I Learned From An 8-Year Old

When you're young, life is so much easier, isn't it? Sure, you have to deal with parents, and your friends can change from day to day. But each day is its own day. Most problems don't carry over to the next day. You don't have to worry about the future. Because today is more important. There are lots of lessons we can learn from kids. Some of them are easy to incorporate into our adult live. And some of them aren't. But we can still learn a lot by watching children, whether they are our...
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Money Leaks: Slow Ways to Become Broke

There are of course huge ways to waste money, but then there are small wastes, which are referred to as leaks. Sometimes the leaks are so small, you may not even notice them, but they do add up and can end up being a huge chunk of money that could be better spent somewhere else. In this post, I am going to highlight some leaky ways you could be leaking money without you realizing it. Clunkers: Not only is buying a brand new way too expensive car a huge waste of money, but on the other hand, ...
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The Real Green Thumb and The 4 Simple Laws to Growing a Magic Garden of Wealth

It is said America has more millionaires that any other country. If this is true why are so many of us so poor? Why do so many Americans suffer with debt? Why are we as a society so overextended and buried under mortgages we can’t pay and live in homes we can’t afford in the first place? The answers are simple, yet must be explained carefully. Let’s examine rule one. Rule one: Never try to keep up with the Joneses. Each day we are exposed to a plethora of images of wealth and possessions. ...
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