The best time of year to buy a car in 2019

The last time I made a care payment was sometime in 2014. I remember when my wife and I made the final payment on our Chevy Cobalt. We took the payment book out on the front porch and lit it on fire. There was something therapeutic about watching the pages of that statement book burn off one at a time. I could physically feel my debt shedding away.

26 Side Gigs for Summer Work

Looking for a little extra cash to float you through the summer? Maybe you are planning a vacation and you don’t want to kill your budget in order to go. Maybe you have a job that does not continue through the summer but need to bridge the gap until work starts again.

The 50 Best ETFs of 2019

Around five years ago, I began a journey to get a better handle on my finances. At the time, my wife and I had little to no debt but were not really maximizing the potential for savings on what we had either. We weren’t silly spenders, per se. However, a lot of our extra income would go towards immediate gratification instead of building towards the future.

20%

A few nights ago, at work, I was having a conversation with a couple of the guys about finances. We were discussing the tendencies that people have to spend their money before they actually earn it. What I mean by that is, many people live their lives in debt. Their income would tell them to spend one way but their desires and spending habits push them well beyond that. My co-worker said, “the key to financial happiness is to simply live within your means.” Simply put, if you never spend more money than you actually make, you’ll always have extra.

Protect Your Future

Saving money seems like such an easy thing. Every child has a piggy bank. Parents have savings accounts for the children. Many people begin teaching their kids to save money at an early age as a way to prepare them for adulthood. Though studies have shown that traditional savings accounts are not always the best way to go when building towards the future, it still is a good way to teach children about the benefits of compound interest and not spending more than you make.

Don’t Just Dream

I have had so many ideas over the past four to five years. Places I want to visit. Heck, places I want to live at. Things I would like to own. Stuff I want to do with my kids. Books I want to write. Man, the list just goes on and on and on and on….

Save Some Pennies

We all enjoy eating out, right? Whether it’s a run through some fast food joint or a nice sit down meal at a fancier restaurant, we eat it up (intentional, yet unclever pun). My daughter, in particular, loves to go to Mexican restaurants. She doesn’t even want to eat anything off their menu. She just wants the chips and salsa. We typically end up paying for chicken strips or something like that for her though she rarely ends up eating them. 

The Benefit of Budgeting

Over the last two plus years of blogging here at Strange Life, we have often discussed the problems that come with mismanagement of finances. Most people live paycheck to paycheck and struggle when extra expenses come their way. While it can be difficult to get ahead of this problem, with some solid money management practices it is possible. That is the focus today. We are going to be talking about budgeting and why it is necessary.

Six Financial Blog Topics That Are Overdone

It seems like everyone and their brother is offering financial advice these days. Heck, I have posted up quite a few blog posts about it myself (including this one, I guess). Yet, how many of them are actually helpful to you? How many of these do you read and think, “Yeah, I’ve already read that a million other places? Show me something new.”