My husband recently made a big purchase and got his 40″ LCD HDTV.  He’s planned this for a while, trying to find a good deal with all the features he wanted. This is the LCD HDTV my husband got in the living room. Deciding What He was Looking For Here are some features my husband was looking for: 38″ to 42″ HDTV LCD (LEP or DLP would be great, but too expensive) 1080p high contrast and low latency He was looking for something that would be good for playing video ga... Read Full Story

Wow, the year is halfway over! The last week in June has been an eventful month personally. The key word this month was hectic. The days flew by and I felt as if went by too quickly. I’m finding personal finances coming into my life besides this site.Yesterday I helped my mom automate some of her bill payments during a visit and I taslked about the pros and cons of bill pay and auto debit.  My friend was asking about the difference between Roth and traditional IRAs. A buddy asked about ... Read Full Story

Welcome to the 211th Carnival of Personal Finance! this week’s theme is based on a new favorite show I’ve been catching up on: Burn Notice.  If you’re not familiar with the premise, the main character, Micheal Westen, has been let go as a spy is trying to figure out why. He’s in Miami working with his ex-girlfriend, old buddy, and his mom on small cases to keep afloat.   Editor’s Choice As with many people, Michael doees not have endless resources in terms of cas... Read Full Story

The best way to save money is to prepare for emergencies. A couple of years ago, we went down to vist my mom and the tire went out. I had a spare tire to put on, but it was a little flat. We had to drive some miles before we hit a gas station that had an air pump. Now I try to check on the spare tire to make sure it is properly inflated. Being prepared is usually a very good thing.I decided to include a list of things you might need for your car. First aid kit (A good one can be found for $1... Read Full Story

This week has been expensive for my car! I had a major repair and my state inspections completed I’m glad the car is paid off, so this wasn’t a huge burden. It still is a big chunk of money.  We just had the catalytic converter replaced for my VW Jetta. After shopping around, we decided to go with our usual mechanic shop and it was $700. We’ve been with this mechanic shop for over a year and it has worked out well.  My car has over 130,000 miles on it, so it was not a comple... Read Full Story

If you’re looking for options on your bank accounts, I want to point out that we keep our joint checking account with ING Direct and we really enjoy it.  They don’t have the highest rates, but their customer service has been great for us, so we’re staying with them for now.  Have your money grow instead of getting fees.   Here what I personally like about ING’s Electric Orange checking account: No fees. There’s no minimum balance on the account. If the money is no... Read Full Story

I contacted the people at WalletWhiz and they were kind enough to give me a code to review their app. They were also generous enough to give me a code for one of my readers! If you haven’t seen it, WalletWhiz is a budgeting tool for recording your spending habits against a budget. What I think is a bit unique and handy with WalletWhiz is the choice of tracking your budget with a calender view or the usual categories option. WalletWhiz has a wonderful calendar view to track your bud... Read Full Story

I’ve been writing weekly posts at Five Cent Nickel for the past couple of months. So far, I’m really enjoying it as it’s given me an opportunity to write for another audience, learn from Nickel and Matt’s writing styl e,and introduced me to some wonderful people. My main focus is still Green Panda Treehouse and I’m hoping that you’ve noticed an improvement on my posts here due to my other writing projects. Tomorrow, I’ll be having a giveaway for a fre... Read Full Story

Since I spoke a bit about my Roth IRA, I want to share my asset allocation to give you an idea of how the money is distributed.  What is asset allocation?  Asset allocation is your plan for your investment contributions. Are you going to put it in stocks, mutual funds, bonds, ETFs, etc?  Whatever choice you make, there [...] Read Full Story

This week’s Financial Guru Review is about Suze Orman. Suze is the author of best selling books such as Women and Money, The Road to Wealth, and Young, Fabulous and Broke. Suze is a very popular personal finance guru. She’s appeared many times on Oprah as a financial advisor and she has a show on CNBC. [...] Read Full Story