being frugal

This article is by staff writer Honey Smith. If you or a loved one will be headed to graduate school this fall, chances are you are worried about more than dorm survival. Instead, you may be wondering how to avoid six-digit student loan debt. It’s a valid fear — no one wants to end up where I started. Fortunately, there are ways to earn a graduate degree while avoiding financial catastrophe. Using myself as an object lesson, here are some strategies I would recommend: Reverse-engineer the problem Consider the degree you are interested in and ask yourself some tough questions: How easy will it be to find a job with that degree? Will you have to make other types of sacrifices to get a

(This is Part II in a two-part series about replacing an air conditioning unit. Part I is Honey Progress Report: Replacing our HVAC, Part I. Honey Smith’s experience investigating solar panels is chronicled in Financial benefits of solar panels? Not so fast.) This article is by staff writer Honey Smith. It’s been over a year since we bought our house and, while homeownership has been a fulfilling experience thus far, it hasn’t been cheap. Our air conditioner broke last year — on a 108-degree day in August, no less — resulting in a hefty thousand-dollar repair bill. We immediately added a replacement unit to our list of priorities as the existing unit was more than 20 years old. The bigger picture Our