choices – $aving Money Tip$

This article is by staff writer William Cowie. You hear it all the time, here and many other places: Debt is bad — evil, even — you know, like smoking and drinking and gambling. Yet, despite overwhelming evidence that smoking is bad for us, almost one person out of every five still smokes. And in the past year, that number has not declined significantly. The government even has campaigns to get people to stop doing what’s bad for them. Beer companies have to add “Please drink responsibly” to their ads and, in many states, gambling is flat out illegal. People aren’t borrowing enough? So, if debt was bad for you like those other vices, you would expect your government to have some educational program

Debt Management, Relief & Consolidation

admin May 11, 2015 choices, Planning

Financial stress: Strategies for the sandwich generation

This article is by staff writer Suba Iyer. My husband and I are millennials who expect to be part of the sandwich generation soon. The term “sandwich generation” refers to those who support both an aging parent and a child. As I read the responses to the Ask the Readers article, Are you planning to care for an aging parent, it looks like we have plenty of company, and statistics from the Pew Research Center seem to substantiate that. (http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/01/30/the-sandwich-generation/): “Nearly half (47{7dabfd103aa443fce219eea47f0f346a11a54ce587a1a0cbb74f06b9f7a304ca}) of adults in their 40s and 50s have a parent age 65 or older and are either raising a young child or financially supporting a grown child (age 18 or older). And about one-in-seven

Debt Management, Relief & Consolidation

admin May 4, 2015 choices

Pros and cons of homeschooling

This article is by staff writer Lisa Aberle. What if the average cost to educate a child was over $5,000 but you could drop it to just over $500 per child? According to a really old (1997) report on homeschooling, you could do just that by taking your child out of public school and schooling them at home. Last winter, after several days off school with bitter-cold temperatures, coupled with a few serious cases of cabin fever, I posted on Facebook that I was “feeling overwhelmed” (appropriate emoticon included) about trying to keep my cooped-up kids from fighting with each other for hours, and I wondered aloud (or at least on Facebook) how homeschooling parents handled being with their kids all day —

Debt Management, Relief & Consolidation

admin April 29, 2015 choices

Why bankruptcy should be your last resort

(Petrish Dyer is an active military Navy Chief, currently stationed in Japan. Please understand that her duties and time zone may prevent her from responding to comments in a timely manner even though she would like to. Petrish is also the founder of debtfreemartini.com where she blogs and inspires others to live a debt-free life.) A few years ago, I was at my lowest point financially. I was looking for a solution to rise above the financial crises I was experiencing and trying to find a way to keep my home out of foreclosure. I decided to contact a few agencies and a couple lawyers who all encouraged me to claim bankruptcy and start anew. The second lawyer sold me the bankruptcy dream, and