financial management

Check out this nifty “step-by-step guide to gaining control of your financial life” by CNNMoney. It’s an all-in-one package sort of deal with 23 lessons covering topics like investing basics, kids and money, retirement, car buying …and many more…almost everything you would want to know towards better personal finance management. The lessons start from basic know-how and proceed towards advanced concepts. For example, shown alongside is a snapshot of the lesson on retirement (lesson #13).

Some of the lessons include handy tools (or calculators) that you can use to crunch up some numbers as you read. A multiple-choice type test accompanies each lesson. Use the tests to check how much you have learned (or how much you need to learn). For example, here is a test question from the lesson on investment:

I stumbled on an interesting tool right in the beginning of the guide (in lesson #1); it’s called the “Prioritizer“. It’s pretty handy if you have trouble assigning an order of importance to your goals. The tool basically asks you to list all your goals, prompts you to compare them one-on-one (in a round robin style), and then churns out some sort of a ranked list. I tried it with the following (hypothetical) goals in a random order:

After comparing them with one another, the Prioritizer ranked them as follows (100 = highest priority):

By the way, the Prioritizer is not money-specific…you could use it to rank any random list of things like movies, restaurants, girlfriends (?), etc. Give it a try.

It may take you 23 days (or more) to go through all the lessons..it doesn’t matter. What matters is you go through all the stuff. If you think you already know too much about personal finance, read it nevertheless; repetition has never killed anyone…well…except some Kiyosaki followers I think.

Since yesterday, I have been reading a number of articles on the recent subprime lending fiasco. Personally, I feel there are a lot of fundamental issues at play in the whole mess. The more I read about it, the more I am convinced that it’s not *subprime lending* that is at fault. It’s more about our ignorance, attitudes, and our constant tendency to keep finding loopholes in a given “system”. Here is my take on the issue (couldn’t resist writing about this). Towards the end, there is a list of all the articles (by fellow bloggers and from others sources) that I referred.

Subprime lending isn’t supposed to be bad

There are some people who blame subprime lenders for “lowering their lending standards”. But, isn’t that the whole point of subprime lending? The concept is to make housing *affordable* to people with not-so-great credit. It’s for people who wouldn’t have qualified for a mortgage with the regular lending criteria. According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, subprime lending can be summarized in two sentences as:

Typically, subprime loans are for persons with blemished or limited credit histories. The loans carry a higher rate of interest than prime loans to compensate for increased credit risk.

There is an increased risk associated with subprime lending (remember credit is equivalent to financial responsibility in the money world), but it’s not really a bad business model (ideally)…the loans are designed in such a way as to take into account the higher probability of delinquency. So ideally, it was a system that was supposed to work.

So what went wrong?

Flat out reason: the human tendency to abuse an established system. Don’t we love to hunt for loopholes in order to get more than what we need or deserve? In this case, ignorance (or stupidity) and greed on part of the consumers, and dishonesty and greed on part of the lending system are the medium through which the subprime lending system is being abused. I will highlight some of the issues by the way of examples below.

What are people with annual income of $54,000 doing in a house that costs $543,000?

I first stumbled on this piece of news at SVB’s post on the subprime lending issue @ The Digerati Life:

Two years ago, Luis Mapula was living in a converted garage with his wife and two daughters and earning $54,000 a year as a fence company construction worker. Then, almost like magic, he became the owner of a $543,000 home with no down payment.

This is an example of greed and stupidity on part of the consumer (in my opinion). Agreed that the their real estate agent told them some lies, fudged their numbers, and made it look rosy. But, how hard is it to realize that the house is just beyond their means? If you have just $1 and someone claims that you can buy an iPod with that kind of money, wouldn’t there be some amount of doubt in your mind about the authenticity of that claim? Wouldn’t you ask a few people about their opinion on such a claim before you give your money away? In this case, there are two reasons why you would give your money to the $1 iPod guy: 1. Your greed wants an iPod in just $1, and 2. Ignorance (or plain stupidity) convinces you that it’s really possible to get an iPod in $1. Then, when the guy sends you a bill for $499 *shipping charges*, who will you blame? Complaining against the $1 iPod guy does not absolve you of your lack of personal accountability….you should have done your homework well before falling for the shady deal.

Similar concerns about consumer attitudes are expressed by JLP @ AllFinancialmatters; by Paul @ Extreme Perspective ; and by Gaming the Credit System.

Cases of cheating

Here is an excerpt from a quoted piece of a Wall Street Journal article on JLP’s post:

In 2001, Ms. Smith, living on $540 a month in government benefits, was encouraged by a contractor to apply for a loan to finance home repairs. After two loan applications were rejected, a broker submitted a third showing that she had monthly income of $1,499 and was employed at a senior-citizens home though she had actually retired 10 years before, she said. The $36,000 mortgage that First Union National Bank (now part of Wachovia Corp.) approved for her required a monthly payment of $360.33 for 15 years followed by a “balloon” payment — when she would be over 80 — of $30,981.48

and an excerpt from SanLuisObispo.com:

Though Mapula signed the loan application that was submitted to Long Beach Mortgage, his lawsuit says he learned later that it falsely claimed he was making almost $100,000 a year from two jobs and receiving an additional $16,800 a year in rental income. The application also said he had $19,700 in the bank, owned a $22,000 Acura and had $28,000 in furniture and personal property. Mapula said none of that was correct.

These are examples of greed and dishonesty, supposedly on part of brokers (or middlemen) and/or subprime lenders. Consumers’ greed and desperation only encourage such behavior. In some cases, fraudulent information may have been filed without the full knowledge of the borrower….but I think there may be a lot of cases in which the borrowers connived with the middlemen to file false information in order to qualify for something that is beyond their financial means. And, they are taking advantage (disadvantage) of the loopholes in the system that allow the flow of fraudulent information.

Laws and regulations can patch the loopholes in the system…but I am not sure what will remedy our greed and stupidity. Forgive me for being naive, but wouldn’t “living within your means” potentially solve most of the subprime lending problems?

There is certainly much more to subprime lending than what I have mentioned above…however I am just trying to point out some fundamental reasons behind the issue in a simplified manner. For detailed analysis and more examples, read through the following list of references.

Resources and more reading

• Allfinancialmatters: QotD: Subprime Mortgage Mess - Who’s to Blame?

• Gaming The Credit System: Re: JLP’s Subprime Lender Mess Question

• The Digerati Life: How To Kill Your Credit Instantly With Mortgage Fraud And Subprime Borrowing

• Extreme Perspective: Scammers and Personal Responsibility

• US Department of Housing and Urban Development: Subprime Lending

• Wikipedia: Subprime Lending

• Mortgage Professor: What is a Subprime Mortgage Lender?

• Silicon Valley Real Estate Blog: When Not to Buy a House

Don’t get misled by the title, I am not trying to demean Dave Ramsey or his ideas in any way with this post (perhaps, there will be a different post for that :)). The humble objective is to put forth some features of my debt reduction story and hope that someone in debt might stumble on this, pick up the beneficial parts, and be inspired to think out of the box with regards to his/her debt management approach.

I have mentioned earlier about my three year fight against debt. It was a rather short account of a span of three years and after that post, I never talked about it again. Now, after quite some time, I have decided to spill some more beans about it.

By the way, I didn’t even know who Dave Ramsey was when I went on my own debt reduction program. In fact, I was totally unaware of any of the financial gurus that you generally see floating around many personal finance blogs. Heck, I wasn’t even fully conversant with the concept of “blogging” at the time. So these things, that I am going to list down in the following, are from the point of view of a person (me) who was absolutely oblivious of all the fancy debt reduction ideas.

In this post, I will list some of the features of my debt reduction efforts. I am not claiming that all features were absolutely beneficial towards my efforts. However, I will still list them here because it’s some combination of these features that got me out of debt.

Also, to put things into perspective, without disclosing the real numbers, let me mention that I was facing a 5 figure debt of the order of my annual graduate student stipend.

So, here are some features that I could pin down after some retrospection:

• Comparison lead to realization: Debt in itself was not enough to convince me the seriousness of my situation. What really woke me up was some casual talk with a few fellow students about the balances they carry on their credit cards. Some of them were earning as much as me but had zero balances on their cards. Once, I knew that, it was like “what the heck! how come I have a 5 figure balance while some of them have none?”. I probably realized, that at this rate, I might just become the poorest graduate student on my campus, in spite of a healthy stipend and that didn’t make me feel good. The will to reduce the debt came almost naturally from then on.
• Simple tools for a simple fight: At the time, I wasn’t aware of portals like Yodlee, or softwares like Quicken or Money. Initially, I started putting some numbers together using just a piece of paper and a pencil. When the papers started disappearing on me, I turned to Excel sheets and started recording my statement balances and payments each month. Things were kept really simple.
• No micromanagement: Most personal finance bloggers won’t like this (even I don’t like it much when I think about it now), but that’s how I was doing it. I didn’t keep track of every expense that I was making. I did budget my monthly expenses, but I didn’t keep an account of where every penny was going. Perhaps, it saved me a lot of unnecessary stress. My only goal was to put an arbitrary large amount towards debt every month and make the balances lower than those in the previous month. Period.
• Didn’t stop using credit cards: Yeah, I said it! It’s just that, I was not using the ones with balances on them. I used the ones that had zero balances and paid them off every month. Logic was simple; once I have budgeted my monthly expenses, it didn’t matter whether I paid cash or used credit cards. Cards were convenient and I was using them for the convenience. Another thing is that my debt was not because I was spending with credit cards…my debt was because I was spending like a fool.
• Took time-outs to think about debt: Often I would sit in front of my Excel sheet and work out different payments plans and put my progress into perspective. Sometimes, the resources were there, but I was too tied up (or stressed out) to think about them. A word of caution here: thinking too much about debt might be detrimental instead of being more beneficial; you have to remember there is life beyond debt.
• Sharing helped (I mean thoughts…not debt): This was sort of unexpected. Debt reduction was rapid after I got married. I guess it helps to have someone else’s perspective on your problem once in a while. Gives rise to fresh ideas and renews courage. I guess that’s why it helps reading other people’s blogs and discussing things with them.
• Being consistent: I don’t remember doing anything out of the ordinary in my fight against debt. I didn’t starve myself to save pennies…I was just being sensible in my spending and consistent in my payments. By consistency, I don’t mean being “rigid”..sometimes, you have bend your spending rules (for the benefit of the universe) and you got to do it when you got to do it (in my opinion).

That’s all that comes to my mind right now. All in all, I had a fairly stress free journey to being debt free with the way I did things.
Hopefully, the point is clear by now. You don’t need to prescribe to a third person’s plan for your debt reduction…give it a shot and you may be able to do it effectively under your own terms. It’s really not as complicated as some people make it out to be.

Also, please understand that this is just a suggestion (and not universally applicable); everybody’s debt is different, and depending on the situation, professional advice may sometimes be a better choice.

I just reduced yet another website from my life by registering our T-Mobile account at Yodlee MoneyCenter. One less password to remember :). Yodlee is effectively doing the same things that T-Mobile website would have done for me (may be a bit more); it’s just that now I can glance at the phone billing/payment details along with the information from all other accounts (credit cards, PayPal, etc.). I find that very convenient and it also feels a bit more organized. I thought of sharing this because, according to my hypothesis, most people default on their bills just because they are disorganized….and systems such as Yodlee might just help.

For those who may not have read about how I use Yodlee for managing my credit cards, read this to come up to speed. If you are not using Yodlee yet, give it a try. It’s a very simple (and free!) and effective way of putting all (almost all) of your financial transactions in order. In my case, except rent, laundry expenses, and a few bucks in cash, everything gets managed through Yodlee via credit cards.

OK, coming back to the cell phone account, here is how simple it was to set it up. I will include a few snapshots in the following for ease of communication.

Once you log in to Yodlee MoneyCenter, T-Mobile appears as a standard option under the “Add and Manage Accounts” tab. Btw, although I am talking about T-mobile wireless, you can add accounts from many other service providers (cell phones or land lines) and follow the same procedure. In the image alongside this paragraph, you can see a list of communication companies that appear in Yodlee’s standard list.

Once you add the account, just enter the login/password information (your phone number/password for T-Mobile website) and you will be ready to go! A snapshot of this is shown below. Notice the three options at the bottom of that image. Customize those alerts according to your liking and kiss goodbye to your cell phone bill late payments and overage charges.

After everything is set up, if you have a cell phone bill pending, Yodlee will show that bill under the “Bill Reminders” tab. You can then either go to the T-Mobile website to pay your bill (inefficient way) or pay using a credit card (or a bank account) registered with Yodlee (efficient way, will take just 2 or 3 clicks). Here is a snapshot of a typical bill reminder:

To further automate the process, you can set up recurring bill payments or *autopay* using a credit card or a bank account as the payment source. This means that you won’t have to worry about when the bill arrives and how and when it gets paid. Btw, you can setup autopay directly on T-Mobile website too…but like I said before, personally I like it better when Yodlee does that for me.

So there you go, one step towards efficiently managing your phone bills (and hopefully other bills too). Go ahead and experiment with using Yodlee; if you run into problems or have questions, head over to the Yodlee Forum and voice your concerns.

..And just in case you are wondering, this is not a PayPerPost or ReviewMe post (I don’t participate in those); nor am I related to Yodlee in any manner. It’s just that I have been using it for a while, and I have become a great fan.

Welcome to the Diamond Jubilee edition of the Carnival of Debt Reduction. Thanks John @ Mighty Bargain Hunter for letting me host this edition of the carnival. Before I start with the entries, let us briefly touch base with the history of the carnival.

The first edition of the Carnival of Debt Reduction was hosted at Mighty Bargain Hunter on September 19th, 2005. There were 11 interesting entries in this edition. Do check them out. The noble sentiments behind creation of this carnival are succinctly described in the “About” section on the carnival homepage. I am quoting the words here for all of you to read.

Successful debt reduction stories and good debt reduction advice needs more exposure, and people need to see that debt is not forever. Many inspiring debt reduction stories make their way into blogs, and it is encouraging to everyone involved — bloggers, carnival hosts, and readers — to have their successes and insights highlighted on a regular basis. The Carnival of Debt Reduction is a weekly blog carnival that highlights posts on getting out of debt. Personal debt reduction progress reports and posts about reducing debt are what this carnival is all about!

And now we are ready to proceed with the carnival entries. Enjoy.

Entries with a personal touch on debt and related issues

Shift Your Thinking to Reduce Debt by Paul @ ExtremePerspective: A real life story from Paul about how a paradigm shift in their spending helped them out of debt. Some food for thought for those who are stuck on the latte factor.

How I Plan To Stay Out Of Debt by NCN @ No Credit Needed: This article is more about debt avoidance. It is directed towards people who get out of debt, but sooner or later go right back in because they don’t have a clear plan on how to steer away from debt. Always remember, prevention is better than cure; stop that debt before it gets you again.

Eliminating Mortgage Debt - New Thinking by Super Saver @ My Wealth Builder: Super Saver explains how paying off mortgage debt faster might help him to retire early. This sort of applies to all other kinds of debts (well at least applies to the ones with high interest rates); the faster you get out of debt, the more you will be able to concentrate on working towards a better retirement.

Breaking Down Your Debt by King of Debt @ We’re In Debt: Read about King of Debt’s experience on how a graphical visualization of their debt distribution is helping them reduce their debt.

I Don’t Love Capital One - How to Get a Lower APR, or Possibly Not by Andrea Dickson @ Wisebread: If Capital One has shrugged off your threat of “Reduce my interest rates …or else..”, you may not be alone with that kind of experience. Read what Andrea has to say about her experience with trying to negotiate her interest rates with Capital One.

Tax Refunds and Other Lump Sums by Rich @ Queercents: What would you do with your tax refund and other financial windfalls? Rich suggests using them to make payments towards your debt.

Commentary on other debt issues

Dave Ramsey is Good at Psychology by Nickel @ fivecentnickel.com: This article includes an collection of interesting comments (on a previous article) about how different people view Dave Ramsey’s debt reduction approach. According to Nickel, that’s more psychology than math. Here is one of the interesting comments mentioned in the article:

Yes, you save money by paying off the highest interest rate debt first, but you’re missing the psychological reward of not having to cut a check for those trivial debts, month after month.

Soaring Bankruptcy: Top 10 Reasons Why America is leading the World in Bankruptcy Filing by Rich @ Bankruptcy Reader. Rich elaborates on various reasons behind the rising bankruptcies in US. Look out for some interesting numbers in this post. For example:

According to the Federal Reserve, the typical family filing for bankruptcy owes more than one and a half times their annual income. A family that makes $24,000 a year will have $36,000 dollars in debt.

Debt management advice

A Step-by-Step Guide to Reducing Debt on an Irregular Income by ISPF @ Grad Money Matters: A 10-step approach to tackle debt on an irregular income. According to ISPF, the trick is in setting your priorities, in such a way that debt comes near the top, and then distributing your resources wisely among your priorities.

Get Out of Debt Now! by David @ Worldwide Success: The article explores ways to deal with debt and offers some common sense suggestions on how to reduce your debt load. Here is one such suggestion:

Whether you went into debt by your own fault or not, you must rid yourself of any guilty feelings and re-channel this negative energy into positive actions that will get you out of this situation.

Debt management by Andy @ Money Walks: Three simple and common sense steps towards debt reduction.

Getting Out Of Debt (Part 2) by Erek Ostrowski @ Verve Coaching. The article gives some practical tips on how to go about increasing your income in order to get out of debt.

5 Important Ways to Protect Yourself Against Job Loss by Steve Faber @ DebtBlog: Steve lists 5 rules that can help you to keep out of a debt black hole in the event of a job loss.

That’s all for this edition folks. Thanks to all the participants for contributing towards this milestone edition of the carnival. Click here to submit your articles to the next Carnival of Debt Reduction to be hosted at Money Smart Life.

A quick remark for those who might wonder about the term *Diamond Jubilee*. According to Wiki: “A Diamond Jubilee is a celebration held to mark a 60th anniversary in British and Commonwealth usage or a 75th anniversary in American usage.“

Earlier, I have listed some posts from my previous domain at Blogger. Here, I am highlighting some of the popular posts since I started writing on this new domain in mid-November. Listed below are 8 posts on a variety of topics; hopefully you will enjoy them. I would encourage readers to read through the comments. At times, comments really bring out the essence of the points under discussion.

Students, Laptops, Digital Cameras, Huge Cars, and Debt

Why Dave Ramsey’s “Drive Free” Theory May Be Flawed OR Why ‘Get Rich Slowly’ May Never Get To “Drive Free”

How To Flush $299 Down The Toilet

Gasoline Prices: Why $2.189 and not $2.19; Why The Third Decimal Place?

Efficient Credit Card Management: Change Your Bill Due Date

Fidelity myPlan Retirement Calculator: Numbers Can Be Tricky

Don’t Like Your Gift Cards? Trade Them Or Sell Them For Cash

And Let There Be More Light For Less Money: Save Money On Light Bulbs

Btw, sometimes I become sullen and don’t really live up to my tag line “personal finance doesn’t need to be boring!”, but I try

If you tell someone that you are in debt, the first advice most people will offer you is “stop spending”. Occasionally, you will also hear about how David Bach’s “latte factor” is hurting your ability to get rid of your debt (technically the latte factor is about increasing wealth over the long term, but you can also look at it as if it’s about reducing debt over the long term). When I say *stop spending* advice, I am talking about advice of this kind:

If you are facing a debt that’s taking you down in a hole, you need to stop buying those clothes, shoes, junk burgers, coffee, electronic doodads, useless magazine subscriptions, cigarettes, movie subscriptions, and everything else that is not necessary to keep you alive and divert every penny towards your debt. Basically, live like a caveman if that helps.

Those are my own words from sometime in the past :).

While there is nothing wrong with such an advice, things are always easier said than done. The problem lies in the fact that this advice ignores the “happiness factor” completely. Here, I define the happiness factor as the measure of happiness that is associated with some of the things mentioned above (coffee, burgers, clothes, etc.,).

I have been thinking about that lately, and ran some quick numbers on a hypothetical person in debt. The point of this exercise was to compare a *stop spending* approach (or the latte factor approach) with a smarter spending approach towards reducing debt. Hopefully, the series of charts will do all the talking. I will add some comments to highlight a few points of interest.

In the first chart below, there are some (to keep it simple, I have included just a few) of the typical monthly expenses for Mr. DD (Drowned in Debt). Mr. DD is like the rest of us, and enjoys watching a few movies and eating out once in a while. Most of his monthly income goes towards the rent and the car payment.

Based on this, the chart below shows Mr. DD’s calculated annual expenses. Also, his debt is shown alongside so that we have a better perspective of his financial situation.

Now, let’s give Mr. DD a *stop spending* advice. According to this, Mr. DD stops his “latte”…or in essence, stops all his sundry spending on stuff like movies, clothes, etc. This is shown in the chart below. Do you see what has happened? The latte factor is no longer there (he saves $1320), but he has ignored the two most expensive things that he is spending his money on. He applies the $1320 to this debt, and reduces it to $8680. But, he is not very happy here because he has deprived himself of the *happiness factor* while doing this.

Now another smart fellow gives him a smart advice. He tells Mr. DD to look for a slightly cheaper apartment, and a slightly cheaper car. Now, instead of cutting his Latte Factor, Mr. DD decides to follow this advice and spends his money smartly. His annual expenses with this approach are shown in the following chart. Notice that he has reduced is annual car expenses by $660 and rent expenses by $660. Again, he applies the savings ($1320) to his debt and reduces it to $8680. But, this time he is happy because he has been able to keep up with the small enjoyments in his life while doing this.

The other obvious advantage in this approach is that he has reduced those expenses that appear in the form of a long-term contract. Meaning, once he chooses a cheaper car or a cheaper apartment…his savings are automatic over the rest of his contract. It’s not like stopping your Starbucks latte…a little bit of stress and you will be back to Starbucks in the next hour.

To bring this to a closure, Mr. DD’s corresponding monthly expenses are compared to the original expenses below. Notice that by spending his money smartly, he just needs to make minor compromises when it comes to the apartment and the car, instead of stopping everything that gives him happiness.

Hopefully that conveys what I originally intended to convey.
With this, I am not encouraging frivolous spending; I am just acknowledging the fact that there are a few things you need to spend on to keep yourself happy. I am also trying to draw some attention towards the fact that sometimes, we tend to ignore the bigger things that are causing financial problems. In my opinion, we fall for the latte factor quickly because it is much more visible than other subtle (sometimes bigger) problems. Cut the latte if you want, but before you do that, make sure you have taken care of other expensive things in your life. Of course, you could be even wiser and tweak your latte expenses a little bit, but even in that case, your first priority should be to check on the bigger problems first.

Other articles on these lines that may interest you:

-Forget About the Latte Factor : by Flexo @ Consumerism Commentary.

-Want to Save? Give up the Big Things! : by JDRoth @ Get Rich Slowly

Updated: Click here for an interesting counter-arguement by a blogger friend.

Subscribe to this blog and keep yourself updated with fresh content. Thanks for your time.

With this post, I don’t intend to generalize the spending habits of all students, but I do wish to draw attention towards this growing tendency of “I want that cool stuff…right now” among a large number of students. What worries me is that most of these students are supporting their education through some kind of student loans, but they behave as if they have absolutely no responsibilty towards it. Sometimes it makes me wonder whether they aware of the fact that they have to pay the damn money back after a few years.

I can understand education loans burdening undergraduate students while they are studying (funding opportunities for undergraduates are generally limited), but I have seen some graduate students on a healthy stipend get into student debt. One of the main reasons for this is reckless spending at every available opportunity. It’s not like they don’t have the money, they have it, but most of them end up spending it on the wrong things, at the wrong time, and then, before they realize it, they don’t have enough money to pay the tuition and fees for the next semester …! Sounds familiar?
The worry is not that students are buying stuff…the worry is that they are buying a lot of expensive stuff that they don’t “need” and cannot afford. The worry is the underlying financial irresponsibility. Here are a few examples of some stuff I have seen some of my fellow students (undergraduates and graduates) buy, when they were relying on a student debt from at least one source and had almost empty bank accounts.

There are a lot more of such examples, but I think the point has been established here. It’s important for students to be tech-savy…but they should try to be tech-savy within available financial resources. Show some respect towards your student debt; don’t fall into the “when-I-get-a-job-after-graduation-I-will-pay-everything-off” trap. Student life is meant to be enjoyed, but be discreet in how you choose to enjoy it; if you are not careful enough, that enjoyment is going to bite you hard for a long time to come.

[Btw, I have had my share of some related foolishness in this matter, but fortunately it didn't blow out of proportions and I was able to recover quickly...but let's not talk about that right now ]

It has been almost 6 months since I started blogging actively….of which the first four months were spent on Blogger and next two on this new domain. Just thought of highlighting some old stuff from my Blogger times which my new readers may or may not have glossed over. Here are some posts that struck the right (sometimes the wrong) chord with many people. Generally arranged in the order of oldest to newest.

How I Killed My Debt and What I Learned From it

Really Bad Debts: How About 1303.57 % APR ? Any Takers?

How Long Till You Double Your Money? Is the Rule Of 72 Good Enough?

How Much Do You Spend On Killing Cockroaches?

How Secure Is Your Information On Yodlee?

How And How Much You Would Earn From A 0% APR Offer: Part 1

How And How Much You Would Earn From A 0% APR Offer: Part 2

Do Worry About Retirement But Beware Of Overkill !

Wow ! Get A Free Xbox 360 ! …But Wait…What’s This Behind The Curtain?

18 Credit Cards And Not A Single Late Payment: A Guide To Efficient Credit Card Management #1

18 Credit Cards And Not A Single Late Payment: A Guide To Efficient Credit Card Management #2

So How Many Cards Does It Take To Hurt Your Credit Score?

And Let There Be More Light For Less Money: Save Money On Light Bulbs

Man that sort of turned out to be a mini carnival in itself :). Have fun reading those. Also let me know if you spot any errors or missing pictures. When I moved to this domain, I “imported” the old stuff from blogger…and a lot of unhappy stuff happened. So keep me posted about it.