You’ve started your personal finance journey, you’re getting on a good monthly budget, and you’ve pared back your lifestyle to squeeze as much extra money as you can…but it still doesn’t seem to be getting the job done. You’re either still in the hole every month, or you’re not making progress on your debt payoff […]
As we look forward to the end of the year, it may be easy to shift back into the routine. Vacation time is over, the kids are back in school, and soon the holiday frenzy will be upon us! This time of year can impact your finances on many levels, so now is the time […]
As summer draws to a close, parents everywhere shift back into a school year mindset. With that shift comes the annual ritual of shopping for back-to-school supplies and clothing, which can often reach into the hundreds of dollars per child. If you’re trying to stay on budget and not let this derail your savings or […]
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published an article about the history of the U.S. student debt crisis. You can read the article here, and it’s definitely worth the read. How did so many in this country get so deeply mired in student loan debt? And what can we do now to get ourselves, as a nation, out […]
We’ve all been there: stressed out, a bad day, maybe even a fight with someone we love. Different people cope with stress in different ways, but for some of us, we cope by spending. And unfortunately, we only compound the stressful situations in our lives when we spend to cope, because on top of the […]
With summer merely weeks away, and Memorial Day weekend in just over one week, it’s the time of year when our thoughts turn to vacation and travel plans! If you’re planning some sort of trip this summer, have you put together a plan for it yet? Have you budgeted for the expenses, or will it […]
To all of the newly-minted college graduates out there, congratulations! Diploma in hand, the world is your oyster. However, you may be one of the millions of students graduating this year with some amount of student debt. The nation’s student loan debt is over $1 trillion and is not only larger than the country’s collective […]
Budgeting, like any habit or discipline, does not magically happen overnight. However, if you continue to work your budget, month by month, the habit will become more routine, and you’ll find yourself sticking to the budget much easier. BUT, what happens in those instances when an unforeseen event blows your budget early into the month, […]
It’s that time of year, folks. If you haven’t filed your tax return yet, you’ve got a week to get it done. This is the time of year where you hear people talking about “what they’re going to do with they refund money”. While I wholeheartedly agree that it is definitely good to make a […]
Perhaps this should’ve been the first blog post I posted here on the Abacus Solutions website; admitting mistakes and screwups is hard, though, right? I’m a firm believer, however, in learning from mistakes, and even better, using my mistakes as a tool to prevent others from making those same mistakes. So here goes. As I’ve […]