Quality, Inexpensive Clothes CAN Be Found At Club Stores

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I’m not into brand names. I’m definitely not into brand name clothes; example: paying hundreds of dollars for a pair of jeans. My butt looks just fine without bling across the back pockets. I’m more than content cruising the aisles of Walmart, Target, Old Navy and the occasional trip to Kohl’s when I can combine a 30% off coupon with sale prices. I do recognize that occasionally I do sacrifice some amount of quality in favor of paying less. For the most part, I come out ahead for my money. Sometimes I get a cheap pair of shorts that rip […] Read more »

How Overpriced Is The Olive Garden? The Post Where I Say “Hell No” To Takeout Pasta

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It’s no secret that I dislike going out to eat. To be specific, I don’t like going out to eat just to order something that I could make as good at home, at significantly less cost. I don’t mean to dwell on this subject, but eating out is just such a colossal waste of money.  The absolute worst offender is anything pasta related, including a favorite restaurant of my wife and daughter; The Olive Garden. Look, it’s not The Olive Garden’s fault that they garner such hate from me, it’s just that taking a family of four there for dinner […] Read more »

The Grocery Shopping Trick Guaranteed To Stop You From Eating Out

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I like to reserve dining out for special occasions, or for those instances where we absolutely cannot eat at home. Sometimes, holding myself to this standard is difficult. The thought of convenience is powerful. The best weapon against spending unnecessarily by eating out is having great food in stock at home. But having great food at home can cost money in it’s own right, which is why I’m always on the lookout for great sales at the grocery store. I’ve found a great trick that helps me get great food on sale and keep us from going out to eat […] Read more »

9 Tips For Creating Discipline With Money

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9 Tips For Creating Discipline With Money

I frequently get questions from my readers about how to resolve their various financial problems.  The questions range from not being able to save enough, to tackling huge amounts of debt, to how to stop living paycheck to paycheck. One of the common themes I’ve discovered in the hundreds of emails I’ve received, is that most of those readers tell me the root of their problem is a lack of discipline. Lack of Money is Not the Problem Learning discipline when it comes to money is not always easy, but it’s necessary if you want to get ahead financially.  Many […] Read more »

The One Reason For Eating Out That Is a Big Fat Lie

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I think we would all agree that dining out is more expensive than cooking at home. We all go out to eat from time to time, but did you notice that we always seem to attach some sort of excuse to it? Whether we’re celebrating, or we’re on vacation, or we’re just too busy to cook it seems like we have to justify to ourselves a trip to a restaurant. Sometimes there are some valid reasons, sometimes there isn’t a reason other than we just want to and that’s OK. But there’s one excuse that we tell ourselves over and […] Read more »

13 Ways You Can Save Money On A Low Income

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save money low income limited income

I get a lot of questions from readers wanting to know how they can save money on a low income, so I thought I would write a post about some of the suggestions I’ve been giving out that can help you put money in the bank, even when you’re living on a limited income.  I’ve also included some great resources along with the suggestions that will help you get started putting money in the bank right now!   You Can Still Save Money On A Low Income When you’re living on a small income, it can be especially hard to […] Read more »

7 Awesome Ways to Accelerate Your Savings and Build Wealth

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Seven Awesome Ways to Accelerate Savings and Build Wealth

Most Americans are saving very little money, if any at all.  I know my savings have been harder to come by in recent years. Over the last few years my income was cut almost in half due to several factors.  On top of that, we were also paying cash for my wife’s bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Things got pretty tight there for a while. Saving money was not an easy thing to do, but we did manage to save a little periodically even though we were under the gun financially. Now my income is now returning to a much more […] Read more »

Get Maximum Cash For Your Old Cell Phone Using SellCell!

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My wife recently upgraded her Apple iPhone 4S for a shiny new iPhone6. Something that got lost in the shuffle of the excitement of getting a new phone was the amount AT&T gave her for her old phone. A phone that sold for a retail price of nearly $500 when she bought it just three years ago brought her just $40 of trade in value. She certainly could have tried to sell it privately. She could have listed it on Craigslist, or local classified ads and tried to get more for it. Maybe she could have gotten significantly more for […] Read more »

Save Money Effortlessly through Digit. Really? Yes REALLY.

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It’s time for me to come clean, and be completely honest with you; I have trouble saving. Almost exactly a year ago, my wife and I made our final payment to our debt management program paying off $109,000 of credit card debt. With that final payment we freed up $2489 in our monthly budget. Having that extra breathing room we immediately did some things to better our overall financial picture such as consolidate some other debts and refinance our mortgage. But even after those changes were complete we still had a sizable amount of extra funds in our monthly budget. […] Read more »

How to Get Ahead if You’re Living Paycheck to Paycheck

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get ahead living paycheck to paycheck

Some recent studies showed that more than two thirds of people are living paycheck to paycheck at least some of the time. That’s pretty incredible! It seems to be getting harder and harder to keep your head above water financially, and there is no lack of reasons why that’s happening. Some of it is because our attitudes about money have changed over the years.  Some of it is also because of the changing economy, and some of it is probably due to the fact that the world is rapidly changing, and some are getting left behind because they refuse to […] Read more »

It Takes Money To Save Money

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It takes money to make money. It’s a common phrase you may have heard before. My interpretation of the phrase boils down to investing, whether it be in stocks or a business. If you have money, it gives you more options to be able to generate more money.   Over the weekend I found a similar but less known assertion to be true. It takes money to save money. One of the things that I had let go of while we were paying off our debt was our lawn care. I love having a lush green lawn, but achieving the look […] Read more »

No Contract Cell Phone Plans Exposed! Are They Really Better?

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No contract mobile phone plans have become all the rage as of late.  I even tried one through a blogging opportunity last year and was actually quite impressed.  Apparently, no contract providers have gotten the attention of the major carriers, as they have begun to offer no contract plans of their own.  I received an email from my carrier outlining their no contract plan last Friday. We’re currently under a two year contract with ATT&T, and for my family of four plus two extended family members to all have smart phones sharing a 10GB data plan we pay $309 a […] Read more »

My New “Celebrating Financial Freedom” Course!

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Celebrating financial freedom online get out of debt course

If you’ve been following my posts here on EOD for a while now, you may know that I offer a popular Christian get out of debt course that I’ve taught at various venues over the years. The course has always been offered in a physical version with a workbook and CD’s. I’ve been asked many times if I have the course available in an online format, and I’ve always had to say “no”. But not anymore. You Can Win Access to the Course for Free!  (Continue Reading)   You Asked, I’m Making it Happen Over the last few months, I’ve […] Read more »

Spending Money to Save Money – Promoting Opportunities for Success and Minimizing Risk of Failure

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For those of us focused on saving money, the idea of spending it may seem a bit uncomfortable, especially if our personal finances seem perched on or near the edge. Nevertheless, there are times when spending money now can help us save more money over the longer term. To do this, we need to hone our skills at seeing opportunities and risks; opportunities for success, and the risk of things not going as one might hope. I certainly don’t consider myself to be a pessimist, I rather think of myself as an optimist and a realist, but it seems to me that success generally takes a bit of work, whereas failure can often come along and bite us on the backside with a bit more ease. After all, it’s no effort at all to allow things to happen to us, whereas success requires that we make it happen. In the end, perhaps it’s all a matter of personal perception, but for most of us, we’re eager to welcome success while we tend to cringe at the idea of failure or setbacks. Read more »