Not long ago, Vanguard, the large mutual fund family that I speak highly of and the administrator of my 403(b) plan, began offering a “brokerage option” in the 403(b) plan. I found the news exciting and called immediately to get signed on; unfortunately, they were not ready at the time, so I called back a […]

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This post was written before the February 28, 2008 stock market opening:
The Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund that makes up about 1/2 of my retirement portfolio has continues to have issues; given that my portfolio had shown a relatively solid positive gain for February to date, I thought that perhaps the fund had increased […]

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I will admit that I do indulge in fast food at least weekly (Jack in the Box’s Chicken Club Salad with Grilled Chicken tends to be my primary choice), but is there really anything more wasteful–remember, waste is the archenemy of frugality–than a trip through the drive through at a busy fast food restaurant?
The first […]

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Advertising in America is so commonplace that in many ways we’re numb to it, yet it still exists. We’ve been using ReplayTV and Tivo for a long time to skip ads (although, in a bizarre opposite reality for a few hours a year, many people watch the Super Bowl -for- the ads). How effective they […]

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Thanks and welcome to those of you who are linking to us from the Festival of Frugality, this week hosted by No Credit Needed. Please consider subscribing and staying awhile!

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I’d again like to welcome those of you who are linking here from this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance. This edition is hosted by Broke Grad Student at BrokeGradStudent.com. Have a seat and some coffee and stay awhile!

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An exchange traded fund is a security that acts like a mutual fund but trades like a stock. Unlike mutual funds, ETFs trade throughout the day and their price fluctuates accordingly, whereas a mutual fund has its net asset value calculate daily. Because of that, virtually everything that can be done with a stock (such […]

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To continue on the theme, when shopping for something that’s substantial enough to be worth buying on the Web (almost anything that I don’t need quickly and won’t accumulate a huge shipping charge), I work through a process:
1) Check out the usual suspects;
2) Use some shopping search engines to compare prices elsewhere;
3) Check sale Web […]

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As a follow up to my previous discussion on bacn, Friday morning I received a piece of bacn from Performance Bike, where I’m (at some point) going to order more tubes. I go through a bunch of these each season, even if I patch them (which I hate doing), and I’m about out. It’s considerably […]

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I wish it was a dream, but it’s not. The new puppy we have in the house decided to eat through my Shure e2c earbuds yesterday. While the price varies, these are generally about $100 (yes, I did find mine for less) and they’re now trash.
Of course, the actual owner of the puppy (my sister) […]

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