Versatility is one of my most important keys to budgeting. Versatility in many areas helps to stretch a budget farther than it may normally go. Here are just a few ideas in a couple of different areas: Wardrobe Versatility: Admittedly, I don't have a very versatile wardrobe. I am a jean/shorts and...

Recently I did an interview with Dana Dratch (Google her work. She's an excellent writer on personal finance and a wonderful human being, too!) We were talking about ways to reduce your grocery budget. One of the strategies that I mentioned was eliminating food waste. Wasting food is particularly...

They say that the difference between mankind and animals is that people can pass their accumulated wisdom from generation to generation. If that's so, then it's important that we all learn from the current economic situation. So far we've looked at the bad mortgages in part 1 and what those...

Last time, in part 1 we looked at 9 lessons we could learn from sub-prime mortgages. Those lessons centered around the bad mortgages. Fortunately the overwhelming majority of us didn't take out one of the now toxic sub-prime mortgages. But, that doesn't mean that we won't be affected by the...

It's always nice when The Dollar Stretcher is included in an article on how to save money. It's even better when the article is good. And better still when the article is published in a widely recognized source like Readers' Digest. Just found out that we're mentioned in the section on...

We've been busy beefing up our blog offerings here at The Dollar Stretcher.com. Along the way we're also learning about some other interesting money-saving blogs. One of them is called Count Your Pennies < www.countyourpennies.blogspot.com> by JG. It's a relatively new blog, but I admit...

Last weekend I was reminded of something that we all know, but seem to forget if we're not reminded every so often. A friend of mine had a big oak tree that needed to have a couple of limbs removed. Big limbs. Real big limbs! The cost to call in a tree surgeon would have been significant. Instead...

I bet that you like low interest rates. I do, too! They make it much easier for people to borrow and repay loans. That's something that both borrowers and lenders like. Making it easier to repay loans! Not only are low interest rates good for borrowers and lenders, they can also spur the economy...

Heard an interesting phrase at a conference I was attending. It came from Tom Evans, President and CEO of Bankrate. He said that "money is no longer a spectator sport" and I think that he's right. When we bought our first home the choices in mortgages were pretty simple. Unless you were...

Just finished an interesting week. I drove across the state for a conference. The conference was about online financial news. Many of the discussions included comments about how higher gas prices were causing big problems for consumers. (BTW, I agree that higher gas prices are causing problems for consumers...