From the category archives:

Basics

5 Essential Money Lessons From 2009

12.31.2009 21 comments
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I take a look at some of the financial lessons of 2009 that were essential for our family to learn, and wish you a happy and healthy New Year!

How to Write a Great Financial Mission Statement

12.02.2009 10 comments
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This is it–the one document that will guide your financial decisions for the rest of your life. Are you ready to write one?

How Credit Scores Are Determined

05.25.2009 0 comments
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Learn about the components of a credit score (payment history, amounts owed, length of history, recent credit, and types of credit), why you should care about your score, and how to go about improving it (in simple terms).

The Basics of Setting Financial Priorities

05.18.2009 2 comments
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Step-by-step to setting financial priorities – setting life goals first, then general financial goals, and finally getting specific and setting actions items.

Tracking Your Finances: Tasks and Tools

05.11.2009 1 comment
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Tracking your finances is an essential personal finance skill, and one of the first we learn when first dealing with money on our own. Tracking involves more than just keeping an account register – some form of analysis should be applied to determine how and where money flows.
The end result of applying the principles of [...]

What Types of Accounts Should I Open?

05.04.2009 2 comments
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The Personal Finance Basics series continues at Fiscal Fizzle, and today I will be discussing all of the basic account types you will need in order to succeed financially.
Accounts are important to understand because they form the basis of our interaction with money and allow for containerizing and specializing how each portion of your money [...]

How to Set Up Your First Successful Budget – Part III (Tracking & Review)

04.27.2009 3 comments
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This is the last post in my three-part series on budgeting basics. I will wrap up the series by discussing strategies for tracking and reviewing your new budget to ensure that it’s working for you in the way you planned.
If you’ve completed Parts I & II of this task, you should have a good idea [...]

How to Set Up Your First Successful Budget – Part II (Organizing and Setup)

04.20.2009 2 comments
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This post is the second in a three-part series about setting up and maintaining a successful budget. Last week, we discussed what a budget was, how it could be beneficial (or practically essential) to reaching your financial goals, and the research that needed to be completed before we continued with Budgeting 101. The three parts [...]

How to Set Up Your First Successful Budget – Part I (Understanding & Research)

04.13.2009 1 comment
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Since the beginning of time, mankind has understood that the spending power money holds must be controlled and channeled to appropriate uses if we are to (at the very least) survive, and (hopefully) achieve our lifetime financial goals.
Because of money’s finite qualities, each of us must make a choice, whether by chance of by plan, [...]

How to Calculate Your Net Worth

04.06.2009 4 comments
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Today’s post on calculating your net worth is the first in an ongoing series I have tentatively called “Personal Finance Basics.” Throughout my life, I’ve encountered numerous people who have not yet learned what I consider to be essential processes, tools, and concepts for financial survival, and eventually success. Luckily, if you fit this profile, [...]