Paying Cash Makes Purchasing Large Items Hard to Do

Since paying off our non-mortgage debt with a Dave-Suze hybrid approach and vowing to only pay cash for all purchases going forward (we do use credit cards for the reward points and then pay them off completely before the grace period is up), we have had a few big-ticket items come up that have rattled [...]

Suze Orman Gives Dave Ramsey the Financial Smackdown: Whose Side are You On?

Two Saturday nights ago I had settled in for a long stretch of great financial television: Suze Orman’s show at eight followed by Gail Vaz-Oxlade’s ‘Til Debt Do Us Part at nine. Suze’s Moneylogue that night was called “Don’t be Debt Dumb”, during which she called out a “so-called financial pundit” she had tuned in [...]

Our Sunset Household in an Indebted Nation and How our Debt-Free Vows were Tested

Does our country’s debt scare you? At the time of writing this, the debt is over $13.5 trillion. Wow. Seriously—take a moment to let that sink in. I know that when I start to think about it, I get the willies. How are we supposed to get out from under this debt? What will we [...]

Updates: Giveaway Winner, Frugal Confessions on the News, Debt Check-up

Hello Frugal Confessions Readers! Some exciting things going on that I want to update everyone with. I have updated the Debt Reduction button on my website…and can finally declare that Paul and I are non-mortgage DEBT-FREE!!!! Be sure to read all about it. Frugal Confessions is on abc news (Channel 13, KTRK) discussing how to [...]

Jar Budgeting: Jump Start the $5 Left at the End of the Month Challenge

You can have it all; you just can’t have it all at the same time. – Gail Vaz-Oxlade Gail Vaz-Oxlade is a woman who does not take crap. Just watch her show or read her book, Debt-Free Forever. You may cringe at first when witnessing her sometimes crass, but always blunt honesty about other people’s [...]

Sometimes it is Easier to Preach than to Practice

Have things ever just…fallen into your lap? Call it luck, a perk from reading the book The Secret, the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon (wait…have you just recently heard about this?), or an answer to your prayers, but you think of something—a need, a want, a nice-to-have—and then several weeks, months, or even days later it appears. And [...]

Our Debt Checkup

Paper walls, sushi on revolving tables, delicate décor inspired by nature, purposeful placement of stones, crowded metro trains stacking people tightly like sardines in a can; I am watching HGTV’s The Outdoor Room, and the hosts are working on redesigning the back of someone’s corner-yard into a tea room garden inspired by Kyoto, Japan. For [...]

How I Handle Collection Agencies and How You Can Avoid them in the Future

I am sharing this experience with you to hopefully help you protect yourself from future, random calls from collection agents, like I received last week. Read through to the bottom for tips on how to avoid future headaches. Growing up, both sets of my parents declared bankruptcy within a few years of one another. This [...]