US Finance World

For Nanette Vaughn, tutors have become like that proverbial bag of potato chips — she can’t stop at just one. When her son, Ryan, needed help prepping for a private-school admissions test, she reached out to a tutoring company called Club Z, which sent over Alan, a newly minted fifth-grade teacher Vaughn calls a “wonderful communicator.” Later, when Ryan needed a leg up in math, Club Z dispatched a succession of “delightful” and “helpful” graduate students who, unfortunately for Vaughn, kept graduating. And when Ryan’s sister, Olivia, needed intensive reading help, Vaughn drove her eight miles each way — twice a week — to a veteran special-ed teacher they learned about via word of mouth. “Loved that woman,” says the Atlanta-based stay-at-home mom.

Shouldering more of the work hasn’t reduced Vaughn’s tutoring tab: She says she has spent close to $8,000 over the past few years, on top of two hefty private-school tuitions.

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We often think of hobbies as expensive, and some are. If you want to raise horses, collect antique cars, take up drag racing, or own your own plane to indulge your passion for flying, you’re going to pay a lot of money. However, there are plenty of hobbies available that are free or inexpensive. With almost any hobby, there are ways to make it less expensive. You can shop the used market, borrow or rent supplies, or trade supplies with other hobbyists. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that, just because you are on a tight budget (or don’t want to spend a lot of money), you can’t have any hobbies. Here are some ideas for inexpensive hobbies:

Reading

There are a lot of places that you can get reading material on the cheap if not for free. Use the library, shop used book stores and sales, hit thrift stores and yard sales, and read free eBooks.

Metal Detecting

Who doesn’t have the fantasy of stumbling across hidden treasure? You can b

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The Daily Beast has an article by Barry Schwartz (author of ) that serves as a nice compilation of various psychological and behavioral economics findings about money and happiness.

The first main topic is hedonic adaption. When things are awesome, we eventually get used to it (celebrities, lottery winners). When things are really awful, we tend to get used to that as well (disabled persons). This is why it’s hard for people to achieve a constantly higher level of happiness. We get a nicer car/house/toy, we get used it, and then soon we want an even nicer car/house/toy, never getting anywhere as if we are walking on a treadmill.

Simply knowing that the good feeling from that purchase is only temporary may help you cut back on your spending. In addition, author Dan Ariely suggests you by pacing yourself when it comes to experiencing pleasure, and (when needed) making painful cuts all at once. F

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My desperation to be at a football match meant I almost played into the hands of a scammer.

I nearly had a disastrous start to 2012, when my desperation to be at a football match meant I almost fell victim to a scammer.

Tickets for the game had sold out weeks in advance, and for various reasons I’d missed out on them. I’d even entered competitions to win some, but no joy.

So I thought I’d take a final punt and put an ad on the local sections of free classified ad website Gumtree.

I said I was looking for two tickets in the home end (although I support the away team) as I reasoned the odds were better. I put my mobile phone number on the ad and asked for people who couldn’t attend the game for whatever reason to call me.

To my surprise and delight, within 20 minutes of the ad going live on the site, I had a text: “Hi. I have two tickets for the game. I have ha

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Its been awhile since I did a debt update, so lets take a look at where Im at vs when I started debtkid.com back in 2007.

2011 was definitely not my best year for earning, especially compared to 2010 and even 2009. I let my work slack off with moving to Portland 2010 and getting married and other major life stuff.

So I was not able to save as much this year as I would have liked. I also started investing back into my current business more and so the last few months Ive been going negative on my savings! Yikes. Hopefully only a few more months of that and I can start saving again.

Total Debt Jan 2012

(change from 2010 in parenthesis)

Student Loans: $7512.01 (-$841.99)
Mom Debt: $67,000 (-$20,000)
Total: $74,512.01 (-20,841.99)

Whats in store for 2012

Im hoping that 2012 will be a breakout year for my business to really start earning well again.

Other than that life has been pretty darn good.

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