We started Control Your Cash for one reason:
Your relationship with money is almost certainly dysfunctional. You don’t know what you don’t know, probably because nobody ever taught you.
Fortunately, you can stop letting money act on you – and actually take charge of it.
We don't give patently obvious advice here, stuff like "spend less than you make." (Wow, what insight.)
Instead, we show you what pitfalls to avoid and what quiet opportunities to take advantage of. Spend a little time here and you’ll no longer have to pretend that you know what the S&P 500 is. Or whether a Roth IRA is better than a traditional one. You’ll understand the why, and the how.
And you’ll find that personal finance is a lot less complicated than you thought.
The Latest
Stupidity Before Bed, And After Every Meal
Kudos yet again to everyone’s favorite purveyor of pointless personal finance advice, Trent Hamm of The Simple Dollar. Our hero has discovered a groundbreaking new way to avoid the tartar and dental caries that have plagued mankind since we started walking upright. Tired of having a smile that looks like a truck drove through [...]
Our Appearance On The Suze Orman Show!
(Note: We deliberately waited a couple of weeks for this, hoping the hullabaloo would have subsided. It hasn’t. Also, even though we still have a few more posts scheduled for January, you can consider this our Financial Retard of the Month. No one else is going to top it.) Here’s the transcript of our recent television [...]
Carnival of Wealth, Explanatory Edition
Welcome back to another rousing edition of the only personal finance blog carnival worth reading, the Carnival of Wealth. Why should you read it? Well, you’re already here anyway – it seems pointless to get this far and not finish. Second, you get a cross-section of posts from around the personal finance, there’s that [...]
Greetings, ProBlogger Readers
(If you don’t read ProBlogger and are wondering what we’re talking about, this. And you should read ProBlogger, because it kicks.) Welcome to the only personal finance site that’s committed to helping you build wealth, if you’re willing to meet us halfway. Therefore, one of this site’s design features is that it’s the only site [...]
From the Archives
Control Everything But Your Cash
There’s an argument for being contrarian, and a solid one. A true contrarian would have emerged from the recent housing crisis not only unscathed, but rich. In its simplest incarnation, contrarianism means exactly what it sounds like: buy when everyone else is selling, and vice versa. The reason this doesn’t work when you follow it [...]
3 out of every 4 people reading this are idiots.
That means you, who’s looking forward to getting a tax refund on April 15. It might not be the dumbest thing you can do with your money, but it’s in the top 8. Congratulations, getting that check means you let the government (definitely federal, probably state) enjoy your money all year long, as your employer dutifully [...]
Nothing says “I love you” like the actual words
So say it. By talking, not by impoverishing yourself. It’s tough to determine whether Mothers Day or Valentine’s Day is the biggest crock of garbage on the retail liturgical calendar. After a few seconds of weighing this, we’ll go with Mothers Day. At least Valentine’s Day has been celebrated for centuries*. This isn’t an anti-capitalistic [...]
A Fun Comparison
Is it better to get cash back or airline miles when choosing a credit card? Let’s compare: Discover -1% cash back (5% on gas) -no annual fee -medical assistance -valuable document delivery American Express -1 airline mile for each $1 -$95 annual fee -online transfers to most frequent flyer accounts -extended warranty (doubles manufacturer’s warranty) [...]
