Credit and Personal Finance Blog | Credit Karma

October 29th, 2012

Master Your Money in 1 Hour Per Month

Ramit Sethi is the New York Times best-selling author of the book I Will Teach You to Be Rich. In this three-part blog series, Ramit will teach us how to optimize our finances. This week: How to Master Your Money in 1 Hour Per Month.

How many experts have you heard tell you to “keep a budget”? Why don’t they ever acknowledge that almost nobody keeps a budget consistently?

After all, why would we? Keeping a budget makes us feel bad about our purchases. Even worse, it’s backwards-looking, which means we simply look at our spending, shrug, and say, “I guess I spent that much.”

“Keep a budget” is the kind of advice personal-finance writers love to write…but few people actually follow.

On my blog, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, I spent years developing a system and testing it with hundreds of thousands of readers.

Today, I’ll show you the actual system, which will help you automate your money so it goes where it needs to go — to savings, investment, and even guilt-free spending. You’ll be in total control, but using this system, you can spend less than 1 hour/month on your finances.

Continue Reading | 6 Comments | | |

October 17th, 2012

Living in an Instant Gratification Society

Have you gone out for coffee recently and used an iPhone app to pay for it? How about sending a text message to a cab company to send a car to your exact location? There’s no doubt about it, we are now living in an instant gratification society. Phones come as fully loaded as a laptop and just about anyone can go through a drive through to not only get food, but to get coffee, a car wash, or who knows what else. Having everything we want and need at our fingertips can only be a good thing, right? Not necessarily...

Continue Reading | 2 Comments | | |

July 27th, 2012

More Consumers Creating Budgets for Back-to-School Shopping – from Chase Slate and Blueprint

Looks like we're getting smarter when it comes to back-to-school shopping. Chase Slate with Blueprint released its third annual survey findings on how shoppers are managing their back-to-school spending and borrowing.

Continue Reading | No Comments | | |

November 23rd, 2011

Black Friday 2011: Deals, death and other reasons for and against braving the crowds

It’s the most thrilling day of the year for avid shoppers. It’s Black Friday, and it’ll be here in just a couple of days. The way I see it, there are reasons for and against braving the stores this Friday. Let’s take a look at both.

Continue Reading | No Comments | | |

November 14th, 2011

Cyber Monday 2011: Tips From Personal Finance Bloggers

Is it too early to be talking about holiday sales? That’s not what your local mall thinks. Every retailer in America has been planning for the largest online shopping day of the year since sales passed the $1 billion mark last year. That’s right; Cyber Monday will be here on November 28. In just two weeks, we’ll be powering up our PCs and Macs, armed with a credit card and—hopefully—a shopping list. We’ve put together a few quick tips to help you prepare for this epic online shopping day.

Continue Reading | 6 Comments | | |

November 12th, 2011

The Most Money I’ve Ever Spent

Here’s some financial advice we don’t hear enough: spend your money. The best financial motivation isn’t to focus on making, saving, or investing money—instead, focus on spending it. What could I have done with an extra windfall of cash? I could have spent the money paying down my credit card debt, made an extra payment on my loans, or pumped up my savings, like most financial blogs would advise. Instead, I decided to spend it, which makes it the most money I’ve ever spent at one time. It was, without a doubt, the right financial decision.

Continue Reading | 2 Comments | | |

October 14th, 2011

Holiday Shopping 2011 Do’s and Don’ts

It’s only October and many of you might still be searching for a Halloween costume. But the holidays will be upon us before you know it, and retailers will make sure we’re ready to shop with ads and offers starting right now.

Continue Reading | No Comments | | |

September 26th, 2011

Quick Ways to Save Time and Money in the Kitchen

I’ve written before about money-saving tips for the bathroom, but what about the other rooms in your home? Here are a few of my favorite time- and money-saving tips for one of my favorite rooms: the kitchen.

Continue Reading | 1 Comment | | |

August 22nd, 2011

“High Stakes Sweepers”: Is Winning For a Living Too Good to Be True?

Move over, “Extreme Couponing.” There’s a new show in town, and it’s giving you a run for your money. Literally.

TLC’s latest reality show special, “High Stake Sweepers,” follows five individuals whose main hobby—and sometimes full-time job—is entering sweepstakes.

Continue Reading | 4 Comments | | |

August 2nd, 2011

“Are you going to pay with Hello Kitty?”

My husband and I share a very special joint banking account. We call it Hello Kitty because our joint account debit cards feature the likeness of that Sanrio sweetheart with the pink bow.

While we have our own separate accounts as well, we opened Hello Kitty right before we got married and it gets a lot of action when we go out with friends.

Continue Reading | 4 Comments | | |