Our society doesn’t hate debt - but it should.  If not for our own sake as adults, then we should for the sake of our children. Kids are growing up completely immersed in marketing.  It is pervasive on every website, embedded in movies and television, not to mention al...

Have you ever gotten an unexpected check in the mail? Let’s say it was for $50. It’s exciting to get surprise money You might think, “I’m going out to dinner, I have $50”, and “I’m getting a new shirt, I have $50”, and “I can afford tickets to the concert, I have $50.”...

I haven't blogged in a while because we've been swamped with living the good life: All-Star Baseball tournaments for my studly 8 year old and a family trip to Washington DC. I expected to have a lot of patriotic themed blog ideas after all that coolness - but t...

Before FPU I would have said that I kept a budget. Every month I had an idea roughly how much we needed to spend.  I would balance our checkbook and then find out where our money went. But every year we spent more than we made.  We developed a pattern of hoping for a t...

The truth about what credit companies think of you! It's so true it's funny. But not really funny like they are laughing with you. The other type of funny.

...negative traction on their finances.  They were feeling like they would have a student loan until they died. In short, they were really discouraged. That was us too, four years ago. We never had much money in either the checking or savings account, and we had lots...

Have you ever been having a wonderful dream and then abruptly wake up because you realize that you overslept?  You missed your alarm and are now going to be late for an appointment or work? Do you remember how it made your heart race and your mind quail?  

Let’s sa...

FOMO: fear of missing out. Urban dictionary says it is an omnipresent anxiety brought on by our cognitive ability to recognize potential opportunities. I think a lot of FOMO is caused by comparison - comparing our life to what we see on social media posts, televisio...