How to Fix Your Android Phone After Mobile ID Hijacks the Launcher + MORE

Over the last few weeks and months, there has been a lot of talk lately about pursuing your passion.  Some of my fellow bloggers have left their jobs or are thinking about leaving their jobs to pursue making money online and doing what they really enjoy.  I think this movement is awesome and I applaud them…

While most future homeowners know they need to save for a down payment, they often forget about closing costs. Closing costs are a broad category of items that you pay at the time you buy a home. They are called closing costs because you pay them at, you guessed it, the closing.
The bad news is that these expenses can add up to 2-5 percent of the sale price of the home…

It seems that everywhere I look I see people frivolously spending money. It honestly seems like money might be burning a hole in some peoples pockets with the frequency they spend it. Sometimes it is only small items like cups of coffee or bottled water, but sometimes it is larger purchases like cars or swimming pools…

Good morning Dinks. Today we are discussing our disposable income, or in some cases our not so disposable income. Sometimes peoples spending and savings habits are directly related to their income and sometimes peoples financial habits are related to an emotional or mental state. Have you ever made a purchase just because you were in the mood to spend money? Let me ask you another question, have you ever not purchased something that you really wanted just because you couldn’t bring yourself to spend money and watch your account balances go down?
I am sure that we have all been there – on both sides of the spending and saving fence…

Club Thrifty May Budget Review: Epic Fail
Club Thrifty – Stop spending. Start living.Good morning, peeps.  Welcome to our public shaming.  I have some good news and some bad news to share with you all.  I am proud and horrified by what went on around here during the month of May and I wanted to share as a way to hold ourselves accountable…

One of my goals for 2013 was to educate myself on home ownership and decide if buying a house was a good idea or not.  To that end, I read some books and spent a lot of time reading about home ownership online.  After all my research, I have come to the conclusion that home ownership may not be the best thing for me at this point…

Have you ever spent a lot of money on a product thinking that you’re making a good “investment” in a quality piece? You know, spending your money wisely on a high quality product that will last many years? I don’t usually associate quality with price, because I’ve found a lot of high quality products that are inexpensive…

Look at that picture at the top of the post and you’ll see three of the most important people in my life after Mrs. Frugal Rules. Cute, aren’t they? I’ll die for them, I’ll kill for them and I’ll do pretty much anything in between for them. If you have the privilege of being a parent, then I am sure you can relate…

Image via CrunchBase
I have been victim to Virgin Mobile hijacking my phone with their Mobile ID app twice now. The first time, I wound up doing a factory reset of my phone and reinstalling all of my apps. That was last month. Just two days ago, I discovered an app that I had forgotten to install. Yesterday, Virgin Mobile did it to me again…

The view from the lovely wine shop
My Husband and I will be celebrating our 10 year anniversary this Friday.   To celebrate we went away this past weekend and stayed in downtown Baltimore.
Clearly we had two goals with going away
1. Go far, far away from our darling children
2. Spend quality uninterrupted time together
Originally we had big plans lined up to celebrate this particular anniversary; we had a trip to South Carolina or NYC planned and budgeted accordingly…

Back in November of 2012, I wrote about my $40,000 worth of student loan debt. This was the total amount of student loans that I accumulated while I was getting my undergraduate and graduate degrees. When I wrote that post, I had hardly paid anything towards my student loans. Interest was slowing building up, but not that much, as most of my loans were still being deferred…

One of the best and worst parts of owning a small business for me has been employees. While some of them are a joy and make my life easier, a few of them have shown me the darker side of humanity. After 13 years, I sometimes think I’ve seen it all, and then, inevitably, I’m surprised again. If you are in charge of employees or might have a need to hire some to help your business in the future, I’ll share some tips I’ve leaned over the years…

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend (for those of you in the US). I have been super busy with being out of town and getting moved into our new house lately and I apologize for not posting as frequently as I normally do. I wanted to let you know that I have a guest post up on Modest Money today…

Not too long ago, I mentioned how my wife’s grandmother was not doing well, health-wise.  Well, she has since passed on.  She had a long life with a big, loving family, including numerous children, many grandchildren, and more than a few great-grandchildren (including my daughter, Elaine, as one of the newest ones)…

You never know what lies there in future. In the very next hour you may face a crisis and need some fast cash. This may be either for a medical emergency or for your kid’s college education. What will you do if you don’t have a health policy or emergency fund? Will you approach the … Continue Reading »

 
I hate to burst your bubble of hope, but there are no shortcuts to graduating college with no debt.  There is no magic lamp or flying carpet that will get you around debt.  It requires a lot of hard work and precision planning.
 
As a disclosure, I did not graduate free of student loans, but I was able to get by relatively clean and have learned a lot since graduating…

Ever since we signed our death pledge and moved into our new home, we have had the urge to upgrade our furnishings. I’m sure this is a common feeling when you move into a new home. In our case, the new house is much larger, has an extra bedroom, an extra full bathroom and most of the rooms are larger…