Household

Only Buy New Furniture When You Are Ready To Settle Down

Although it may be tempting to buy nice expensive furniture when you first set out on your own, this may not be the best idea.  New furniture can be very costly, and you need to consider how long you are actually planning on living in that place, not to mention that town or city.  The more new stuff you buy, the more it will tie you down.  Owning a lot of “stuff” tends to complicate life more than you might expect.

A friend of ours, who has done a lot of travelling and working around different parts of the world, shared with us recently how she regretted her decision to buy brand new leather couches.  Due to her frequent moves, she has been burdened with having to move her furniture along with her.  She knows that if she were to try to sell it, she would never recover her costs, but the moving costs have amounted to almost half of what she has paid for the furniture to begin with.

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General

Should I Lease Or Buy A Car?

It is the age old question, do you lease or buy?  It is a thought that comes across most of our minds when we are looking for homes or cars. Big questions emerge such as; will I pay more to lease it? Wouldn’t I want to own it outright if I am making a monthly payment on the car? What exactly are the perks when leasing a car? Those and many more questions should be addressed before you sign your name on the dotted line.

Alright, let’s be honest.  Who really enjoys stepping onto a car lot and getting bombarded by pushy, aggressive sales people? Even if you mentally prepare yourself for the challenge ahead, you can never fully understand all the curve balls that come your way.  Sure, you start with the fun part – the test drive!  You feel the leather under your hands, enjoy the new car smell, and play with all the gadgets on the dash board, but you know what is to come.  The minute you step out of the car here it comes.  PAPERWORK!  Be prepared because they are going to want to know just about everything.  You’ll also have to contend with those three little numbers that mean so much to our society… the credit score.

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General

What Should You Do With Extra Money?

Imagine you just received an unexpected gift of money, won a lottery, or your business did much better than expected.  Suddenly you have extra money that you need to decide what to do with.   What do you think you would do with it?

The answer will be different for everyone as we all have different ideas for what to do with extra cash.  Due to our unique situations in life, it might make more sense for some of us to pay down debt, while others should be topping up their emergency fund a bit more.  Still others might be wise to invest in the stock market or start up that business project they’ve always wanted to work on.

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Book Reviews

Vagabonding Is Not Just For The Rich

Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts

For those of you who are interested in doing some extensive traveling, whether it be in your own country or overseas, I would recommend that you read Vagabonding by Rolf Potts.  It’s an easy book to read and contains some really great tips about what to do and not to do while traveling.  He provides advice on what to bring with you, which is as little as possible.  He also advises on places to avoid, things to look out for, scams to be aware of, etc.  His book is chock full of resources and other suggested books to read to become a fully informed traveler.

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