My wife started her first semester of classes this fall on her way towards a Ph.D. One of the best things about a Ph.D., besides the degree, is that candidates are paid to go to school. The salary...

Think back to elementary school, can you remember how many times your school had a fire drill? They were never announced ahead of time, the bells just rang, everyone got up, lined up, and left the building in an orderly fashion. Everyone knew what th...

When you think of prepaid cell phones, what do you think of? If you’ve watched The Wire on HBO, a gritty drama about life in Baltimore, you associate them with drug dealers. If you were a fan of...

Whenever someone talks about frugal expenses, Netflix always seems to be the popular example held up as the sacrificial lamb to the frugal gods. I think it’s a popular target because it’s so easy...

Yesterday, the Department of Commerce reported that the annualized GDP (gross domestic product) grew to 3.5% in third quarter. This is significant because, by definition, a recession is two...

All too often we go through our lives spending a little here, a little there. We make these purchases automatically because they can be so small and so routine that we forget we even make it. A lot of these things are habits, like smoking, or they’re...

If you’re an American Express cardmember, you probably recognize the annual mailings from American Express about their cardmember gifts. They usually send out a couple of these types of offers each year and if you’re like, many of them go into the...

One of my friends absolutely loves his Penn State-branded American Express card (I think it’s a “skinned” AMEX Blue card) because he gets to earn “points” towards various Penn State-related products and services. An example is the annual Alumni...

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