Jason Unger

Why I Track My Spending, Not Budget It

I’ve asked you before about how you manage your spending: do you budget it or track it? It’s a question that everyone can answer differently, but I’ve generally found that it falls along one path: if you’re starting out your financial journey, learning how to better manage your money and haven’t built the good habits […]

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Weekend Linkage: Buy and Hold, Overdrafts and the Internet Revolution

As we get into the middle of August and closer to the end of summer, we’ll start to get back into the swing of things. And as employment numbers “get better” — meaning less people are filing for unemployment — and the stock market ticks back up, perhaps brighter days are right around the corner. […]

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Ask the Readers: How Many Bank Accounts Do You Have?

As part of the Automatic Finances system, it’s necessary to have a number of different bank/investing accounts for your money. In order to better save for goals, every account you have needs a name: from your main checking account to your short-term savings to your long-term investment and retirement accounts. Sometimes, however, it’s easy to […]

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Best of Automatic Finances: July 2009

The good news keeps on coming for Automatic Finances: traffic statistics increased in July, while we added an additional contributor to the site and delved deeper into investing than we’ve done before. We also added our first “in-depth” reporting piece on a relatively new player in the space, SmartyPig (“Inside SmartyPig: The Social Saving Platform“). […]

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7 Easy Ways to Save $100 or More Today

Saving money isn’t hard. I know, I know — it’s easy to say, but it’s much harder to actually do it. Thankfully, you’re likely spending money on things you don’t need to be, or overpaying for them. You can save a lot of money making a few small changes — today! If you do any […]

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Weekend Linkage: Bad Habits, Automatically Poor, and the Recession

While things are looking up in this economy — the Dow hits 9000, housing sales are up and companies are reporting better-than-expected results — it’s still tough out there. Some are even suggesting that we’re only in the first third of the recession. But just because times are difficult doesn’t mean you can’t do better […]

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How to Be Lazy (And Succeed in Money Management)

Let’s be honest: most of us would love to spend less time worrying about our money. Maybe you’re not a procrastinator at heart, but when it comes to managing your money, you can succeed by being lazy and doing less. I’ve talked at length about why investing is a lazy man’s game: buy index funds, […]

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Ask the Readers: Do You Invest in Active or Passive Funds?

We’ve been focusing a lot recently on investing, with the basics of assets like ETFs, trading vs. investing and even hedge funds. With the stock market essentially on sale right now, it’s a great time to be investing — but it obviously matters what you’re buying. I’m a big fan of index funds, especially since […]

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Ask the Readers: How Big is Your Emergency Fund?

Having an emergency fund is one of the first steps to setting yourself up for financial success. When you find yourself with a legitimate emergency — unemployment, unexpected medical bills or family issues — knowing that you can pay can be one of the most assuring feelings, especially in a time of turmmoil. Generally, personal […]

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Where’s Your Paycheck Going?

You may know where your money is going, but how does it compare to the average consumer? There’s a fascinating look the average U.S. Consumer unit expenditures, using figures from the Dept. of Labor. Check out the chart below (via Visual Economics). Click it for a full-size version.

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Weekend Linkage: Creating Wealth, FSAs and Your Home

Like a few weeks back, this Weekend Linkage has no theme, except that each story is interesting and should save (and make) you some money. That sounds pretty good. Maybe that’ll be the theme: saving and making money. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here are the stories. At MSN Money, tax […]

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