All The Simple Dollar

If you think you want to buy a home, you should first consider how long you plan to stay in the area. If you think you might move again in the next few years, it's a better plan financially to simply rent, as the first five years are the hardest for building up equity.

With financial stability, often comes a renewed focus on the more important things in life: friends, family, happiness. And in turn, appreciation of these intangibles pushes us to build a a life that can be fulfilling without excess monetarily.

Sleep is a wonderful thing. But it also keeps humans rested, and rested humans think more rationally, including when it comes to fiscal matters. Sleeping more can help you stay productive at work and even prevent against those pesky impulse purchases.

If you want to save money and enjoy some of the benefits of drinking water, our personal finance expert has a simple suggestion. Drink the daily recommended number of glasses, while also replacing half of your other beverages with the free, healthful alternative. 

So you bought a Kindle, but now don't want to pay a lot of money to fill it with books. As usual, our personal finance expert has a solution to your problem. He's compiled a list of 28 free books that are both economical, and enjoyable.

When it comes to giving your kids a financial boost, consider: are they are they in a position where they would be able to thrive without the cash, or working to put themselves into that position?

Having a slow cooker makes having a low-cost, healthy meal on the table every night a breeze. Here's how to make using a slow cooker work best for you.

A change in your food habits that leads to a well-balanced and relatively low calorie diet will pay dividends both in your immediate food bill but also in your personal energy level, and appearance.

Movie theater concessions are expensive. On the other hand, when you buy a ticket, you are agreeing to the vendor's rules, which include no outside food. Movie theater food ethics are addressed in question 8 of this week's mailbag.

Exercise can be a hard habit to pick up alone. When faced with a difficult lifestyle change, a partner can be a great asset.

Finding sensible ways to minimize your trash will leave you with extra money in your pocket.

'Cost per use' is the idea that the value of an item is directly related to how much use you get out of it. The more use you get from an item, the more you should expect to pay for it. The 'sweet spot' of a purchase, then, is the one that has the most uses for the cost.

From getting stains out of carpet to deodorizing the garbage disposal, you'd be hard pressed to find a cleaning problem either baking soda or vinegar can't fix.

For each name-brand product you usually buy, try the  generic version at least once. More often than not, you won't notice the difference.

You probably can't get everything you need at a discount grocery store, but you can get most of your items for the week at a much lower price. Save the higher-end places for fresh produce and specialty items.

Calculate the worth of jobs benefits. But don't let them stand in the way of career advancement.

Joining a community-supported agriculture group can save you lots of money in vegetables, if you can use lots of vegetables week to week.

Coffee, soft drinks, and other beverages can drain thousands of dollars from your annual budget.

Factor in employee costs, taxes, and extra time and a $25-an-hour job turns out to pay less than $12 an hour.   

In five years, our personal finance expert and his wife paid off all their debts: some $280,000 all told. It wasn't easy. The family had to make very real and sometimes frustrating sacrifices, but the effort was completely worth it.