20 questions that your financially unprepared friends are afraid of

Note: In many cultures, you would be considered a huge jackass for asking these questions out loud.

1. How much money do you spend each month?
2. Where does it go?
3. Where do you want it to go?
4. Are you rich?
5. What does rich mean to you?
6. Hey, how’d you pay for that iPhone?
7. How much do [...]

The first post of 2009 — How to dominate your personal finances

This year is going to be awesome. I can tell you this for sure, because this year we’re going to:

Learn how to automate your money — one of the most important parts of making sure you hit your money goals consistently
Have crystal-clear answers for the most common personal-finance questions: “Should I buy or rent?” [...]

10 links to walk you through today’s financial crisis — and make you smarter than 99% of other people

All right, guys. I’ve gotten lots of emails about what’s going on with the economy and bailout, so I thought I’d put together a list of the articles I’ve been reading over the last two weeks. I added my own commentary to them below, plus links to stuff I’ve written that agrees/disagrees with each of [...]

My 3-minute video response: What you can do about today’s economy

Yesterday a bunch of you left comments and sent me emails about what’s going on in the economy. Here’s a quick video I did to answer some of them. Check it out and see my notes below.

Worst screen capture ever?
0:01 — Intro: We’re going to talk about what’s happening with the economy, asking the right [...]

How to plan for disasters and personal finance — with social psychology

There’s a great article in last weekend’s New York Times Magazine on disaster preparedness, which I want to use to highlight the social-psychological reasons for why we behave the way we do.

Photo from e-strategyblog.com
Read the article closely and notice the parallels between preparing for a disaster and preparing for your financial future. They are eerily [...]

A fantastic book on behavioral psychology: Sway ($1,000 giveaway)

Note: There is a $1,000 giveaway at the bottom of this post.
Do you think you could tell the difference between a Coke and Pepsi?
Of course you do.
When I was an RA in college, my residents insisted they could, so I bought Cokes, Diet Cokes, Pepsis, Diet Pepsis, and a generic soda to test them. [...]