It's a good book and I am very much in agreement with Bernstein's philosophies, but this book is also a bit of a slog. Not for beginners, and heavily focused on investing, not personal finance.

This (or an earlier edition) was one of the first books I read 12-13 years ago and it helped spur my transition into full personal-finance-geekdom. Great resource for beginners.

I would second this book. It's a straightforward, simple, sustainable system that is difficult to achieve, as it should be. It's heavily research based. I agree wholeheartedly with ohyegads' recommendation post.

I do this exact thing...take our average annual spending in a category (gas, electric, natural gas, water) and budget for that each month. If we end up spending less, I'll roll it into the next month. Then there's always enough money for the peak spending season in a given category - like water in the summer, natural…

Re: EverBank...read my post closer. I didn't say EverBank changed its ATM reimbursement minimum balance for everyone. I said when I inquired, they waived the $5,000 minimum balance requirement for me specifically. So if another customer inquires, they might do the same for them.

Absolutely, you could need the app on your phone. I use Twitter a lot so I want it on my phone. But I use it frequently enough that I don't need it to push notify me when I get a notification. I'll get the notification when I get into the app.

By push notifications I assume you're talking about noise or vibration, not simply the blinking light or icon that you only notice if you look?

I agree with this. At one point years ago (and perhaps this is still the case) all the personal finance experts suggested either two checking accounts (his and hers) or three (his, hers, and joint). Then you agree on how to split the bills and each has his/her own spending money to do what they want with.

I'm an EverBank customer. I recently inquired as to why I need to have a $5,000 checking balance to qualify for ATM reimbursement when, naturally, I would want to keep the bulk of my money in a money market account to earn a higher interest rate (though to be fair with crappy rates these days the difference is…

Do some cursory homework on what you're going to need to retire, and commit to that savings level from day one. This need not be extensive - it can be as simple as gathering consensus from personal finance experts about the percentage you need to save (15% seems to be a pretty agreed-upon figure). Then do it, and…

Love me some Kirk Ferentz.

Honestly, motivation isn't a hard problem for me. The single most impactful thing I've done is to learn about what people's typical financial weaknesses are and develop mechanisms to avoid them. For example, some people have trouble committing to saving $X or X% for retirement because there's always something else to…

We save the equivalent of 20-21% of our net income each year. This includes employer matching funds and is spread across two 401(k)s (one of which has a Roth option) and two Roth IRAs. We also have a rollover/traditional IRA, but that is from a past job change and we don't actively contribute to it.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you here Kristin, but I view these as two separate things. The question here is how you budget when your income varies. Which I interpret to mean as, "How do you account for income when you don't know for sure what your income will be?" That's how I answered above - I use the bare minimum…

My wife and I are both salaried now, but once upon a time she was a nurse with a varying income due to a schedule that changed week-to-week plus shift differentials, etc. I budgeted around the bare minimum that we could count on, then everything above and beyond that was gravy - to pay down debt, buy that something…

Other feel it's their responsibility to fund their children's education, and their children should in turn pay it forward to their children. It's an individual choice.

Your friends' lives have changed. And I mean that from a simple logistical standpoint. Young kids are incredibly time- and energy-intensive. They no longer have much of either of those things to spare. Neither will you, if/when you have kids someday. This is pretty routine for parents.

Great summary. I was going to make the same points. The best part about having an IRA on the side is that you've got flexibility to move it around. I'm a Vanguard guy myself (no loads, low expenses) but say they jack up their expenses someday, I can move it. Any assets you've got in your employer's plan are stuck…

Absolutely agree. I'm in my mid-30s and I've been a personal finance geek for 15 or so years. I've read a lot of books and because I started young, my financial life has always been in good shape. I'd heard of Ramsey for years but never read/heard his work until a year or two ago when I downloaded an abridged version…

That's a valid point about keeping the flexibility of using those additional funds for something else (an emergency) until you've built up enough to wipe out the mortgage in full. That said, I would argue that you shouldn't be setting aside thousands of dollars over a period of months/years - either to pay down the…