How bad your finances are is, at least partially, a matter of perspective. Sure, you don’t have any money left at the end of the month to put into savings. If you are so optimistic that you transfer a percentage of your paycheck into savings every payday, then you end up transferring it back into…

After introductory quotes from texts in Latin, Classical Greek, and Italian, T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Wasteland” begins, “April is the cruellest month.” It is true that April is not especially cuddly, but all of the months are cruel these days. It is as if the financial death toll of the Christmas holidays never ends. Chances…

When people meet with debt relief lawyers to discuss bankruptcy filings and other possible solutions to their debt problems, most of them tell a similar story of a debt problem that started gradually. Yes, there are people whose finances tanked suddenly after a personal disaster such as an injury or a divorce, but an even…

Economists seem to inhabit a world that bears little resemblance to the one where we toil incessantly in pursuit of our bread and butter. Our ordeal is just points on a graph to them, and from their bird’s eye view, it looks like the economy is doing great.  Economists rejoice that the unemployment rate is…

The loneliness of young adults is not only about devices, although the ubiquitous smartphones certainly do not help us feel connected to the other people in our midst. Yes, you have a relationship with your parents; you go to their house to do your laundry, and you linger after the last pieces of clean clothes…

When you are living in challenging circumstances, every small victory counts. The fact that most people who buy lottery tickets have less employment income than they need to make ends meet surprises no one who has ever lived paycheck to paycheck. Winning a free lottery ticket is worth the price of the original ticket, if…

In the corners of the Internet dedicated to the debt-free lifestyle, people will tell you that you should never borrow money under any circumstances. People who manage to do this are relying in part on good luck. Who can own a house without taking out a mortgage loan?  Only people who inherited houses from relatives…

Reading the news can fill you with dread, and most Internet content is designed to play on your insecurities, even if they are of a personal nature, but you can also count on the Internet to find evidence that there are other people out there who are even more hopeless than you are. According to…

It is infuriating when old people give you outdated financial advice that makes it sound like your financial problems are all your fault. They tell you that you are wasting money by paying rent instead of a mortgage, but they do not have a plan for how you can qualify for a mortgage and get…

If you have accessed the Internet at any time in the past decade, you have probably found content about how people your age do not understand the financial struggles that young people are facing, and that you and your peers are unfairly blaming the young generation for their dismal financial situation. Now think about the…