“The Week in Review: Money Issues” is my weekly blog research on financial topics that define us as Americans, and shape the way we should do business.

It’s moving day (I really always hated moving day, to be quite honest)!

And before you start telling me how it’s so easy to hire a moving company, let me interrupt you with a “Not as long as I have both my hands and legs!” Really, I got myself into this mess (I’m a hoarder, my wife would say … I use the term collector. LOL) so I better be man enough to dig myself out of it! Let me just say this, however … “Hey dumpster divers, 3100 S Dixie Highway, Boca Raton, Florida! Lots of good stuff!” She made me get rid of the entire living room set and a ton of other knick-knacky, beachy sort of things (sorry surfers … I’m keeping the boards!). Well, it’s all in the moving truck now, and ready to go to a new home …

Here goes some great reading material that I dug up for you this week … enjoy while I bust my butt unpacking all this heavy stuff: Read the full article

Do you like to spend more than you make?

Well, you’re not alone by any stretch of the imagination! Spending more money than you earn happens to be a very common practice in the U.S., and the world is quickly following our lead (note: this is not a good thing). Credit card companies have oversimplified the loan process so much that it truly forces debt-laden borrowers to show a lot of self-discipline when it comes to overspending money that’s isn’t even earned yet. This is a super difficult task, but it is only the first, and most critical, step for most people if they ever want to reach financial freedom. Just as there is more than one way to quit smoking cigarettes, there are many, many ways to start spending less than one earns.

Listed below are the three steps that I had to take a long time ago (which, by the way, led me to where I am financially[read: in a very good place]): Read the full article

There’s a lot of talk about global warming lately, and I’d like to add my own two cents!

For starters, there are obviously two different streets one could walk down, but let me say this: there are super-rich people living on both of them, and they only got this way because they’re profiting off of the common American’s ignorance (note: I don’t mean the derogatory version of this word, and I’m definitely not calling all Americans stupid. It’s just that we have other s@#t to worry about, so we don’t have the time to uncover every little aspect of this very confusing subject. There are mouths to feed, and mortgage payments to make … “they” know this, and are seizing this golden opportunity to add the fear factor, without the masses being able to do much about it). It’s absolutely true, and this is the way I see it (in a nutshell …without a lot of research, because I also have other crap to do!)… Read the full article

I used to be a New Yorker (not a rude one) and was once taught a valuable lesson from a cab driver who goes by the name Donny.

While on the subject of how he keeps his cab (it was not company-owned) running in tip-top shape he told me, “Maintenance is about either paying for it now or paying for it later. Not conducting proper preventive maintenance has a huge impact because it is very cheap, relatively, to fix something early on with your own two hands (as opposed to taking it to a garage). If you break down on the road, it will usually cost you at least triple the repair cost at these highway bandit shops they’ll tow it to.”

“But, the focus should be on where to spend maintenance money,” he said, “because you can go broke by over-maintaining your automobile as well, so you’ll have to determine the key areas on the vehicle you need to maintain. Pay special attention to your brakes, followed by the tires, axle’s alignment, air and fluid filtration, the cooling system, batteries, transmission linkages, and all chassis and body fasteners.” I didn’t know what all this meant at the time; today, I broke down on the highway, and found out the hard way!

A few rules of thumb for preventative maintenance, you’ll need to stay on top of, are listed below (abide by them, and learn from my costly mistake): Read the full article