Written by Ben Gran

The weekend’s coming. You’re looking for something to do on the town. Maybe a nice time out with your family, maybe a hot date. Whatever the case, chances are you’ll be eating out.

If you’re trying to improve your personal finances and also live a healthier lifestyle, the best place to start is at the dinner table. The old saying “You are what you eat,” is also true for your personal finances. Saving money and eating healthy are often two sides of the same coin.

Read the full post on Eating out? Dine more wisely….

Every New Year is a time for reflection and renewal. Each January 1st presents us with a clean slate and a chance to make changes in our lives. This is why people make New Year’s Resolutions – whether it’s to lose weight, exercise more, improve their diet, get a new job, or tackle some long-term challenge that they’ve been delaying for too long.

If you want to make some changes in your personal finances, perhaps it’s time to consider making some New Year’s resolutions for how you relate to money.

Here are a few ideas to help make 2012 a more prosperous year:

Read the full post on New Year’s Resolutions for your Personal Finances.

Our Chief Marketing Officer, Brian Macias, gives us the rundown on what Term Life and Whole Life Insurance is, and how people should go about choosing which is best for them.

Before you take out a loan, you should make sure that you understand the true cost of the loan. Depending on various factors, the total cost of your loan as well as the monthly payments could fluctuate throughout the term. Understanding the numbers that go into calculating this figure can save you from paying more money than you originally intended.

The loan cost is the total of the interest, closing costs and various fees in addition to the amount that you borrow. Consider the following scenario. Someone borrows a $100,000 loan with a static interest rate of 6 percent and agrees to pay it back over the course of thirty years.

Read the full post on Understanding the true cost of a loan.

by Guest Poster, Lacey Cook

There are so many people writing books and publishing articles to tell others about how they can achieve financial success, but very few actually follow their advice.

This country is in an economic crisis, and too many people have no financial education what so ever. Many have bad habits that they learned from their parents, and they will continue to pass on these poor financial decision making habits to their children unless they do something to stop it. The following are a few guidelines that can help you achieve financial success by making small changes in your lifestyle.

Read the full post on Keys to Financial Success that are Often Ignored.

Managing multiple financial accounts and services can be overwhelming can be maddening. Keeping track of all your bank statements, receipts, bills, online payment accounts, and all the rest can be tiresome. One helpful option is to log into your bank or credit union’s site, which gives you a run-down on your money and where it’s coming in and going out.

But let’s face it; managing your money this way is going out of style. Getting paper bills through the mail, constantly checking Amazon and Netflix to make sure payments were made, worrying about suspicious account activity, fumbling through receipt after receipt; it’s all very slow, non-organic, and archaic.

Read the full post on Money-Managing App “Mint” Helps You Take Control of Your Finances.