How can I pay off debt and save at the same time?

I recently received this email from a reader:
My husband and I have a lot of debt, including student loans with a pretty low interest rate and about $5,000 in credit card debt from our recent wedding. But I still want us to be saving–I feel nervous without building up a nest egg. It’s totally paradoxical to try [...]

In praise of index funds

Wow, it’s been a rough week in the market, hasn’t it? My IRA is now down 35 percent. Even VDC, the consumer products ETF I bought a couple weeks ago, is down 15 percent.
And we sure picked a bad time to start playing around with buying individual stocks. Except for RQI, a real estate ETF [...]

The credit crisis hits home

First, the good news: Jon got in to business school! He’ll be doing a part-time MBA program at a top school starting this January. And he can still work full time, which makes it a much easier financial decision. The bad news, of course, is the price tag: $10,000 per semester. And then there’s the fact that [...]