Greetings all, I guess it’s about time to shut down this blog, Top Finance Blog. It’s been a nice run of 11 years and initially I had a lot of fun and made some nice money, but t… Read More

I’ve wanted an illuminated clock on my living room wall for the longest time. I’d hoped to buy it at a local store, but they didn’t have what I was looking for. After at le… Read More

You need to start budgeting your money. Most people hate when I and others say things like this but you know we’re telling the truth. No matter how good or bad the economy is, many peo… Read More

In June I hit the 17-year anniversary of working on my own. I’m a self employed consultant and a registered corporation, so I get tax breaks that some people don’t do. I’m… Read More

Americans are in a weird place as it concerns health care, especially the Affordable Care Act. One party’s trying to kill it for the nearly 30 million people that signed up for it last… Read More

Let’s face this fact; there are a lot of jobs that have been eliminated that just aren’t coming back. Nope, nada; it ain’t happening. Let’s face another fact; manufac… Read More

If you are a nurse or a trained technician that works in a hospital or clinic and you’re getting tired or bored because of what you deal with daily, there’s an option you might c… Read More

The first car I bought was a new car, and for 19 years all I ever considered were brand new cars. There’s something pristine about a new car that I thought would be missing if I even c… Read More

I’ve belonged to a wholesale warehouse club store for nearly 20 years. Over that time, I’ve saved a lot of money, so I really can’t complain about much. With that said, I h… Read More

I am an independent consultant in my real life. I consult in a few different areas that I’m not going to fully get into here. If you’d like to learn more about me than I might ha… Read More

A common question asked about collection agencies is how long they have to collect on a debt. The simple answer is they can try to collect as long as they want to. After that answer, the tru… Read More

In the early years of this blog I wrote about Bernard Madoff and his Ponzi scheme a few times, since it was the major financial news at the time. Now that Madoff has been sent to jail for at… Read More

In the world of personal finance, you’re usually trying to do one of two things. The first is finding ways to make your money go further when it comes to buying things and paying bills… Read More

At the present time I’m trying to sell my mother’s house, since she’s moved in with us. Even in a seller’s market, we seem to be having some difficulties getting a lo… Read More

There’s nobody left who doesn’t believe solar energy is a good thing for the environment. The main problem is that the cost of solar, even with tax incentives, is still too costl… Read More

On this blog we’ve addressed the topic of home warranties a couple of times, with the other post talking about the pros and cons of having one. We’ve never addressed warranties i… Read More

At some point in your life you’re going to have to deal with a hospital bill. If you’re lucky it’ll be for an outpatient service like lab work or an x-ray instead of needin… Read More

When you’re trying to figure out where your money’s going, your first step should be to create a budget. However, setting a budget is only one piece of the puzzle. The strange pr… Read More

I have to admit something; I never wanted a house. I’d lived in apartments or townhome like structures most of my life, and I was content with that type of living. True, I never had a… Read More

I remember when I started working for myself many years ago that I went into it thinking I was going to need the same office supplies that I had in my office at the job. I purchased, in volu… Read More

Some years ago I wrote a post talking about grocery shopper’s cards and the great savings you can get from them. Even though I’m not someone with a pattern of going to lots of d… Read More

Our government officials, both state and federal, are bashing each other on the heads while trying to change health care, dealing with debt limit increases or reductions, looking at unemploy… Read More

We’re in the process of evaluating whether or not we should sell my mother’s home since she’ll no longer be living there. I’ve only ever owned one home and it’s… Read More

None of us wants to think about our future; we want to live for the here and now. However, the here and now is what we need to think about because we’ll find the future upon us quicke… Read More

How well do you track your spending habits? I ask that question because a great number of people have absolutely no idea how or where they spend their money. This ends up with folks looki… Read More

I struggled with the topic for this post because there are different types of financial counseling one might need, yet it would involve more than one person typically. The truth is that mos… Read More

CNN once did a news story on people who have been scammed by fake insurance plans. In these cases, people who were in dire health straits would look on the internet, find someone purporting… Read More

My wife and I used to own a water softener. We bought it because our water is considered hard by water standards, and we feel this interesting film on our bodies after showers. We gave it u… Read More

I’ve been self employed for almost 17 years. In the course of time, I’ve tried doing it all. It’s something that all of us naturally start off doing, but if you’re st… Read More

Stock trading is a tough game. Discipline, commitment and patience are what is required at the beginning of your journey. When you can control your actions and emotions, you will be on the r… Read More

This is something a little different. Over 6 years ago I wrote a post titled 5 More Things To Know About Buying A House. It was the follow up to an article I wrote for a client who owned a h… Read More

Back in November, I had something strange happen. I’ve had life insurance for a long while now, but for some reason I had more money taken out of my account than expected. I called my… Read More

This is normally a blog that talks about saving money and personal finance. Every once in a while I talk about spending money, mainly with two goals in mind. One, to get people thinking abou… Read More

When it comes to reducing debt, many people ignore the insurance line on their budget. They need insurance, so it becomes an untouchable expense with which they feel helplessly saddled. This… Read More

I recently redesigned my home office, which hadn’t been touched in just over 10 years. You might imagine that it cost a lot of money, and if I’d had the room and space and unlimi… Read More

We talk about debt all the time, in different ways. The country talks about debt as well. For years we heard about the debt President Bush left us in and the debt that President Obama has al… Read More

The truth is that overall 2016 was a great year financially, no matter what some people had to say. Unemployment was very low, the stock market thrived, fewer people lost their jobs from maj… Read More

Weddings can be really expensive; even us older guys know this. Most of the weddings I know of these days end up costing more than $10,000, and even if the newly married couple gets a lot of… Read More

Many times, when people are looking for ways to reduce their debt, they go looking for someone else to help them with their problems. The truth of the matter is that every person is capable… Read More

Every once in a while, one member of a married couple runs up a lot more debt than the other, sometimes even while just living together. This begs the question as to whether, in extreme circ… Read More

For some reason, there are a lot of people who are angry at the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Many of them believe it’s a burden on their freedom of choice, their wallets, and that their… Read More

The process of debt consolidation begins by taking a look at your outstanding debt. This is something every person or couple should do before considering going for some kind of debt consolid… Read More

I’m going to admit something. I’m not big on signing up for stuff, and it’s mainly because I hate giving too much information out to companies for fear that they’re e… Read More

A few months ago I talked about TSA PreCheck and the convenience of having it if you travel a lot, even if it’s not a money saving proposition. This time around we’re going to lo… Read More

About 3 years ago I wrote a post here recommending that people shop around locally for pharmaceutical deals and talked about some of my experiences. Based on a recent news story about the ri… Read More

The concept of paying bills automatically goes back a lot of years. In the past there was only one way of doing it, that being to set up a payment plan with whomever you needed to pay bi… Read More

On another blog, I wrote an article titled 7 Financial Issues To Discuss With Elderly Family Members. Although that article was specific to elderly family members, truth be told some of… Read More

A couple of years ago I was traveling a lot by airplane. During that 18-month period the federal government instituted something called TSA Precheck. In essence, it allows you go to thro… Read More

As the economy is still a little bit fragile, many couples waiting to get married are still trying to find ways to save some money on their wedding. They can get caught up in trying to s… Read More

As a disclaimer, this is actually a re-post of an article I wrote some years ago and had on a different blog. The focus of that blog isn’t financial, but I had that blog way before I… Read More

The Financial Times have released an online video featuring their US managing editor Gillian Tett, which goes into detail on 3 numbers which they believe summarize the current state of the… Read More

Too many people are struggling with debt that should be easy to control. Credit cards make buying things easy, and low payments make us feel like we’ve got full control. Mike Bitzen… Read More

For most purchases I’m not a “whim” type of person. There are only two instances where I will go for what I want without thought; food and movies. By movies, I mean purch… Read More

It’s rare that I put videos on this blog but I decided to make an exception this time around, so much so that there are 2 videos. This is something different and special and it revol… Read More

We keep hearing about people getting scammed out of their money by some strange means. The latest involves people getting calls from who they think is the IRS demanding money and immediate p… Read More

Taxes; we hate them, we fear them, and no one loves them. Even the federal government doesn’t love them, though it seems like they keep coming up with unique ways to impart them on us… Read More

I have been connected with Lauren Greutman of I Am That Lady for a couple of years but actually only met her in person last spring. She’s a lovely person and very talented and definite… Read More

Let’s face this fact; almost no one likes thinking about creating a will. Wills make people think of their own demise, and even if they probably have decades to go, just the thought of… Read More

One would think that I, being a health care finance consultant by profession, would know better. However, my learning a lesson becomes a teaching experience for you the next time you visit… Read More

As with any new undertaking, if you want to succeed at trading online you have to make sure that you have the right tools at hand. You need these tools in order to make the informed decisi… Read More

Many Americans eventually run into a problem in paying their federal taxes when they’re due. It can be because they didn’t have enough money taken out during the year or didn&r… Read More

Have you ever noticed that trying to live green, be eco-friendly, and use only organic products seems to cost so much? It seems strange that things cost more money when they have less addi… Read More

Do you remember your first bank account? Mine was when I was 8 years old. My parents gave me an allowance but I had to put $5 away each week into a savings account. This was back in the 60… Read More

Spread betting is an activity whereby you take a bet depending on the difference between the selling and buying price. The spread is the variance between the values and attracts more atten… Read More

The last blog post of 2015 here was related to finding ways to relieve financial stress. There are some pretty good tips in that post, if I say so myself (I do since I wrote it) but I didn… Read More

Years ago a study came out saying 61% of those who apply for bankruptcy have an outstanding medical bill including in their filing. Even with health insurance, sometimes people have medica… Read More

Let’s face the fact that the thing we stress over more than anything else relates to money. It’s always about money; do we have enough, too much (okay, I don’t know anyon… Read More

It’s been a while since I wrote about budgeting and credit cards. Throughout this post I’ll link to some previous articles on those subjects because they may lend more weight t… Read More

I’m a pretty loyal guy. When it comes to people I consider as friends, I’ll go to the ends of the earth to help them out of a jam. The caveat is if they do something that tests… Read More

As if payday loans weren’t bad enough to worry about, now there’s this thing called daily sports betting. The two monsters in the room right now are DraftKings and FanDuel, and… Read More

On this blog I not only try to help people save money but, when I can, I offer tips on how to make money, as well as warn of scams and such when they crop up. In this case, I want to addre… Read More

I’m about to drop some serious knowledge on you that you might not like. You know how much you get paid? Sorry to tell most of you but that’s exactly what you’re worth… Read More

The fact is that for almost every person there comes a time where you might have to consider getting some kind of personal loan. It might be for something like going to college or buying a… Read More

Last week I stopped at the local grocer to buy some foodstuffs, and decided I wanted to pick up some eggs. Imagine my shock when I saw that the cost of a dozen large eggs was $3.75. The la… Read More

When I was ready to go to college I had a big decision to make. I live in a city with a major university and that was the immediate dream choice. However, the price tag at the time was $16… Read More

I know what you’re thinking; technology and saving money? Absolutely! Who doesn’t use computers these days. Who hasn’t had an issue with their computer or laptop every on… Read More

Back in 2010 I wrote an article on this blog titled Should You Refinance Your Mortgage? At that time, the state of housing was in total disarray all across the country, so I only addresse… Read More

About three weeks ago I looked at my bank account online and noticed a charge from my business account that I immediately knew I didn’t make. I knew it wasn’t mine because it w… Read More

These days it seems I talk about Verizon a lot; at least in other spaces. Below you’ll see a video I did comparing Verizon FiOS to Time Warner, which is my most popular video to dat… Read More

Are you looking to spread your money out better while still being able to eat? I’m going to tell you how I prepare two specific types of meals that cost around $20 a week that allows… Read More

Decades ago investing in the U.S. market was the preferred option for those in other countries looking to maximize their wealth. Our country seemed pretty stable and growth looked like it… Read More

Whew, finally made it to the end! If today’s your first day here, you can check out this link to find out what’s been going on. There are 2 other posts from this week as well… Read More

This is the 3rd day of my posts this week on training programs I’m looking to put together. I skipped Wednesday because I didn’t want to overwhelm folks on this blog with all t… Read More