Do you get your bills and pay them without taking a second glance?  What if your bill is higher than normal?   Do you just assume it's your fault and pay it? My mother came to live with me recently. She's very ill and can't live at her home but she is still paying the utility bills.  She's also still paying for her rental washing machine. I wrote about that in 2008, and now the machine is sitting there unused. Well,… Read the rest

Handling money in relationships is so tricky – money issues are one of the leading causes of divorces, and yet all too frequently, a completely neglected topic of discussion in relationships until there is a tangible, major problem.  But this post isn’t a soapbox on communicating in relationships about money, it’s about what happens when one side handles it more than the other.  My question is: When one partner in the relationship controls the money, could it be ever be… Read the rest

Bargaineering contributor Claes Bell recently explored this question in a post called Your Take: Could You Live On Food Stamps? Claes linked to a report at CBS News which stated that benefits were being reduced: [On Friday, November 1st, ] “…Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits are set to fall for more than 47 million lower-income people — 1 in 7 Americans — most of whom live in households with children, seniors or people with disabilities. Barring congressional intervention,… Read the rest