Personal Finance and Investing

**This summer, we’re excited to present “Community Karma,”a weekly series featuring people just like you sharing their financial stories, personal money tips, how they over overcame hardships, and more!**

Jessica Reeder was living in the Bay Area with a comfortable job, car and nice apartment. By all societal standards, she was doing well.

But something was missing. Jessica wanted to write for a living, and she longed for a simpler, more sustainable life. So she took drastic measures: she got rid of her car and all of her possessions and set out to backpack around the U.S. for a

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Every day, the news about the economy seems to be getting worse and people across the world are concerned that they will be personally affected by the changes. In many cases, they already are when you consider how the cost of living has gone up, gas prices that seem to have no ceiling and continued natural disasters that threaten the stability of many areas.

There are many ways to stay financially solvent in bad economic times, and although it may not be easy for some, it can be done. The most important step is to curtail unnecessary spending, but this does not need to mean unyielding frugality, particularly if you manage your finances wisely.

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Update: I have a more general post on public sector pensions at False Economy

David Camerons speech to the Local Government Association on public sector pension reform has been endorsed by Channel 4 Newss generally admirable Fact Check blog. Yet they only test one statement:

I can look you in the eye and say public service pensions will remain among the very best… much better, indeed, than for many private sector workers. ”

This is simply a statement of the bleeding obvious. Fully two out of three private sector workers get no pension help  from their employer. Any

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