Tag: budget

Cooking Well in Hard Times: A Cookbook Author’s Tips for Stretching a Tight Budget—and Being Kind to Yourself

When Leanne Brown moved from Edmonton, Canada, to New York City to get a Master’s degree in Food Studies, she had no idea that her thesis would become a digital book that would go viral on social media, turn into a print edition so successful that she would be able to give thousands of copies…


Want to Get Your Name Out There With Zero Budget? Do What Chipotle Did

By Kevin Roddy As someone who has spent years working with many of the world’s great brands, I believe the most effective marketing comes from businesses that don’t have any money. Most brands with disposable bucks see marketing communication through the lens of putting their time and effort against those things that get loads of eyeballs….


How to Stop Inflation from Deflating Your Savings

No, you aren’t imagining things. Everything costs more than it did before, and these higher prices make it hard to balance the budget while saving and thinking about retirement. But you can stop inflation from deflating your savings! In April, the Bureau of Labor released the latest data from the Consumer Price Index (CPI), revealing inflation’s steady creep…


Building a Budget You Can Live With

One of the best ways to manage money is to create a budget. Not having one could mean that money is spent on trivial things, with nothing to show for it in the long run. A budget does not have to be complex to work—especially if you have never created one before. Here are some…


Washington’s Bleak Outlook

Commentary It makes for a depressing reading. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) anticipates that federal spending will continue to outstrip revenues. Historically large annual deficits will add to the nation’s already heavy accumulation of public debt so that by 2032, outstanding government debt held by the public will rise to 110 percent of the nation’s…


California’s ‘Close Enough for Government Work’ Budget

Commentary It’s hard to believe I first started writing about California budgets in 1987, now 35 years ago. In those days, it still took a two-thirds vote in both houses of the state legislature to pass a budget, instead of simple majorities as today after Proposition 25 passed in 2010. And Republicans then still held…


Become a Budget Master with These 6 Tools

Financial management, whether you’re trying to run a business or balance your own accounts, can be intimidating. And it’s only become more complicated in recent years because we use so many different payment modalities. Gone are the days of balancing a checkbook. Instead, many people are tracking funds across multiple P2P platforms and debit and…


Ardern Government Unveils Unprecedented Spending in 2022 Budget

The New Zealand government has revealed its 2022 budget on May 19, with a focus on relieving cost-of-living and record health investment. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the government had set out to give people as much certainty and security as possible in the budget. “That is what we have set out to do in…


Newsom Budget Revision Based on Delusions

Commentary This really is Fantasyland. The projected “surplus” in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget for fiscal 2022-23, which begins on July 1, is $97.5 billion. That would be more than the entire general fund budget for 2012-13, which was $96.6 billion. Just a decade ago. At his press conference, Newsom said, “You’ve never seen a…


Taking Baby Steps to Build Savings

Financial education almost never makes it to the top of a Millennial’s list of interesting topics. Just as previous generations in the age group of 25-40, today’s young adults often dismiss money management and financial knowledge as tedious, uninspiring, or simply too complex to spend time on. Especially for the younger members with more modest…