Its never too early to look ahead to next year. With that in mind, I wanted to highlight the 2013 HSA contribution limits. As many of you know, weve been using our health savings account as an additional retirement investment vehicle. That is, weve been contributing to it and saving up the documentation related to our medical expenses, but not withdrawing the funds.

The only drawback has been that my employers HSA custodian has horrible investment options, so Ive been waiting for the money to reach a critical mass before transferring it to another custodian for investing. The good news is that my employer is switching custodians on July 1, so hopefully the investment options will be better (they cant be worse!) and I wont have to deal with transferring it myself.

Anyway… Back to the issue of contribution limits. In 2012, individuals can contribute $3,100 and families can contribute $6,250. I

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Many people think that the most difficult part of budgeting is creating the budget, but it is not.  It is much more difficult to stick to the budget once it has been created, especially if the budget is significantly different from how you have been spending without it.  If you are trying to get out of debt or considerably increase your savings, the best way to accomplish your goal is by following a well-made budget.  Here are some common problems you may face and how to overcome them.

Lack Of Motivation

If you are not motivated to follow the budget, you will be doomed to failure.  Budgets that are unnecessarily harsh or made under duress have a high rate of failure because subconsciously you will rebel against the budget and sabotage your success.  You have to believe in your heart that you can make your budget work for you for your budgeting to be successful. Sett

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My job is requiring me to move to a new town. So, my wife and I are faced with what seems to recently be the newest typical American family dilemma. What should we do with the home that we bought almost four years ago? While it can be hard to figure out whether to buy or rent a home in the first place, homeowners can face a similar struggle when it is time to move.

Should you sell your house and possibly take a loss? Or, should you consider becoming a landlord, with all of the potential dangers that also entails? There is not always an easy, cut-and-dried answer to this question. Here are a few things to consider whether to sell or rent out your home.

I happen to live in an area of the country that hasnt suffered as much as other regions during the housing crisis. While new mortgages may be hard to come by and builders have drastically slowed their new home construction projects, home values in my area of the southeast have remained flat.

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Getting out of debt is becoming the goal of a large percentage of the population as more and more people find themselves facing difficulties due to their financial situation.  Many households are having trouble coping with the downturn in the economy, a decline in their ability to obtain credit, and the disappearance of any equity that they had in their home, which is causing them to recognize just how deeply in debt they are.  People finding their credit cards maxed out and no other financing options available can find it very difficult to extract themselves from their situation, but by following a few simple steps, you can reduce your debt by a significant amount within a matter of months and rescue your finances from certain disaster.

Believe That You Can Reach Your Goal

The first step in your financial rescue plan is believing that getting out of debt is possible.  The process may be difficult but getting out of debt can be accomplished.  You have to be able to stick to your financial rescue plan long enough to eliminate your debt and to do that, you have to believe that the plan will work.  It will take time to produce results, but signs that the plan is working will appear quicker than you think.

Stop Creating Debt

The hardest part of any financial rescue plan designed to get you out of debt is changing your spending habits to stop creating more debt.  Every dollar spent on other items is a dollar not going towards paying off debt.   If you are going to accomplish your goal of debt elimination, you will have to keep that in the front of your mind at all times.  Determine where unnecessary purchases are occurring in your life and cut them out of your budget.  This is one of the fastest ways to reduce your monthly expenses so that you can pay off excessive debt.

Save For An Emergency

Having to borrow money, either through credit cards or from a loan, to pay for a financial emergency is the most common reason that people begin to drown in debt.  Having savings available to use in these situations will give the person more options for managing the issue and reduces the chances that the person will have to use their credit card or take out a loan to handle the situation.

Governments act in the name of the people that they serve. Whilst nobody is actually suggesting that the vast debts that most governments have accrued in our name were in any way fraudulent, the average man on the street feels (understandably) that the problems of sovereign debt are not of their making. This has led to a very significant disconnect between the people and the governments elected to serve them and has manifested itself in the fall of governments and/or leaders in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy. So far, the greatest expression of popular anger at the situation that people on the sharp end of austerity measures find themselves in has been in Greece which has seen rioting, destruction of property and even loss of life.

The same governments which regularly admonish citizens to “live within their means” and avoid excessive personal debt have been putting things on the slate for years, amassing huge debts which attract very substantial interest payments to service them. All

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For the first time ever, student debt is poised to exceed credit card debt in total volume, highlighting the fact that more students than ever are using loans to finance their higher education.  The increase in student debt has prompted many to take another look at student loans and similar types of financial products and reevaluate their value to society.  There are some common myths about student debt that continue to circulate, but these myths can be easily dispelled with some general information about student debt.

Myth 1 Student Debt Isn’t Worth It

The number of college graduates without jobs in the current economic environment has caused many to question the value of a college education.  What these people fail to take into account is that the unemployment percentage for individuals without a college degree is much higher.  The cost of college tuition is high and student debt is expensive, but people that have a college degree still make more money and have the better employment prospects than those without.

Myth 2 Student Debt Is Bad Debt

The current popular mantra is all debt is bad debt and that debt should be avoided at all costs.  However, the cost of higher education can be too high for many students to pay for without debt.  Many of the jobs that would pay enough for a student to cover their entire annual tuition are full time positions, leaving the student with little time for their studies and increasing the chances that they will drop out before completing their degree.  Many student loans have reasonable repayment terms that give the student time to find a job once they have graduated before they must begin repaying the losn.

Myth 3 – College Graduates Are The Only Ones That Worry About Student Debt

People that have graduated college are not the only people that have student debt to worry about.  Many of the people that started college but never finished their degree also have student debt that they must repay and they often don’t have jobs that pay as much as college graduates earn, making repaying their student loans more difficult.  People that have dropped out of college are four times more likely to default on their student loans than those that have earned a degree.