Consumer Action Handbook
First up is the 2010 edition of the Consumer Action Handbook. I’ve mentioned this book before, and I’ll mention it in the future. This book is from the Federal Citizen Information Center, that small department of the U.S. government in Pueblo, Colorado, which distributes free and low-cost consumer publications.

The 2010 Consumer Action Handbook is a 172-page guide to becoming a savvy consumer, and includes information on buying a car, purchasing a home, preventing identity theft, shopping from home, creating a will, and handling unsatisfactory transactions. And much, much more.

This book would be a good buy at $10 or $15, but it’s freely available from the U.S. government. (Technically you’ve already paid for it with your tax dollars, of course.)

• You can order your copy here.
• A Spanish-language version is also available.
• You can also view the handbook in PDF format. You can view the entire handbook at once [11.9mb], or simply browse individual sections.
• Nearly all of the book’s content is available via the Consumer Action web site.

This book is a great resource, and I encourage you to order a copy, download the PDF, or bookmark the web site. Though the 2010 Consumer Action Handbook doesn’t go into great depth on any subject, it provides excellent informative overviews, and it usually points to further resources. It’s perfectly at home on the shelf with all of my other personal finance books. (And was, in fact, an excellent source while writing Your Money: The Missing Manual.)

Unautomate Your Finances
Elsewhere, our very own Adam Baker has just released his first e-book, Unautomate Your Finances, which lays out his personal financial philosophy. This e-book is not free. It costs $17, but comes with Baker’s “as long as I have a pulse” guarantee. (If you’re not satisfied, send him an e-mail and he’ll refund your money as long as he’s still alive.)

Baker believes that the more you simplify your financial life, the easier it is to control it. He’s not necessarily opposed to all automation, but believes that for many of us, automation breeds more complexity than simplicity. He argues that in most cases, automating our financial lives magnifies existing problems, and we’d be better off un-automating things: spending consciously, making sustainable choices, and focusing on our goals.

Along the way, Baker shares solid personal-finance advice on saving for emergencies, coping with credit, and creating a realistic budget. Is Unautomate Your Finances right for you? I don’t know. But since it comes with a money-back guarantee, it’s certainly worth a look!

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Related Articles at Get Rich Slowly:

• 2008 Consumer Action Handbook
• Understanding Money
• Essential Personal Finance E-Books
• The 13 Commandments of Savvy Consumers
• 66 Ways to Save Money

Kenny:

I listened to your radio discussion with Vicki Robin and I was really intrigued by the whole five year plan. I have a big dream I’d love to accomplish (being a radio host) but I feel like it’s so far from my life that I’ll never get there. Any ideas?

Scott:

In five year[s] I would like to have built my own house but I don’t even know where to start.

Angela:

I would like to be a writer someday but I’m not a writer.

Monique:

You have the courage and ability to try such a thing. I do not. I might want to be making clothing in five years but I’ll still be working in this office.

Em:

All I ever wanted to do was play in the WNBA. Now I walk with a limp and people shy away from me. I would do anything to be back in the basketball world.

Raghu:

I keep telling myself I will move back to that town and really make a difference there but it is a lot easier to go home at night, take a nap, and watch a movie.

Sean:

Nothing makes me happier than playing the piano. Nothing makes me sadder, either, because I know nothing will ever come of it.

All of these people have a lot of things in common. They have a dream, one that they spend a lot of time thinking about. They’re nowhere near that dream in their day to day lives. They feel as though the gap between where they are now and where that dream is may simply be too much of a bridge for them to cross. So they’re walking in place through a life that has much less meaning for them than they would have ever liked.

I was there once, in a way. I know exactly how it feels to sense that everything you’ve dreamed about in your childhood and in your adult life slipping away from you. I know how hard it seems to fight for it when everything in your life seems to be flowing in a different direction. And I also know how good it feels when you find some success against the current and can feel yourself moving in the right direction towards that dream.

If you know what you truly, deeply want out of life, but you can’t see how you can get there from where you are now, here’s how to get started.

First, get your financial house in order. This is paramount. It is almost impossible to make powerful, positive life changes if you’re swimming in debt and your spending is out of control. Learn how to spend less than you earn. Pay down that debt as fast as you can. It seems difficult, but it actually works quite well in conjunction with the other tips here.

Second, re-engineer your free time and your social circle. If you really want to make this work, you’re going to have to make time for it in your life. For most of us, this probably means some significant changes. Maybe you give up your thrice-weekly raid night on World of Warcraft. Maybe you can cut your television viewing by an hour a day. Maybe you can withdraw fr some of your social commitments.

Once you’ve decided what to cut, it’s just as important to decide what to add to replace it. Obviously, it needs to be something in connection with your dream – but we’ll talk about exactly what to choose in a minute.

It’s important to remember that these choices are simple. They’re little choices you can make every day. “Instead of spending an hour channel surfing or watching SportsCenter, I’ll work on a short story.” “Instead of going out shopping with the gals, I’ll go to the workshop and work on a painting.” “Instead of playing computer games all night, I’ll get intimate with my piano.” They are choices that you make in the normal flow of your life.

Third, find ways to share what you love. If you love a sport, volunteer to coach a youth team. If you love to play a musical instrument, play a song, record it, and share it with others. If you love to write, start a blog. If you love politics, volunteer for a campaign.

If you want great things to happen, other people need to have access to what you’re doing. If you sit in your home playing the piano for your own enjoyment, you’ll never find a way to make a living with it. You have to get out there and find others. Remember, anything anyone does for a living involves relating to others. We all have customers.

Do not worry about compensation at first. Compensation will come once you’ve built a good reputation and used the experience you’re getting to develop yourself into something better.

Fourth, know how to deal with failure. It will not come easy. Success won’t fall on your lap. It takes time. It takes sustained effort. It takes an awful lot of “no” before you start getting “yes.”

If you take into account the entire scope of all of the writing I’ve done in my life, I am a monumental failure as a writer. Any success I’ve seen has come in the last couple of years. Virtually everything prior to that point was met with “no” and “no” and more “no.”

Why? I wasn’t a good writer – I had some good ideas, but I expressed them poorly. When I did find myself able to produce something good, I hadn’t produced enough goodness and hadn’t shared what good I had done widely enough to actually get anyone’s attention.

It would have been easy to quit. But I loved writing – and I still do. It was always something that made me feel better. It brought me personal pleasure just to write. I’d get a rejection letter in the mail and, yes, it would hurt. But that didn’t mean I would stop writing.

I love writing enough that I would keep writing even if no one read what I wrote. The fact that people do read it – and that I earn enough from it to put bread on the table for my family – is incredible icing on the cake.

If you feel that way about something – it makes you happy regardless of what other people think and whether it makes you any money or not – that’s something you need to dig into. Chase it. Master it. Share it. Then worry about the question of making money – if you’re good at it and share it, the answers will be closer than you think.

Good luck.

How do you know which products are worth buying? Do you ever rely on product reviews for your guidance? With all the blogs and websites offering reviews and opinions on which are the best, how can you know who to trust?

We want your feedback on blogs and bias. Do you think that there is a way to tell if a review is honest? If not, is this something you'd like to see in the future? What would it look like? As part of an upcoming SXSW session on FTC compliance and blogs, Wise Bread will be addressing these issues in an effort to get a better idea of what the online community really wants. We'll be discussing ways to ensure accountability and transparency.

Share your thoughts, either below in the comments or on Twitter, and you could be entered to win one of two Amazon gift cards! And remember, if you're going to be at SXSW, it's not too late to RSVP to our session at: http://www.wisebread.com/trustblog#rsvp. You can meet Wise Bread writers Adam Baker, Thursday Bram, Linsey Knerl, and the Wise Bread founding team!

Don't forget -- you can also win during our specially-scheduled Twitter event.  More details can be found on our Twitter promotion page.

Win a $20 Amazon Gift Certificate

We're doing two giveaways — one for random comments, and another one for a random tweets.

How to Enter:

1. Post your answer in the comments below, or
2. Tweet your answer. Include both "@wisebread" and "#WBAsk" in your tweet so we'll see it and count it.

If you're inspired to write a whole blog post, please link to it in the comments or tweet it.

At the end of the drawing, we'll update this post to include (and link to) all of your helpful responses.

Giveaway Rules:

• Contest ends Friday, March 12th at 11:59 am CST. Winners will be announced after March 12th on the original post and via Twitter. Winners will also be contacted via email and Twitter Direct Message.
• You can enter both drawings — once by leaving a comment and once by tweeting.
• Only tweets that contain both "@wisebread" and "#WBAsk" will be entered. (Otherwise, we won't see it.)

Good luck!

Permalink | 44 comments | Linsey Knerl's blog | Channel: Giveaways

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This article is from Wise Bread.

Networks used to be something that IT departments only spoke about in corporate office environments.  Today,  however, the average family not only has a need for a good home network, but they are running some form of one without professional advice. If you're curious as to how you can tweak your network to be more efficient, or you've put off getting one started out of hesitation, today is a great day to learn more! 

The following tips are taken from a recent guest post at My Life Scoop, and feature just a few of the five steps you should take to get the best home network experience for your family! 

Set Up Your Network Safely

It’s always a fun exercise to drive down a residential street with my smartphone set to wireless mode.I’m suddenly presented with numerous wireless networks to choose from – all originating from people’s homes (and some with very revealing network names).  The smart families will have their signal protected (meaning I can’t connect using their signal and conduct my online activities.)The others keep it open to everyone. 

In addition to making sure that your signal is yours (and yours alone), Edwin Colmanares from Cisco Systems, suggests you take it one step further. "To make it unique, people give it their own quirky name instead of the default name -- names like, 'My precious' or 'lovable giraffe'", he advises. To keep it even more private, he recommends families avoid names that will give anyone an idea of where you live. "A bad name would be 'Smith family network' or '13 a street.'"

Go With a High-Quality Wireless Router 

Gone are the days when you need to connect all the computers in your home with cumbersome Cat 5 cables and cover the evidence with strategically-placed throw rugs.  Today's family can get a "home network in a box" simply by choosing the right wireless router. While several brands lead the forefront, the best models are those that are updated and upgraded all the time.

To get a better idea of the perks and pitfalls of each product, check out websites like Amazon for their user reviews, or do a quick Google search for "troubleshooting" and the name of the router you're looking at buying. The results will be eye opening (and could save you money and trouble on a consistently buggy model.) Expect to pay at least $50 for one that will last and can provide free updates as needed.

Check out our full guest post on Life Scoop to see all five expanded suggestions for all kinds of families!

Permalink | 4 comments | Linsey Knerl's blog | Channel: Life Hacks, Technology

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This article is from Wise Bread.

Tax time is coming, and that means trying to keep as much of our hard-earned money as we can. That may or may not make us tax hypocrites, but it's the truth: no one wants to pay more than we have to.

In order to follow my tip, you'll need two things: a tax protected account like a Roth IRA and a stock or mutual fund you like that pays a dividend.

First Things First

You'll notice I italicized "you like" in that last sentence: that's important. Before you even decide to go down this route, you need to find an investment you like and want to own regardless of this strategy. I don't care if you think it's going up because you read something in a annual report, an analyst likes it, or because your palm reader told you.

Just make sure you have a reason and you like it.

As for the dividend: don't focus so much on how big of a yield it is; the important thing is that it pays one out. You may also want to check:

• How long have they been paying one? The longer the better.
• Have they ever lowered it? Not great.
• Do they have a track record of consistently increasing it? Very nice!

I could spend hours on how to pick and investment, but not here. Once you have an investment you like that pays dividends, you can move on to part II.

FYI: If you're interested in investing in real estate and dividends, check out REITs.

Tax Sheltered Account

My favorite is the Roth IRA because the money you use to fund it has already been taxed. So once you put money in here you'll never have to worry about taxes again.

Now what you do is buy the stock/mutual fund from step one inside this account and boom—you're done!

Wait, that sounds too easy doesn't it? There is one more thing you have to double check: does your brokerage allow you to reinvest the dividends automatically, free of charge?

This is important because if they don't, the dividend payments will be credited to your account instead of being automatically reinvested. That means the money has to be contributed into the account instead of automatically going in. And it means it'll eat into the limits ($5,000 for 2010) set up for accounts like Roth IRAs.

Most brokerages will automatically reinvest dividend payments from mutual funds, but not for individual stocks, so make sure ahead of time that this is all set up.

Why This Strategy Rocks

• You aren't taxed on the dividends you get paid
• You get to contribute the dividend automatically
• You set it and forget it: as long as you still like the stock/mutual fund you don't have to do anything

The Downside

• You can't touch this money until you retire, so you aren't going to get rich quick with this

If you want to read more about this strategy, check out my post on investing in real estate without taking a tax hit.

Thanks to Dangerman for the corrections on dividends counting towards your contribution!

Permalink | 5 comments | WC Porter's blog | Channel: Investment, Real Estate and Housing, Taxes

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This article is from Wise Bread.

Our family has made a major life change in leaving the corporate world to begin a vineyard in west Texas. With a large family (10 children, 8 still at home) living on savings until our house in Alabama sells, frugal living is a necessity. Having never been a gardener, I have learned from those who have had successful gardens by asking many questions. One piece of advice repeated many times is the importance of planning before starting.

So, here it is, time to start thinking about and planning your spring and summer vegetable garden! Yes, it is still cold outside, but now is the time to begin. Before we know it, we will be having fresh-from-the-garden produce, fresh tomato sandwiches, and fresh cucumbers and...I know what you are thinking, to get to that point there is a lot of hard work. But, even before the hard work comes the all-important planning stage. There are several factors to consider before planting your garden.

Space Availability

One consideration when beginning to plan is the amount of space which is available for your garden area. If space is limited, priority should be given to family favorite vegetables which would afford the most savings. If space is not an issue, then what vegetables does your family enjoy? Which do you like to eat and cook!

Growing Zone

Certain plants are adapted to particular areas of the country more so than others. Charts are available from various seed companies and on the backs of individual seed packets. These charts specify in which growing zone that particular seed grows well. These growing zones are based on temperatures, daylight hours, and general climate. It is important when making your selection to keep in mind your growing zone.

Seeds vs. Plants

Do I buy seeds or plants? In many instances, time is a key factor in deciding between seeds and plants. Some seeds may be sown directly into your garden soil. Others must be started indoors and once established, transplanted to your garden. These seedlings must be started early enough to be transplanted in a timely manner to your garden (usually after all danger of frost is past). Although more expensive, if indoor space for starting seeds is limited and time is short, plants are probably the better choice.

Where to Purchase

Once you decide upon seeds, plants, or a combination, the decision must be made as to where to purchase them. Local stores often carry seeds and plants specific to your local growing area. They may also be ordered from various companies. The advantages of ordering from a “seed company” are several. They deal exclusively with products specific to gardening thus the quality tends to be better. Also, often their customer service is available to answer any questions you may have and guide you in your decisions so that you will be a loyal satisfied customer. Once satisfied with service, you will be a returning customer.

Experience

Have you ever gardened before? If not, you might want to start small with easy to grow vegetables such as pumpkins, squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, and beans. I had no experience, but asked questions of those who did. As a result, I had a large successful garden which has provided food for our family.

Resources

Search out resource persons among your friends, family and acquaintances. Do not be afraid to ask questions. Most people are more than happy to provide information about a subject they are familiar with and even expert in. Read books on the subject of gardening. These are readily available at your local library, bookstores, and online. Another great resource is your local county extension agent. They often have quality information on all areas of gardening and are also willing to answer questions.

Crop Rotation

Crop rotation is generally thought of in relation to the large farmer. However, it is also important to the backyard gardener also. Some plants are more susceptible to certain insects and viruses. Rotating the crops discourages these from being harbored in an unnatural concentration. An example of this is the squash bug. Different crops also use nutrients from the soil in different amounts. Rotating the crops helps prevent soil depletion.

Are you ready to get started planning your garden?

Let’s say, for example, you’re in the situation that Paul, one of my readers who wrote in recently, finds himself in. He just took out a $219,000 mortgage. His monthly payment on that mortgage is $1,300.89. Paul wants to know whether paying half of the mortgage twice a month will save him a significant amount.

The first thing he needs to do is make sure that his mortgage allows early payments – and how they work. Make a call to your lender and ask them how often interest is compounded (this needs to be daily or compounded monthly based on the average balance of the month – if it only compounds monthly, paying in advance won’t help), plus how multiple payments during a month are applied to your loan (they must be applied as soon as received for this to work). Most loans work this way, but not all.

There are two options with making early payments.

First, Paul can literally make two payments a month – say, on the fifteenth of every month and on the last day of every month. This means, over the course of a year, Paul pays the exact same amount in principle that he would otherwise pay. The only difference is that on the fifteenth of each month, he pays in half of his payment and at the end of each month, he pays in the remainder of his payment.

In my calculations in Excel, I assumed monthly compounding using the average balance of the last month. Using this method, I calculate that this method will save Paul just over two months’ worth of balance on the mortgage. He’d save $2,931.33 in interest, which would mean he would be able to skip his final two payments and make only a partial final payment.

However, a superior method of doing this would be to simply make a payment equal to half of the amount of the monthly mortgage bill every two weeks. Over the course of a year, this adds up to one extra full payment: since there are fifty two weeks in a year, you’d make 26 half payments, and thus 13 full payments.

In my calculations, I again assumed monthly compounding using the average balance of the last month. I calculated that this method will save Paul $41,117.09 over the course of the loan. His final, partial payment would be issued just shy of five years early.

This method falls perfectly in line with many income schedules (the federal government, for example, issues paychecks every two weeks), which means that you can just allot a certain amount from each paycheck directly toward your mortgage and then not think about it again.

For me, at least, twice-a-month payments would not provide enough benefit to be worth the management hassle of them unless it happened to line up directly with my paychecks.

On the other hand, biweekly payments – once every two weeks – do provide a lot of financial incentive to give them a shot. Add on top of that the fact that it’s directly in line with many pay schedules and that would seem to be a winner to me.

In a nutshell, simply paying twice a month doesn’t save much at all, but paying once every two weeks saves a lot. Yes, one or two fewer days per payment can save you tens of thousands at the end of the payments.

Good luck.

If you’re considering online studies, don’t underestimate the workload, discipline, and communication skills needed to succeed. Here are tips on excelling as an online student.

Choose courses carefully.

Make sure that you have the time to commit to classes, especially if you are pursuing a degree. Don’t let the lure of flexibility fool you into thinking that you can easily fit studies into an already full schedule. Some classes may take a few hours each week; others may require several hours weekly plus extra time to complete projects. And, beware that new degree programs and courses may be particularly difficult as content and technologies are in the process of being perfected.

If you are interested simply in learning a specific skill rather than earning a degree, consider online classes through the community college or specialized training offered by professional associations.

Become familiar with online learning technologies.

Try to do this before class starts or as quickly as possible after the session begins. Some tasks, such as uploading assignments to a designated location on BlackBoard, can be intimidating on a first try but simple after you've done them a couple of times. The less exertion expended in mastering online tools, the more effort you can place on learning course content.

Read recommended materials.

I know this advice may seem incredibly obvious. But many lecture-format classes require students simply to show up and listen; even if you complete the reading according to the syllabus, having an instructor provide you with context and give explanations makes it easier to glean pertinent information from written materials. Many online classes require students to react to materials in forum discussions, which is difficult if you haven't done the reading.

Participate in discussion forums.

If you are the first to post in the forum, you can share basic observations to start the conversation; but if you arrive later in the discussion thread, then you’ll need to offer deeper, unique insights.

Don’t presume that classmates share what you might perceive as cultural norms. Framing comments with mentions of professional and personal life experiences, or sharing these experiences when introducing yourself at the start of each course, can help classmates to understand your perspective and avoid antagonizing them.

Finally, don’t be a hit-and-run poster who visits the forums just once a week, makes comments, interacts with no one, and then exits. This approach may mean that you comply with course requirements but doesn’t really advance your knowledge. Even if you are an expert in a topic, you can learn from the uninformed perspectives of newbies. Just getting insight into what other people understand about a topic is useful — you can then tailor your communications in class forums and outside of these forums more effectively.

Turn in assignments on time.

Online classes may place more emphasis on projects rather than tests so you’ll need to plan your workload carefully. While you might be able to cram for a final exam, most people can’t wait until the last minute to get topics approved, find credible sources, compile research, and collaborate with project partners.

Try to turn in projects ahead of time so that if something unusual happens — a snowstorm-induced power outage or even a brief loss of broadband — you’ll still meet deadlines. You might be able to fudge a turn-in time in the offline environment but, online, time-stamped submissions of uploaded research papers and PowerPoint projects make it difficult to hedge on when you actually turned in an assignment.

Serve as project manager.

You can influence the direction of projects and add to your leadership skills. If you don't think you can handle planning and leading projects, be an active participant by contributing your talents, completing project tasks on time, and helping the project manager with compiling components into a finished report.

Create a portfolio of your projects.

Showcase your knowledge and skills. Some potential employers and clients may not fully grasp that an online degree is just as valuable as one earned in a traditional setting. The portfolio is evidence of your work, and can help you land deals for similar projects and serve as a point of conversation in interviews.

I experienced the demands of online learning when I earned a graduate-level Certificate in Technology and Communication at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a longstanding brick-and-mortar institution of higher learning. And, recently, I spoke with a 20-something female about her degree studies at the University of Phoenix, well-known for its online programs. Despite the differences in our backgrounds and universities, we had similar encounters as online students.

Permalink | Comments | Julie Rains's blog | Channel: Career and Income

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This article is from Wise Bread.

Do you have piles of papers lurking on your desk? Mountains of laundry looming beside your bed? Shelves double-stacked with knick-knacks? I have a bit of a clutter problem myself. The other day, I spent an hour looking for the vacuum cleaner, which eventually turned up buried under a pile of laundry almost as tall as I am.

All that clutter isn’t just annoying. It’s expensive. That’s right: Excess Stuff can keep costing you money even after it’s been bought and paid for.

How expensive is your Stuff? Professional organizer Jen Hunter of Find Your Floor in Boston says clutter can cost us real money in a lot of ways:

• Buying replacement Stuff: Somewhere in your closet is that pair of running shoes you bought last year. Probably next to the ones you bought the spring before that. Clutter costs us dollars and time when we have to buy duplicates of stuff we know we own but just can’t find.
• Damage to your Stuff: When you have more Stuff than space, storage can become a problem. Things can get stepped on, stored improperly and broken, water-damaged or just so buried they can’t be retrieved when needed.
• Missing deadlines: When your Stuff is disorganized, you wind up paying hundreds of dollars a year in bank fees, late charges, library fines, overdue fees and tax penalties. Trust me on this one. I speak from years of painful experience.
• Renting storage space: Almost 10% of U.S. families rent storage space for belongings that don’t fit in their homes. That’s a lot of dollars going to serve your Stuff instead of your life. Even those that don’t rent space may choose larger homes than they need so that they can store more Stuff.
• Health costs: Out of control clutter can pose health risks from falling, and encourage the growth of allergens like dust and mold. Treatments for those can get expensive. Clutter can also affect your mental health. Writer Ariel Gore saw a therapist until she realized that what she really wanted was a clean home. So she hired a housekeeper for less than she paid the therapist and lived happily ever after.

To Hunter, the biggest cost is an intangible. “It’s the impediment that it presents to people’s lives,” she says.

Stacy J. Kaplan of Clutter Away in San Diego agrees. “You can’t function at your optimum level if you’re disorganized,” Kaplan says. “You wouldn’t run a business without a business plan. If you’re not organized your business will fail. A house is a small business in a way. It’s the operating structure behind what your family is doing.”

Clutter stops us from working as effectively as we otherwise might. At its most basic level, time spent looking for your car keys is time you’re not spending working, playing or relaxing.

It also costs us time because all that Stuff demands attention. While clutter might be a sign of neglect, it requires us to spend time working around it to accomplish basic household tasks like paying bills or preparing a meal. Those extra hours of housework are a drain on time and energy that could go into creative side projects, education or any number of other productive pursuits.

We can become prisoners of our Stuff. J.D. has written a lot here about how Stuff ties up our money. We can inadvertently tie up a lot of our earnings in rarely used sports equipment, video games, and other pricey toys. Selling that unused Stuff frees up not only your cash but your energy. When there’s too much Stuff around you, you’re like a plant in a too-small pot. It’s hard to grow or thrive when hemmed in by clutter.

Of course, the answer isn’t to move to a bigger place. There are families who live happily in 100-square-foot apartments. They just have less Stuff than we do.

The solution is to put your space on a diet. Some basic steps to get started:

• Consider adopting The Compact, an agreement to buy nothing new for one year. This should cut the flow of Stuff coming in down to a trickle.
• To deal with the Stuff you have, go through one small area at a time. Don’t try to do the whole house at once. Choose a room, a closet, a desk, or even just a kitchen drawer.
• A good rule of thumb: Get rid of anything you don’t use or love.

A habit of clutter can be hard to give up. If you’re used to having a lot of Stuff around you, a pared-down space can feel too spare and empty. Before you rush to fill that void, try sitting with it for awhile and really setting an intention for you want to replace your clutter with. It might be original art, new bookcases, workshop space or just more breathing room.

Whatever you choose to do with your space, you can use the same techniques you used to clear it to keep it clean. Don’t keep Stuff you don’t use or need. Don’t buy Stuff you don’t want or need. Spend a little time each day keeping your space organized.

Here are the top three clutter-busting tips from GRS Twitter followers:

• “Throw clutter in bags, put them in the attic. As you need something, take it from the bag. After 6mo, donate bags.” — @jacobmlee
• “For clutter: I’m using @gretchenrubin’s rules: Make your bed and the 1-min rule: if you can do it in 1 min, do it now!” — @jc_losangeles
• “My fave declutter advice: Spend 15 Mins a day!” — @BudgetsAreSexy

I know we just talked about Stuff last week, but how do you combat clutter? What tips and tricks can you share with readers?

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Related Articles at Get Rich Slowly:

• Clutter’s Last Stand: The Cost of Buying Things You Will Not Use
• Simplify Your Life with a Stuff Replacement Fund
• Daily Links: Frugal Tips Edition
• Guarding Against the Invasion of Stuff
• The Official GRS Referral Swapping Thread