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SpendingPlan101

About SpendingPlan101

SpendingPlan101 exists because most money advice is either too vague to act on or too technical to finish reading. We aim for the space in between: specific enough to do something with on a Tuesday evening, plain enough that you do not need a finance background.

What we cover

The name says spending, but a spending plan only works when the rest of the picture holds together. So we cover the whole of household money:

  • Budgeting: systems that survive contact with real life
  • Saving: emergency funds, sinking funds, where cash should live
  • Investing: index funds, asset allocation, keeping costs low
  • Debt payoff: strategy, negotiation, refinancing
  • Banking and credit: accounts worth having, scores worth understanding
  • Taxes: filing season checklists and year-round planning
  • College savings and retirement: the two long-horizon goals that compete
  • Income: side income and genuinely passive streams, rated honestly

How we write

Four rules govern every article:

  1. Show the arithmetic. If we claim something saves money, the numbers are in the piece.
  2. Name the trade-off. Every financial choice costs something. Advice that hides the cost is marketing.
  3. Say when it does not apply. Guidance that fits everyone fits nobody.
  4. Date what changes. Rates, limits and tax rules move. We say what year a figure is from and revisit it.

How this site makes money

We may earn affiliate commission from some links to financial products. That relationship never determines what we recommend or where a product ranks, and we will not link to a product we would not describe the same way with no commission attached. Where an article discusses a product we have a relationship with, it is disclosed in that article.

What we are not

We are not licensed financial advisers, tax preparers or attorneys, and nothing here is personalised advice. We publish general education. Your situation has details a website cannot know. When the stakes are high, talk to a professional who can see all of them.

Corrections

If something here is wrong, we want to fix it and say that we did. Use the contact page, and include the article and what specifically is inaccurate.