(Listen to this post, here.) Wondering how to scare the parents of a college-age child? Here’s all you need to do: sneak up behind them and whisper, “It’s time to fill out the FAFSA for next year.” FAFSA – the Free Application for Federal Student Aid – is a document that needs to be completed annually and for each child, if you hope to reduce the financial burden known as college. It’s a bear, requiring you to gather and decipher any number of financial and tax-related documents of both parent and student. […] Click to read more…

(Listen to this post, here.) For twenty years, we had a second refrigerator in the basement. It was a piece of junk – dented on one side with a broken shelf and a small freezer. But it was a handy place to keep leftovers and extra supplies. Eventually, though, I realized something very important: the fridge part was almost always near-empty; the freezer part was jammed tight and never quite big enough. And so, when we moved to a new house, we didn’t take that energy-sucking dinosaur with us.  Instead, we […] Click to read more…