Image by ktylerconk via Flickr “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” — Hans Hoffman Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.” — Henry David Thoreau For today’s knowledge workers, every distraction is a drain on... 

Image by Getty Images via Daylife The New York Times ran a story today that says the next consumer crisis is credit cards — a sobering fact in a nation that has racked up massive amounts of credit card debt. Unfortunately, when times get hard, many people turn to credit cards to help them make... 

A few days ago, I had lunch with an individual who is considering hiring me to give a multi-hour seminar to a business convention on personal finance. This person knows me from the local community and is a reader of The Simple Dollar and he felt that I might be the right person to give such a presentation. During... 

Image from CSRWIRE This morning, I read about a company using on-line auctions to defraud customers. Last week, I consulted on an ethics complaint where a business coach betrayed a client’s confidentiality. And, recently a Physician was convicted of insider trading based on information from... 

Image via getentrepreneurial.com You’ve sweated to prepare a grant report, working hard to make the case that your largest foundation backer should continue providing support. Your nonprofit desperately needs the grant renewal, but this time around, the competition is unusually stiff. You’ve... 

Image via Wikipedia Over Thanksgiving and the following weekend, my wife and children and I went back to our home town to visit our families. There were many nice meals, some long and lazy afternoons spent together visiting and playing games, and lots of getting in touch with people we hadn’t... 

Jerome writes in with a common question: I constantly read articles about how important it is to network online to help advance my career, but outside of emailing people I know in my field, I don’t really know where to start. Any advice? Let’s start with the big question. Why? What is the point of... 

“Balance is beautiful.” -  Miyoko Ohno, Japanese bridge designer I have a close friend named Norm who is a great photographer and a great person in general … recently he was telling me that all he does is work. That might sound familiar to some of you — I’ve certainly been there at different... 

The workplace, more and more, is changing, and with this change comes a whole new set of rules. The traditional office work environment and tools are still around, but at a very rapid pace, they’re being supplanted by newer and better tools, newer and better ways of working. The old rules are being... 

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to sit down with a fellow in his early sixties who has already retired. He had been self-employed his entire life. I told him about The Simple Dollar and I asked him, if he didn’t mind, if he would tell me about how he had invested for retirement. What he told...