Growing up, I took little interest in the subject of money. I’ve had a job since the day I turned 16 years-old, and I spent nearly everything I earned those first ten years! Recognizing my lack of a solid financial education, I started to look for ways to learn about money without turning to what I call “textbook materials.” After all, I was good with numbers, but I wasn’t what I would consider a “numbers” person.

Advanced finance concepts bored me, and for the most part still do. However, the concepts of personal finance, or “family finance” as I like to call it, are of great interest to me. Fortunately, radio introduced me to these concepts and my interest took off from there.

While working a graveyard shift in a customer service call center I stumbled on this guy named Bruce Williams, host of The Bruce Williams show.  Williams doled out advice from callers on subjects ranging from credit issues, retirement investing and small business dilemmas. His style reminded me of my grandfather, imagining he had his own radio talk show.

From there I started looking for other personal finance radio shows on the internet and found a website for this guy based out of Nashville, TN. His show was only broadcast on a handful of stations, but they did stream the show on the internet – which was still fairly new at the time. I started listening with great interest as this guy railed against the credit card companies (who I worked for at the time, oddly enough). That was how I found Dave Ramsey, and as they say, the rest is history.

Dave piqued my curiosity for family finances, and I began to take steps to create my own financial turnaround. I started hanging around the “business” section of bookstores and magazine stands. I subscribed to a number of personal finance magazines and newspapers, and soaked up all I could find on the subject.

Here were a few of my favorites that helped get me started:

Personal Finance Magazines/Newspapers

Kiplinger’s Personal Finance remains my favorite personal finance magazine. To me, it has just the right balance of “family finance” topics and more advanced investing advice. I particularly enjoy their “Living” section which often runs articles on how to save money on used cars, where to find the best CD rates, and a personal story feature.  To me, Kiplinger’s is a true “personal finance” magazine.

Kiplinger’s is available at Amazon.com for $12.00 per year, or $1.00 per issue

Money is  a close second favorite in the category of personal finance magazines. I think Money appeals to a wider group of people, including those not typically interested in finance. Like most anything, I don’t agree with their advice 100% of the time. Personally, I think their family profiles often feature too many suggestions involving turning to debt for answers (i.e. suggesting a reverse mortgage to an elderly person short on cash, tapping home equity to pay for kid’s college, etc.). I realize these are mainstream ideas, but I don’t necessarily agree with them.

Money magazine is available at Amazon.com for $19.95, or $$1.66 per issue

Smart Money was a magazine I added on after about a year of reading both Money and Kiplinger’s. Smart Money features more advanced columns on investing and they overall economy, and they typically follow some political trends as they relate to the world of finance. I particularly enjoy senior writer Anne Kadet’s contribution, which appears on the very last page, but is the first thing I read.

Smart Money is available at Amazon.com for $11.00 per year, or $0.92 an issue.

The Wall Street Journal is great for those that want daily insight into the markets, personal finances, and news on the global markets. I let my subscription run out when I was in frugal, cost-cutting mode, but there are plenty of places to look for great deals for new subscribers.

Get The Wall Street Journal for 75% off!

What is your favorite personal finance magazine or print news source?

I recently stumbled upon the website for Backwoods Home Magazine and liked what I saw.  I considered subscribing, but was a bit hesitant, until my enthusiasm for the magazine was reinforced by a post just yesterday from J.D. at Get Rich Slowly. He posted an excellent review of self-sufficiency magazines and websites, and it seemed like this one intrigued him the most as well.

A DIY “Wannabe”

That’s me; a DIY, self-sufficiency wannabe.  I say that because while I have always been interested in living off the grid, I am fully plugged in at the moment and it is not likely that I will be able to “unplug” any time soon.  However, I still enjoy reading about others who have done it, and applying those lessons to my current situation.

Photo courtesy of Grzegorz Lobinski

Just because you live in a neighborhood, rather than a 5-acre ranch, it doesn’t mean the same rules of self-sufficiency do not apply.  There are a number of things you can do to make your small homestead more efficient, like building a square foot garden for vegetables, installing a clothesline to lessen the energy demand from your dryer, and reducing your waste by starting a compost pile (also great for gardening!).

The problem is, if you are like me and were raised in the city, these skills were not acquired during your upbringing.  Fortunately, there are a number of books and magazines, such as Backwoods Home, that share tips and advice for living a self-sufficient lifestyle.

Here’s a small sampling of my favorite articles from past issues:

Canning 101.  Every summer we visit a local strawberry farm and pick a ton of fresh strawberries. We eat enough to make us sick, have strawberry shortcake for several nights in a row, and freeze a few with sugar and water to enjoy fresh strawberry shortcake later in the summer.  But I have always wanted to learn how to can them for homemade strawberry jellies and jams. I’d like to put up some of our tomatoes from the square foot garden and make some homemade salsa. Fortunately, Backwood Homes frequently runs articles explaining the canning process.

How Do You Live Without Electricity? Good advice, even if you are still on the grid. We lose power a couple times a year from thunderstorms in the area, and even have the occasional hurricane or tropical storm blow far enough inland to affect us. In 2004 we lost power for several days after a hurricane blew ashore and held together long enough to reach us as strong tropical storm. Could have used these tips back then!

Garden Spaces For Small Places. Anyone who has read Frugal Dad long enough knows that I am an amateur gardener, of sorts. I built a square foot garden box last year as a project to share with my kids, and it really took off. This year we plan to expand our raised bed layout, and try our hand at growing a few tomato plants in containers. I’m looking forward to reading more about gardening in Backwoods Home.

The magazine ties in well with my desire to live more frugally, and even if we never make it off the grid, I look forward to applying these lessons in our residential world. With spring just around the corner we are looking forward to starting our garden again, drying clothes outside, and turning off the heat and air for a few weeks (the power bill is such a dreaded drain on our wallet!).

You may order Backwoods Home magazine from Amazon.com.

What spring projects do you have in the works?

Photo courtesy of:  http://flickr.com/people/thelastminute

J.D at Get Rich Slowly shared an interesting “Ask the Reader” post from a librarian who asked which personal finance magazine their library should stock.  Apparently, the library is in a low-income, blue-collar area, and many patrons struggle with very basic personal finance concepts (lack of financial smarts is certainly not limited to low-income ares).  The reader’s question got me to thinking about personal finance education in general, and wondering where the top publications aimed at educating their readership are missing the mark.

Less High-Brow, More Real-World

As someone who is interested in personal finances, I subscribe to a number of personal finance magazines.  My favorites are often the ones with articles like, “What to do with $1,000″ or “The Top Ten Ways to Get Out of Debt.”  I get a lot more out of these articles than I do, “The Top Executive Gifts Under $500″ or “How to Select the Perfect Bottle of Wine.”  I imagine those representative articles appeal to different types of readers, with different levels of financial resources.

Personal Finance Blogs

So it seems a complaint of most personal finance magazines is that their information is over the head of the average reader.  Detailed technical analysis of the Top 70 stocks is not relevant to an index fund investor.  Luxury vacation spot reviews doesn’t much appeal to those feeding a family of four on $40,000 a year.  So where does the average person turn to get information on “real world” finances? 

There are a good number of personal finance blogs cropping up around the web, and many of them are filling the void left by personal finance publications.  Some blogs offer much of the same advice as the overly technical finance publications, but others approach finances from the perspective of the everyday individual trying to muddle through college savings, retirement and life in general.  That is essentially the approach I’ve taken here at Frugal Dad.  I often tell people I write about “family finances” because I want the emphasis to be on how to survive real world financial situations.  Sure, I occasionally toss in a more technical article on spousal IRAs, or setting up subaccounts at ING, but for the most part I try to share my common sense approach to money.

Public Education Also Misses the Mark

I’ve mentioned before that I believe our public education system has done a rather poor job of educating our youth on the subject of basic personal finance.  Essential skills such as balancing a checkbook, computing interest, and completing a simple 1040 tax form should be requisite lessons for high school graduates.  Advanced topics could include a brief history of our banking system, an explanation on how our financial markets and more on taxation.  Unfortunately, most kids hit college without a financial clue, unless they were fortunate to have financially savvy parents who took the time to explain basic personal finance concepts.

So, how do you get your personal finance information?  Do you read any personal finance magazines–which one is your favorite?  Do you have a favorite personal finance blog?  Tell us about it in the comments.

The February edition of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine ran an intriguing cover story, “Six Simple Ways to Retire Rich.” As part of the article Kiplinger’s ran a feature titled “How to Make a Million: Strategies at Every Age.” Most of us are aware of the power of compounding interest, but this feature really drove home the importance of starting early to retire rich.

A 25 year-old with no savings needs to save $286 a month to reach $1 million by age 65. If your new employer offers a matching contribution, participate up to the match and then consider investing above that in a Roth IRA. The forty years of growth will make you a millionaire, maybe many times over depending on investment performance.

A 35 year-old with no savings needs to save $671 a month to have a $1 million nest egg in thirty years. Notice the jump in required monthly contributions? That’s what waiting ten years gets you. At 35 there are several family priorities competing for your money such as [tag]college savings[/tag], housing, etc. However, this is one of those times when you need to exercise the “pay yourself first” plan. No, you aren’t being selfish. You are laying the groundwork for a solid financial future to provide for your family for years to come.

At 45 years-old it takes nearly a mortgage payment, $1698, to generate a $1 million portfolio. With only a twenty year window it’s time to get busy, but it’s not too late to get started. Many people this age develop a loser’s attitude, “It’s too late so why even start. I’ll just live on social security.” Social security insolvency aside, this is not a plan for success at any age. Take responsibility for your inability to save up to this point by making it a top priority over the next two decades.