TessMore Finance Blog

Whether you want to enroll in your child or yourself in your dream school or simply want to pursue higher education, calculating college costs can be quite a tricky task.  In the first chapter of our saving 4 college series, we take you through the process of estimating college expenses. With a college tuition calculator, you may also determine if you can easily afford the costs related to your goals or if you’re going to need to get creative.  To help you figure out your options for college, keep reading this guide or use the links below. What is the Cost of Attending College? What’s In Your Budget? What Are Funding Options? What Do You Need to Pay Post-Graduation? How Can You Calculate the Total Cost? What is the Cost of Attending College?  The average cost of attending college depends upon various factors. These include but are not limited to the  State where you go to college Type of institution that you choose to attend Scholarships and grants that you may have at

So far in this series, we’ve discussed what a budget is, what you should include in a budget, and the various ways you can make a budget –including zero-based budgeting , which we covered in Chapter 8. Now that you have all the budgeting basics , we’ll cover how you can manage your budget. Making your budget is crucial, but managing your budget is arguably even more important. You can’t just make a budget at the beginning of the month and never look at it again. You have to continuously manage your money with a budget in order to keep track of your finances for the month and plan for your long-term goals. In this chapter, we’ll give an overview of how you can manage your money and how having a budget can help you do that. We’ll discuss why managing money is important, tips for how to manage your money, how you can improve your money management, and more. Keep reading or use the links below to go straight to a specific topic. What is Money Management? Why Is Money Management Impo

This is the last chapter in our budgeting series, and we’ll be talking about how to set goals in Mint. Once you’ve created your budget and have learned how to successfully manage it, you should then set goals for yourself. You can use Mint to create and manage your goals so that you can keep better track of your money. Mint.com ‘s new Goals feature seeks to take the difficulty out of both setting goals and regularly tracking your progress towards those goals. With a few clicks of the mouse, you can set up a savings goal, and then use Mint.com to help you achieve that goal. In this chapter, we’ll go over how to create a Mint savings goal and how Mint can help you achieve your goals. To learn more about Mint Goals and how they can help you stay on top of your finances, continue reading the chapter or use the links below to skip to a section of your choice. How to create a goal How Mint helps you achieve your goals How You can achieve your goals What’s to come After reading th

Investing is the single most effective way to get rich. By opening an investment account, you have access to the biggest money-making vehicle in the history of the world: the stock market.  But a lot of you believe you have to do some complex, fancy work to invest… or that you have to have a lot of money to make the most of investing.  This is not true: You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room to invest, you don’t have to be a millionaire, and you don’t have to follow the hottest takes and trends.  And remember this: you likely can’t beat average returns. In relationships and work, we want to be better than average. In investing, average is great.  So ignore the appeal of these flashy, alluring takes. Average might sound boring and unsexy, but choose being rich over being sexy. When it comes to investing, that means we just have to do this: Pick a low-cost index fund that tracks the S&P 500 Automate our investments  Let our money grow over time  All that’s r

When we found our current home, it was like putting on a pair of comfortable pants. The house felt right. We had been looking for several months, with no luck, and were starting to think about what homes we could buy and “fix” to meet our needs. Our realtor, who was also our good friend, looked up unsold homes from the prior three years and discovered a few gems. These were all homes that likely had trouble selling during the financial crisis, when getting a loan was difficult. She got a few hits and we visited a few unlisted homes… including where we live now. We weren’t trying to convince ourselves about the school district or the neighborhood or anything like that. It just felt right. The house’s layout fit our needs, the design was to our liking, and it didn’t feel forced. My lovely wife and I had lived together for many years in an awesome townhouse, with fantastic neighbors, and so we were sad to leave but ready to start the next chapter. This house was it. Oftentimes in li

The real estate asset class is a vital component of a well-diversified investment portfolio. Unfortunately, the barrier to entry for many real estate investments is steep, which tends to leave regular investors on the sidelines. Even if you can afford to purchase a residential or commercial investment property, liquidity is an issue, among other inherent risks. In recent years, crowdfunding real estate apps like Fundrise and Groundfloor have brought real estate investing to the masses by offering expert management and low investment minimums. This article looks at another player in the real estate crowdfunding space: HappyNest . According to their website, HappyNest makes it possible for (almost) anyone to invest in real estate from anywhere. Does this sound too good to be true? In this HappyNest review, we’ll explore the key features of the HappyNest app, how it works, what customers say, and more.  Table of Contents What Is HappyNest?  HappyNest Features High-Quality Comme