When Tom Snyder coaches people in his church about how to budget, he starts by encouraging them to track their spending. “If we don’t track, we don’t know when to stop spending,” he says. The retired engineer and financial coach in Grand Rapids, Michigan, adds that it’s easy to be bumped off track by irregular…

Today’s selections from my virtual mailbag come from mothers who on the one hand are facing completely different dilemmas, but on the other are exactly alike in that they want the very best for their children. Dear Mary: My biggest budget busters are enrichment activities for our four children. I want to spark their joy…

One of the best ways to manage money is to create a budget. Not having one could mean that money is spent on trivial things, with nothing to show for it in the long run. A budget does not have to be complex to work—especially if you have never created one before. Here are some…

Like many shoppers, I’ve noticed my grocery bill getting bigger each week. To compensate for my family’s busy schedule, I’d also been turning to shortcuts like prepackaged snacks and meal kits, which further added to our total bill. To counteract these pressures, I applied all my go-to savings tricks: opting in to my grocery store’s…