cheap

I once had a dirty little secret. No, it wasn’t an online flirtation, a crush on actor Mark Rylance (that’s common knowledge) or a tendency for midnight fridge raids. It was a brief problem with BPSD, aka Binge-and-Purge Shopping Disorder, and it’s why online retailers such as Amazon, Target, Sephora and Beauty.com are such a success.

Holiday travel these days is a Santa-sized hassle and it can be a real budget buster as well.

A couple of years ago I wrote an article for AARP about simple ways to reduce the cost of heating your home. After reading it, my wife promptly added a number of the energy-saving tips I'd suggested to my "honey-do" list, including installing three programmable thermostats around our house.

If you have kids or grandchildren away at college, they're likely to be feeling a little homesick right about now.  Care packages from back home are always appreciated, but they mean even more as students get settled into campus life.  Here are some ideas for putting together college care packages that student will love, but won't break the bank.

If you've traveled to many cities or college towns in the last couple of years, you've probably noticed fleets of nearly identical bicycles all parked together like a herd of dairy cows at feeding time.

With summer nearly half over, your outdoor living areas and accessories probably need some halftime sprucing up. Here are some inexpensive ways to refresh your patio and deck areas so that you can really enjoy the final weeks of summer.

Folks who were lucky enough to be in New Orleans for  Life@50+ National Event got a taste of the cheap life from AARP's savings expert and Ultimate Cheapskate  Jeff Yeager. Think living frugally has to be boring? Think again - and Jeff's session was anything but.

Let the games - and the money saving - begin! 

As a professional cheapskate, I have an allergic reaction whenever I pay more for something than I think it's really worth. But there have been a few times when I've attempted to economize and later regretted it. Here's my Top Six List of Frugality Gone Wrong:

I knew it! And now there's another new study that backs me up.