It’s no secret that consumers have grown more frugal: Excessive spending is out and saving is in. “It’s become chic to talk value,” says Julie Winskie, the chief client officer at marketing firm Porter Novelli, which tracks consumer behavior for retailers. Like fashion, spending trends often cycle in and out, but what’s interesting about this go-round […]

Despite signs that the real estate market is bottoming out, millions of homeowners are likely to find themselves in worse shape within the next two years. Nearly half of the nation’s 52 million mortgage borrowers will have negative equity by the end of the first quarter of 2011, up from the 14 million at the […]

This is a question I had from a reader (we’ll get to the double cheeseburger in a minute): My question is about budgeting for food. I’ll be starting my first real job soon so I’m setting up a list of monthly expenses. I haven’t yet lived on my own, so I don’t have a good […]