In a 2009 TED talk, advertising guy Rory Sutherland make a case for the good in advertising — that the perceived value it creates should be seen as a positive thing. All value is relative, says Sutherland. All value is perceived value. This is why people think a more expensive bottle of wine tastes better, only to find out they were drinking a $3 bottle, or that the “expensive” wine and the “cheap” wine were actually the very same bottle.

You have a goal, but you’re not getting anywhere. Maybe you want to break into a new industry, start a side business, or build your portfolio, but you aren’t making progress. Instead you waste your time designing business cards, updating your Twitter, and doing things that don’t directly help you achieve your goal. If you want to start freelancing, should you spend your afternoon designing a logo or talking to potential clients? Besides wasting time, we also tell ourselves things like “I don’t have time” and “it’s not possible because of XYZ.” In the end, the side business never reaches lift-off. You didn’t fail exactly because you never really tried. That might seem like a safe bet, but doing nothing is riskier than trying and failing. Susan Su wrote about the risk of doing nothing at personal finance blog I Will Teach You to Be Rich:

“This year’s wildfire season has set records for being one of the most catastrophic,” writes Scott Steen, CEO of American Forests. “If it is setting a precedent for what is to come, we’re all in trouble…2011 has seen almost 8.4 million acres burn across the U.S. Over the past 20 years, the area in the West seared by fire has been six times greater than in the two preceding decades.” Wildfires takes lives, damage crops, kill livestock and wildlife, and destroy ecosystems. They also leave people homeless. Understanding the urgency While homeowners are required by lending institutions to have homeowner’s insurance, renters aren’t required to to the same by their landlords. Of course the landlord has insurance on his or her property, but that insurance does not cover your personal belongings. If a fire destroys your apartment or rented home and you aren’t carrying renter’s insurance, you’ll have to start over at square one. Renters also sometimes think that the odds are good that nothing will ever happen to their dwelling. In fact, the odds are good that something will happen. Renters are 50% more likely to be burglarized than homeowners, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. How to find the right insurance policy When you’re ready to start shopping around for renter’s insurance, make a list of potential companies. Places to start your search include the following: The insurance company that you use for other policies, such as your auto insurance. Ask about multi-line discounts. Your bank – some offer renter’s insurance policies. Online – almost every insurance company will have a website that offers a free quote. Once you have your list, call each company and ask the following questions: Can you mail me a brochure? Use this to help compare policies. What could might cause my rate to increase? What discounts do you offer customers? Does your liability insurance cover both legal defense and medical expenses? Do you pay actual cash value (what your property was worth, minus the deductible) or replacement cost coverage (what it will cost to replace your property, minus the deductible)? Finally, if you have a roommate, ask if they offer  separate policies for roommates. If not, you can talk to your roomie about splitting the cost of a policy. Renter’s insurance can be found for $10-12 a month, depending on coverage, location, deductible, and the company. If price is really an …

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If you’ve ever loaned money to a friend or relative, you already know it can be a dicey situation. Sometimes the person pays you back as agreed, but often that’s not how it works out, and the relationship suffers. Things can take a turn for the worse in situations such as the following: The person hasn’t paid you back yet, but just took a vacation or bought a new car. He or she continues to fall on hard times, and comes to request more money. There was an agreed-upon payment schedule, and the person has yet to make a single payment or acknowledge that payments have been missed. He or she makes bad financial decisions, and you feel compelled to offer advice, which your friend sees as criticism. You begin to have negative feelings toward your friend or loved one and feel they’ve taken advantage of your generosity. Generally, the best advice is to not loan the money in the first place. Unfortunately, that’s not easy to do if someone you care about is in a dire situation or if there are other parties involved.

Often when you have a problem, it seems that the easiest and fastest way to solve it involves buying something. When a button falls off of your white dress shirt, it’s more convenient to simply buy another shirt. When you need to buy a birthday gift for grandma, you might automatically think it’s time to head to the mall and buy something from a department store. There’s nothing wrong with buying something new, but before you buy, ask yourself if there’s another solution that’s less expensive. Here are a few questions that you can ask yourself to save money or even avoid a purchase altogether:

These days we have more distractions than ever. A whole world of entertainment and networking is out there on the Internet, just a couple of clicks away. We have phone apps that help us stay organized, monitor our finances, and use sling shots to shoot birds at the pigs who stole our eggs. There’s a lot of good that comes with these advancements, but there’s also a lot of room for distraction and time sucks. Who hasn’t wasted an entire afternoon mindlessly surfing the web when there are real deadlines looming? It’s so easy to procrastinate when we have so many avenues for entertainment.

People tend to choose a mate similar to themselves, according to social psychologists. But when it comes to spending habits, it seems that like does not attract like, even though people think their ideal mate would have similar spending habits. In “Fatal (Fiscal) Attraction,” Rick, Small, and Finkel, professors of the Wharton School of Finance and Northwestern University, developed a survey that measured participants on a spendthrift-tightwad spectrum. The researchers wrote that every person feels a degree of “the pain of paying,” with tightwads feeling too much pain and therefore feeling less enjoyment of their money and spendthrifts feeling too little pain and therefore spending more than they would like. According to the findings, opposites attract. In many cases we look for similar characteristics in our significant others, but that depends on whether or someone likes or dislikes a trait in themselves. The study found that if someone is unhappy about the way they handle their finances, they’ll be more attracted to their opposite. For example, a spendthrift might feel guilty that he blows all of his money and has nothing left for his savings account at the end of the month. Because his behavior makes him unhappy and he dislikes his bad habits, he’s more likely to fall for someone who knows how to manage money responsibly.

If you’ve been following along during our series on emergency funds, you’ve already learned much of what you need to know about how to start saving. Today we’ll talk about how to stay motivated while you’re saving. If you’ve missed the previous posts, here’s what we’ve already talked about: Why an emergency fund is critical Five ways to start saving Five more ways to find extra cash How and where to setup your emergency fund How much you should save By now, you understand the importance of an emergency fund, and you’re well on your way to saving up for one of your very own. But all too often your initial excitement about making positive financial changes in your life begins to wane. It was easy enough to pack a lunch for two weeks or to spend more quality time at home with your Netflix queue, but eventually those things get old. Sometimes it feels like you’re not getting anywhere when you’re saving, for example, $50 a month toward a final goal of $6,000. The truth is that good financial habits are rarely exciting. Just like diet and exercise, getting your fiscal house in order or is about the daily habits – there is no quick fix. So how do you stay motivated when you’re doing the right things, but your financial goal has lost its luster?

Today we’ll talk about how to figure out how much money to save in your emergency fund. This is part of a series on emergency funds, so if you’ve missed anything, here’s what we’ve already talked about: Why an emergency fund is critical, especially if you think you don’t have the money to save Five ways to start saving one Five more ways to find extra cash How to setup your emergency fund, including where to bank your dough Hopefully you’ve already started to think about where you’ll come up with the extra cash and you’ve started checking around at a few financial institutions to find the right account for your emergency fund. But once you have the account and you’ve got a little extra cash to funnel into it, how will you know when you’ve saved enough?

Today we’re going to continue our series on the whys and hows of the all-important emergency fund. If you’re just joining us, here’s what we’ve covered so far: Why an emergency fund is critical, especially if you think you don’t have the money to save Five ways to start saving one Five more ways to find extra cash Today we’ll talk about where to put all that money you’re saving.