It is each generation's hope that the next will do better. But a new study claims that your financial status while growing up affects you for life — which explains why some people make impulsive purchases even when the economy is bad.

Holiday origin stories are fun because of their Crazy Straw timelines. From a one-room school singing that Happy Birthday song that their teacher made up, through the twists and turns of history and economic recessions and cultural shifts, that finally ends at 50 Cent rapping about not giving a fuck if it's not your…

Who is single-handedly fending off the Tea Party Huns from gutting the federal budget, standing up for needy families, and making House Speaker John Boehner look like one of the sad clown porcelain figurines your grandmother keeps in her home just to make unwanted visitors ill at ease? That would be the diminutive…

It's almost Halloween! Time to spend all the money we earned in October to get half-naked and binge on shitty candy. Seems reasonable, I'm into it. And so is half the United States, apparently. According to the Washington Examiner, Americans spend over $8 billion (BILLION) dollars a year on Halloween crapola. That's…

The first sentence in this recent Wall Street Journal piece sounds sad and irrational:

This morning, an amendment proposed by Minnesota Representative Betty McCollum and one of her Republican colleagues, Jack Kingston of Georgia, passed through the House Appropriations Committee. The proposal aimed to cut $80 million from the federal government's budget by barring the Department of Defense from spending…

Seems the "weak retail outlook" is all women's fault — because we're "pessimistic."

More women are buying Rolls-Royces, particularly the $300,000 Ghost. "Women love their Ghosts...But Rolls-Royce is a male brand. And women like that. It's a nice masculine car. It's a statement. It's all about powerplay."

According to Dr. Mark J. Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan, Americans spent just 2.98% of their disposable income on clothing last year — the lowest ever in U.S. history. Is that good or bad?

According to a survey, more women than men are cutting back on "optional expenses" like clothes, restaurant meals, and vacations. So are women better at managing money, or do we "have more optional expenses to begin with?" [USNWR]

It seems some marathon shoppers are learning the difference between "want" and "need." Now that the credit crunch is wreaking havoc with our bank accounts, one-time necessities like new Jimmy Choos getting passed over for last year's model. Says the Wall Street Journal's Christina Binkley, "After years of gluttonous…

Despite the fact that my mom does wealth management and my brother is a bond trader, I am one of those people who does not "get" money. I know the economy is in the crapper and I can pay my bills on time and I know a bargain when I see one, but money is really a mystery to me. There was a time in my life where I was…

CNN reports that New Yorker Stephanie Kaster threw her daughter a birthday party recently. The celebration was held at a fondue restaurant and Kaster hired a musical troupe to perform as the Wiggles. There was a four-layer cake and each guest took home a Fisher-Price guitar and a custom CD. The party's price tag?…

As it turns out, all those babes in bikinis you see at auto shows actually have a scientific purpose for being there! Science Daily reports that Stanford researchers exposed (heh) heterosexual men to erotic photos and found that immediately afterward, the men were consistently more likely to take bigger financial…

You may think that if you had more money, you'd buy nicer stuff. But ladies with cash still love a bargain, according to the National Retail Federation. Women with a household income of over $100,000 admit to shopping at Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Saks and — surprise! — Target. According to a survey, 11% of them…