ArcaMax

Q: We just bought a house in a nice neighborhood that we thought didn’t have a homeowners association. One of the neighbors told us there is an association, but all it does is maintain the road. We are being asked to pay a hundred dollars once a year. Is this legit? — Dan

A: Buying a home is an exciting milestone, but it can come with ...Read more

If you assume the inside of your washer is the cleanest place in your home because you put detergent through it with every load of laundry, join the club. Most people think that -- and that's a really bad assumption.

Have you ever wondered why there's dirty residue on the agitator? Why do washed clothes sometimes come out with stains they didn'...Read more

You hear it all the time, but do you know what it means to live below your means? Have you figured out how to do that?

To live below your means is to choose a lifestyle you can pay for with the money you have and still have some left over.

Living below your means that in this high-pressure, credit-based, gotta-have-it-all-right-now culture is ...Read more

Fundraisers and requests from charities used to bother me. So did the collection plate at church. I felt guilty because no matter how much money we made, there was never enough to give any of it away. And with all the debt we had (it was plenty!), how could I be expected to help others when I couldn't even help myself?

Then our financial house ...Read more

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me about food expiration dates, I could afford to buy a lot of the milk that gets tossed each week just for being one day "past."

These questions come in by the dozen -- from readers, neighbors and once from a stranger in the dairy aisle holding a suspicious-looking yogurt cup like it was a ticking...Read more

Q: My next-door neighbor has been pressuring me to trim my hedge to match his landscaping, but I haven’t wanted to. A couple of weeks ago, I came home and found that he had trimmed the hedge himself, the way he wanted it. I was furious, and he essentially told me that he was going to do it anyway and that I should deal with it. What are my ...Read more

It was a dumb mistake. I grabbed the biggest package of coffee filters -- a pack of 1,000 -- only to discover much later that I'd picked up the wrong size for my coffeemaker.

Coffee filters are not expensive, which is probably the reason I didn't bother returning them to the store. I suppose I should have tried, but I didn't. Instead, I began ...Read more

I was way off base when I guessed "egg-gathering basket." Leslie Hindman, host of the TV show "Appraisal Fair," held up this round cage contraption with folding sides and asked us to guess, "What the Heck Is It?" Salad spinner was the right choice, but who knew people were wasting their money on needless pieces of kitchen equipment back in the ...Read more

Over the years, I've noticed a growing trend in my mailbox: readers in search of financial planners or advisers -- or assistants. When taken in the message's context, it's pretty clear that not everyone means the same thing when they refer to a financial planner-adviser-assistant-helper.

One reader wanted to know where to find a financial ...Read more

You're standing in the appliance aisle at your favorite home store, staring down two dishwashers. One is modestly priced at $499. The other is more than double that -- $1,299 -- and comes with all the bells, whistles, LED lights and an app that alerts your phone when the rinse cycle finishes.

So you wonder: Is the expensive one really worth it ...Read more

Q: Our condo board just passed a huge special assessment to fix the roof. I live on a fixed income and cannot afford to pay it. Is there anything I can do? — Ruth Ann

A: Special assessments can be a financial challenge for condominium owners, especially when they come unexpectedly.

These assessments are typically levied when the association�...Read more