Basic Financial Fitness: Financial Advice for Regular Folks

I don't know about you, but I run into a wall every time I look for financial advice online. This is mainly because I don't fit into the financial/social bracket they're giving advice to. I'm adrift in a sea of financial tips and hints, floating between the two buoys of "Middle Class" and "The Poor". I can't cling to either one of those, because, truth be told, I fall in between the two. I hate to wade between these two buoys, but I don't have any other options as I'm firmly planted between the two.

You see, I'm not poor, but I'm definitely not middle class either...I'm somewhere in between. I've spent the majority of my adult life living in poverty, some because I just didn't make much money, and some because I managed money horribly. Somewhere around the time that I finally moved up out of poverty was about the time that I learned how to manage money. So, while I'm no longer poor, I have a ways to go before I have more than a little in the way of disposable income.

This is why I find financial advice online to be a terrible fit for me. Advice I've seen runs the gamut, from negotiating lower interest rates on credit cards to skipping your coffee-shop fancy coffee; from updating to energy-efficient appliances to taking your lunch to work; from not overpaying your landscaper to waiting until that big ticket item goes on sale; and the list goes on. 

I'm here to tell you this, besides renegotiating my interest rates:

 *I drink coffee from home every day

 *I have used appliances because it's all that I can afford

 *I always, always take my lunch to work (hey ho to all the people that throw a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread in their lunch bag)

 *What landscaper?

 *I can't afford big-ticket items. The last big-item ticket I purchased was a used car.

The kind of financial advice I'm looking for looks something like this:

*What's the best way to invest $1000?

*Is there a real way to save on grocery bills that don't involve couponing or buying just necessities? I don't do the former but practice the latter.

*How to realistically budget when you have no breathing room.

*Are CDs a waste of my money and time?

I'm sure there are plenty of other money-savvy tips and tricks for my income bracket that I don't know about, but would sure like to! The problem is, no one is dispensing this advice. I've had to figure things out and do research to try and find information about this kind of thing, but it would sure be handy if the massive slew of information I see out there, financially speaking, would relate to me. 

Do you have any leads on good places to get financial advice for the Mid-Class-Poor? Or even the poor? Drop some links in the comments, I'd sure love to see them! 

I do dispense common-sense financial advice that I've learned over the years of managing money while being poor-ish from time to time. Click here for learning my budgeting tricks, and here for advice on how anyone can save money.

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