Financial and Lifestyle Resources for Vermont

Winter is definitely here and you may be thinking about enjoying this early winter snow with a new snowmobile. You may wonder whether you should finance the sled or pay cash for it. If so, you can begin by asking yourself a couple of questions: Do have enough cash to purchase the snowmobile out of pocket? If I take out a loan, can I afford another monthly payment? Do I have to put insurance on the snowmobile? How much do I really want to spend?

When you first start bike commuting, a big question you are going to have is what kind of bike do you need? There are a ton of different bikes out there, and I am not even talking about brands. It can be very confusing. When it comes to buying your bike, the most important thing you can do is ask yourself these questions.

If you have owned your home for a while, you may be ready to upgrade to a bigger house; but before calling the movers, consider why you want to move and what the financial impact of owning a larger home could be.         

When I was a little girl, my mother often took me to see a woman named Maisie. She was an older, Native American woman—hunched from age, one tooth remaining in an otherwise empty mouth. Wise and thoughtful, Maisie became a quick friend and when she died a year or so after I met her, I was heartbroken. She was the first major death in my life.

If you’ve played the board game Monopoly, you have probably experienced the heated arguments, flipped boards, and endless play time that normally comes with it. But what you may not know about Monopoly is these horrible experiences we have are all part of the game.

Do you know that the Saturday after Thanksgiving is Small Business Saturday? And that when you buy from a Vermont vendor, you keep money in our state and support our local economy? While Small Business Saturday is a great chance to get out there and support your local stores, but don't forget—you can buy local every day of the year. 

So you’re thinking about commuting to work by bicycle? First of all, congratulations. Your life is about to get a zillion times more fun. And you’re going to save money and reduce your environmental impact! You probably have a bunch of questions about bike commuting gear, though.

What does hunger look like in Vermont? 69,724 Vermonters live in food insecure households, meaning they don’t have regular access to nutritious foods. Food insecurity is defined by the USDA as the lack of access to enough food to fully meet basic needs at all times due to a lack of financial resources.