This was written by Sara Gilbert, who was in charge of the launch of AOL’s new personal finance blog, WalletPop.

Welcome to WalletPop

Modern man and woman? We’re stressed out, dude. And more and more it’s obvious the chief source of our stress is money. It’s one of the leading causes of divorce. Financial problems are a main source of depression, and one especially depressing study noted that a family’s financial woes causes behavioral problems and mental health issues in children. And it’s no wonder; after all, many Americans are losing their homes due to expensive loans; food prices are rising; it’s more and more expensive to get around thanks to the soaring cost of fuel. If I can’t sleep, it’s a good bet I’m worrying about the check that might bounce, the bill that’s overdue, how I’ll pay for the next bag of groceries.

Stop stressing and start doing something about it. Start doing something about it here. We at WalletPop are dishing up a daily dose of financial wisdom, mixed with a cupful of fun and a dash of irreverence. We’ll provide you news and facts about the world of finance, from the ups and downs of interest rates to the cost of a barrel of oil — and what that means for your gas tank.

We’ll provide you with tips on buying more for less, finding bargains, and saving money. We’ll explore the concepts of budgeting, frugal living, simplification — but without putting on that hair shirt and cooking the same meal every Wednesday for the rest of our lives. We’ll talk about managing your credit and wonder, should you really pay your rent with your credit card? We’ll answer your questions, we’ll tell you our stories, we’ll find the nuggets of wisdom in the soporific self-help books.

Here’s why we started WalletPop: because we really love money. It’s true! But more than we love money, we love figuring out how it can make our lives better. Not how the TV commercials suggest — by having things we can all stare at together as a family — but how we can pick which things make our life wonderful, buy them for as little as possible, and leave all the rest off our Visa balance. How we can plan for the future, whether that future is tax season or our children’s education or retirement. How we can one day look over the fence at the neighbor’s new toy and instead of thinking, “I want one!” say to ourselves, “I wonder if he financed that, and if I should show him WalletPop to learn more about money.” Yeah.Some of WalletPop’s features include:

• The Daily Deal, a post to help you navigate for the best bargains on the things you could really use;
• Straight Talk with Ken & Daria Dolan, “America’s First Family of Finance”;
• Key interest rates updated minute-by-minute thanks to BankRate;
• Links to our favorite AOL financial calculators;
• Useful, fun modules, beginning with the home value module you see in the right hand column — and we’re making new ones all the time exclusively for our audience.