Time is scarce. We all get 24 hours to do whatever it is we decide to do and isn't it fantastic to see the wide variety of ways people decide to spend their time! One component of how you spend your time is for your financial well being. Obviously, there's the big stuff like [...]
Can you believe? There could actually be benefits from tracking your expenses! Crazy, right? Who would think there could be any value or gain from writing down every penny of your spending over the course of month let alone a year or longer. Many people see and feel it as pain, agony, and torture. [...]
Is there a way to make budgeting simple? Let's face it the idea of budgeting sends shivers up the spine of most people. Some people would prefer to have their fingernails torn off versus the joyless process of setting up a household budget. Ditto actually tracking everything over time. And yet again ditto to having [...]
Whoever said math isn't fun! The Rule of 72 is one of the better handy "hack" calculations that you can actually remember and put to good use for your financial well being. My kids will roll their eyes remembering me talking too many times to them about the power of the Rule of 72 and [...]
A while back I wrote about Running Your Household Finances as a Small Business. In the post I discuss the goal of a household like a business is to have revenues greater than expenses in order to generate a profit aka "the Gap". Ever since writing that I keep hearing Mind the Gap (audio) in [...]
What's the alternative to building an emergency fund? I was listening to the news the other day when a story about many Americans living paycheck to paycheck totally captured my attention. The news piece was commenting on the impacts of the government shutdown on federal employees. It referenced a Federal Reserve study called the "Report [...]
Why does house size matter? Bigger is better, right? Apparently so because in the last 45 years the average new single family home in the United States is 1000 square feet bigger! Another way to look at that is the average square foot of house per person has gone from 551 square feet to 1058 [...]
I enjoy food and good eating. I like to cook a wide variety of good and tasty meals. Ethnic food is definitely a treat to me with all the variety of spice flavors and food combinations. It's a never ending smorgasbord of food tasting opportunity. It's also important to share meals together with family [...]