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 [...]
This past fall I was having a hairball. As background, I've had a big travel bug this year, which I have pushed forward with an extended trip to Southeast Asia, a couple of long weekend trips to visit family on the other side of the country, and a two week road trip across the northern [...]
Well ok. I will start with the embarrassing story. Let's get it over with sooner than later. Also because it's the reason for my tale about the value of being handy. Not Enough Coffee? I was really excited to go skiing one recent Saturday morning. I do love to ski. The plan was to meet [...]
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 bumped into this idea a few months ago when I was negotiating with a contractor on some work that was performed at my house that had some bumps and issues in the process. As I was imaging our negotiations beforehand, I was ready for his statement along the lines of "but we are a [...]
Let's get real on comparing our financial life to others and the resulting negative self talk. "Look at that. Look at them go. Wow, they are doing so well. Everything always goes right for them. How did they do it? Geez. I could never do that. I'm so far behind. They just got lucky. I'm [...]
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 [...]
I've been a reader of financial blogs for a number of years and have learned much from these blogs. I've been able to incorporate bits and pieces from various sites over the years which have been instrumental in my building deeper financial practices. Overall I'm grateful and appreciative of these insights shared by many gifted [...]