Financial freedom means something different to everyone. It depends on what you need to feel free, and that will depend on your own goals, aspirations, and personal tastes. Whatever financial freedom means to you (and it’s a good idea to define it for yourself), here are a few things to focus on as you pursue […]
Every year the biggest companies in the golf industry come out saying this year’s drivers go longer and straighter than ever (they’ve been saying this for decades). It leads us (as consumers) to believe that by simply replacing our current driver with a nice, shiny, new one, we will be able to hit the ball […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) just released its annual report of the Private Education Loan Ombudsman, detailing statistics of complaints relating to student loans over the past two years (through August 2019) The report bases its findings on data from the CFPB’s Consumer Complaint Database. The database, typically updated daily, holds information on complaints […]
Chances are, you know you need to create an emergency fund to help you survive financial emergencies. However, if you research how big or small this fund needs to be, you will find contradictory advice, much of which is flat out wrong or at least incomplete. The following is how I figure out how much […]
Credit card debt in the US topped a trillion dollars, $1.08T as of a few weeks ago, according to debt.org. That’s over 26% of the $4T-plus total US consumer debt. On average, each household with credit card debt owes nearly $8400 on their average of four-plus credit cards. If you’re part of those statistics, do […]
With a nod to Ben Le Fort for mentioning in an article this Wall Street Journal (WSJ) tool for estimating retirement costs, here is why I think you should absolutely use the tool, but also how to fix it so the results it gives you have a chance of working out. The Importance of Making a Retirement Plan […]
The ongoing pandemic and the economic upheaval it’s causing are tragic beyond words. Not being able to see and hug my kids or meet in-person with good friends is really hard. But even if we somehow set all those aside for a moment, there’s an embarrassingly less important thing that still gets me. I’ll confess […]
Why You May Be Pursuing FIRE “You’re not the boss of me!” You can almost see the defiant 5-year-old trying to establish his independence. You can probably still feel that way deep inside where your childhood self lives. Especially when your boss tells you to… stay late on an evening where you set a date […]
Contractors Aren’t Employees, so if You’re a Contractor or Freelancer, Don’t Count on Your Clients to Look Out for You She wrote with exquisite, even painful, candor and vulnerability of how she was betrayed, when her direct client failed to pay what she was owed. “…all came crashing to a halt when the money I was […]