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 […]
The Definitive Answer on Buying vs. Renting I was in my late 30s and still renting. I’d completely bought into the American Dream, so I knew I was throwing away money each month. I knew I had to do something about it, but somehow just thinking of scraping together a down payment, and worse, committing […]
Social Security benefit rules seem to be designed for maximum complexity and confusion. With multiple benefits, requirements, and amounts depending on specific scenarios, it’s impossible to cover all of it in one go. Since the information on SSA.gov leaves something to be desired, here’s how to maximize your spouse’s benefits. First, the Obvious – Retirement […]
Saving Now Saves Your Future Self Twice You’ve heard before that you have to set money aside — money for emergencies, for buying a car or house, for a kid’s college education, and for retirement. This is hardly news. What you may not have heard before is that setting that money aside helps your future self […]
An abbreviated version of “7 biggest risks to your retirement plan and what you should do about them”: Many readers would rather have just the bottom line, and don’t want to waste their time and mental bandwidth on a definitive guide, so here’s the abridged version, with just what you need to know to safeguard […]
Financial literacy is simply the ability to understand and apply good financial management skills. You’re financially literate when you understand basic personal finance principles and terms and are able to manage your day-to-day finances successfully. This includes things like being able to make a budget, track spending, calculate interest on savings and loans, manage credit […]
Except for the very top one-tenth of one percent of us, it’s the rare person who can afford it all at once. If you’re in that rarefied group, you don’t need to read any further. If you’re not, this one’s for you. Your Big Financial Goals For most of us, here are the typical big […]
Especially if you follow various bloggers in the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement, you know that a dollar spent now isn’t just a dollar. It’s also all the dollars that spent dollar would have brought in had you invested it instead. If you read my article, Pro Tips for Reaching Early Financial Independence, you […]
Money. It may make the world go ‘round, but for most of us, it also triggers negative feelings. Shame. Guilt. Obsession. Blame. Fear. It’s no wonder more than two-thirds of couples regularly argue about it and it’s one of the main contributing causes to divorce. Partners accuse each other of frivolous spending, out-of-control credit card […]