Personal Finance

Should I Do a Home Equity Loan OR Not?

May 13, 2013

Since we’ve decided to stay in our home semi-permanently (whatever that means – we decided to forgo new construction, put an anchor in our backyard and not move), I’ve been thinking more about enacting some longer-term, higher cost projects around the house like new windows, replacing the front door, etc. These are things we know […]

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What’s a Stay at Home Mom Worth?

May 7, 2013

There’s a recent study out stating that a mom is worth about $60,000 based on the type and amount of work she does if these services were rendered on the open market.  First of all, this study is quite flawed in my opinion and doesn’t reflect in any way any typical family since the standard […]

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Extreme Early Retirement – Mainly a Myth Except for Hippies and Drifters

March 31, 2013

I was reading the other day about extreme early retirement (CNBC) where they profiled a few people who were retiring much younger than what you might consider even “early” retirement at 55 or so. In one case, it’s a 40 year-old retirement target – so sure, that counts as pretty extreme early retirement.  But I’m […]

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Here’s Everything I’ve Done with my Money by NOT Having an Emergency Fund

March 24, 2013

The traditional personal finance advice is that everyone needs an emergency fund, often with absurdly unrealistic amounts of cash (6 month’s salary or more) stashed in a savings account losing money to inflation.  This is a horrible waste of capital in my opinion and while my approach isn’t for everyone, I also want to highlight […]

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Americans Spend Less and Less on Groceries Each Year. So Why Are We Broke?

March 3, 2013

During my weekend BusinessWeek reading (the only periodical worth receiving in print still IMO), I came across this chart of household grocery spending over the past few decades which I found intriguing.  It shows that as a percent of annual post-tax income, Americans continue to spend increasingly less each year.  Less than ANY OTHER COUNTRY in fact. […]

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1/4 Americans Have More Credit Card Debt Than Savings – What Does That Really Mean?

February 27, 2013

There’s an article making the rounds this week that makes Americans look like crap.  Based on a recent survey, 24% of Americans have more credit card debt than assets held in emergency savings accounts.  On the face of it, that looks really bad.  1/4 is a highly representative number and we all know credit card […]

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