Our perception of the value of time and money shifts as we age. In early adulthood, time is abundant, while money is scarcer. We want more money and are willing to sacrifice our time to get it. By middle age, a thriving career helps us earn more,...
Maybe you’ve heard of universal basic income (UBI). UBI is a type of social program administered by governments to provide basic income for citizens — ideally, enough money to cover basic expenses or meet poverty level income. Univers...
A former colleague once told me that if I ever started drinking coffee, I’d never stop. Frida drank ten cups a day. She was an administrative assistant in the media department at my university. I worked in the darkroom developing film and p...
Doing taxes is never fun. But each year, I find that our income has become more diversified than the previous. We now earn more than 7 streams of income — not counting my salary. A salary is great if you don’t mind full-time work. But it can beco...
My last post was a free book giveaway. To enter to win, I asked readers to include ideas on what kind of future article ideas you’d be interested in reading (the lazy survey) or anything else on your mind. There were 109 entrants to win the...
Over the life of this blog, I’ve recommended books and blog posts by an author named Joshua Becker. Joshua is the founder and primary writer of the website Becoming Minimalist, one of the leading minimalism blogs. Joshua defines minimalism ...
After two years of COVID-19 apprehension, our family is going on a real vacation — airplanes, amusements, and sit-down restaurants. Planning for upcoming trips reminds me of the kind of retirement travel that I’m ultimately working toward — month...
An organization that my son joined needed a parent volunteer for one of the leadership positions. This organization is extraordinarily demanding of its adult volunteers — training, local meetings, regional meetings, continuing education — all on top of...
Our family spent the dog days of COVID at home. No travels, no visitors, and zero breaks from each other. By the end of 2020, we’d had it with school and working at home. So we booked a beach house for Spring Break in the Outer Banks of North Car...
A young reader reached out to me about how investing and finance are underserved topics in high school. He was eager to share that he earned 20%+ returns from day trading in just a few months because he’s spent a lot of time learning how to inves...
On September 13th, 2021, my nine-year-old son was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, also known as juvenile diabetes. A diabetes diagnosis has immediate impacts. Here are a few for starters: Insulin injections at least four times a day for the...
This Yieldstreet review was published on 12/16/2021 Yieldstreet empowers ordinary investors to diversify into high-yielding asset classes once reserved for the wealthy and institutional investors. Marine finance, commercial real estate, legal fin...
I’ve come across hundreds of fintech startups and financial products over the years blogging. Founders and CEOs pitch me over email and in person at conferences. Marketing firms looking to drum up exposure for their clients email me co...
I’ve maintained a long-term buy-and-hold investing strategy since about 1995. The month-to-month details have changed quite a lot over the years, but the basic principles are mostly the same: Invest first, spend second Max out tax-advantaged acco...
Crises come around every so often — personal crises, family crises, national crises, political crises, market crises, and global. The events are often predictable, but their timing is not. Scientists predicted a virus such as COVID-19 could infec...
I spent 2008 getting to know my future spouse. In the late summer, we had a pragmatic discussion about how each of us wanted our futures to look. There was a lot of overlap, which was a relief at that point in our relationship. The fu...
Perfect grass seemed like the ultimate suburban pursuit. I’ve always envied lush green lawns and sharply trimmed edges — the kind you fear stepping on at wealthy over-55 communities. But after ten years of living on a quarter-acre lot, my l...
Over the winter, I had a large maple tree cut down in my backyard to make room for a shed. The cleanup required several multi-hour sessions of chopping and stacking firewood. Podcasts helped to pass the time. I’ve listened to the Rule...
Most of us aren’t looking for extravagant wealth. We want sustainable and long-lasting wealth that provides financial security for our families and enough money to fund our desired lifestyle. That kind of wealth is more attainable than most peopl...
I used to work for a small IT company and reported directly to the owner. After seven+ years of regular lunches, I started encouraging him to sell the company. When times were good, we could grow the business. But my boss wasn’t willing to make l...