Blog

Blog

Musings on personal finance and more. Not written with AI since 2012.

Dark waiting

One day, you too may not receive a paycheck. Here’s how to prepare.

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Unless you live under a rock (and even rocks seem to have good WiFi these days), you know that as of the time of writing, the United States is undergoing the longest partial government shutdown in history. About 800,000 federal … Read More … Read More

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Floating inner tube

Are people really judging you right now?

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A few years back, I tried to get together a group of friends to go to a water park. If you haven’t been to a water park as an adult, you really ought to try it again. I feel like … Read More … Read More

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Photo credit: Self Drive Vehicle Hire https://sdvh.co.uk/

Why you make status purchases

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It’s natural to look around your life and see if there is any way that it can be improved. The changing of the new year is one of those times, along with birthdays and springtime (the proverbial “spring cleaning”). The … Read More … Read More

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Old UR logo

Welcome, Unlikely Radicals!

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Notice anything different around here? 😁 After six years and over 600 blog posts, Unlikely Radical has been renamed, rebranded, and renewed. Unlikely Radical is now Empathic Finance. In this post, I’d like to tell you why I did this, and … Read More … Read More

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Night window

It’s time for new beginnings (and uncertainty). Are you ready?

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“We overestimate what we can accomplish in a day, and underestimate what we can accomplish in a year.” That’s one of my favorite quotes about time and productivity. And it has certainly played out over and over. Here it is … Read More

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Stockberg panorama

Year in review 2018: Your top 10 favorite posts

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It’s the end of the year, and I’m recapping the best posts on this site for 2018, as I do every year. In my last post, I recapped my favorite posts of the year. But today, I’m recapping the most-viewed … Read More

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Gems

Year in review 2018: My top 10 favorite posts

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Happy end of the year! It’s that time when I take a little bit of time off from my standard posting schedule and instead have a recap of the best posts of the year, as determined in two ways: the … Read More

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Calendar card

If you don’t want to do it now, schedule a time to do it later

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I think a lot about resistance. There is so much that we know we should be doing and figuring out, so many important conversations that we need to have…and we really really really don’t want to do any of it. … Read More … Read More

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DTLA

What would make you feel financially secure?

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There are people for whom money is not a concern. (That’s great, except for the subset of people for whom money isn’t a concern but probably should be. I want you to feel financially secure, but only if you are financially secure.) … Read More … Read More

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Old United truck

I let my United miles expire. Should I buy them back?

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Somewhere, someone at United Airlines is smiling. Frequent flyer mile expiration is an easy way for an airline to make more money. It’s a “currency” that the airline owns. They control how you use it, and if you don’t keep … Read More … Read More

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