Blog

Blog

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

Machu Picchu cliff

The hesitation before putting extra money toward a big goal

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Recently, I found myself in the situation where I had a little extra money. Not a ton, you understand, but it felt significant to me. Now, as I’ve argued before, the first thing you do when you receive an unexpected … Read More … Read More

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Vishu Kani

Year in review 2016: Your top 10 favorite posts

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I wrote about my favorite posts for this year. But what about yours? Just like I did in 2015, 2014, and 2013, I ran a report and came up with the ten most-read posts for this year. … Read More

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Year in review 2016: My top 10 favorite posts

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What a year it’s been. This site has now been humming along for over four years now. As I continue to post twice per week, that means that there are over a hundred posts on this site over the past … Read More … Read More

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Conference badges

I’m going to FinCon 2017!

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If there’s anything I know a lot about, it’s that there are so many ways that we are enticed to spend money. I know how advertising works. You are shown something that makes you feel like you want/need some thing or … Read More … Read More

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Rebate sign

Fortune favors the diligent

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Recently, I was at one of my favorite pizza places in town (try the vegan ranch, seriously!). I dug out a filled-out punch card and so got one of the slices for free. I then paid for the remaining balance … Read More … Read More

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Avoid any mortgage company whose sales pitch involves misunderstandings of basic physics

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Sometimes, I see something that is too boneheaded to go unchallenged and un-poked-fun-at. (That’s a phrase, right?) It’s related to the post where I talked about the reverse mortgage, and why it’s a terrible idea. It also has to do … Read More … Read More

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How homeowners can go back into debt, lose their home, and pay for the privilege

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I’ve long said that if they are advertising something, you don’t need it. This was one of my very first blog posts from years ago, and I stick by it. Now “need” is different from “want”, of course. You may … Read More … Read More

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Reading the paper

You’ll never believe what we can do to reduce the prevalence of clickbait and fake news

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If you’re anything like me, you’re horrified by the revelation that we’re living in a “post-fact world“,  where being truthful seems to not matter as much as the emotional appeal. I’m not on Facebook (thank heavens, now more than ever), … Read More … Read More

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Half car

More lying with numbers: What it really means to be half-wrong about interest rates

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It is possible to lie with numbers, or at least mislead. We’ve seen this before when talking about how many hours you have available to work in a given week. It’s not the numbers that are doing the lying, of … Read More … Read More

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Empathy noses

The one thing we all need more of now

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(I had another post queued up for today, and right at the almost-literal 11th hour, I decided there was something else I wanted to say. So I pushed that one off for another time.) Today is Thanksgiving in the U.S. For … Read More … Read More

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