Blog

Blog

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

Porto Alegre at night

It’s 4 AM: Do you know where your retirement accounts are?

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I just remembered that I have a gift card with money on it that I haven’t yet spent. The gift card is for Williams-Sonoma, a nice place for sure, but looks like I’ll be able to afford only a pot … Read More … Read More

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Stock price on computer

Day trading, or forgetting what money is really for

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I was in college during the “dot-com” boom. My lab partner, a cocky dude to be sure, said he spent a lot of his days day trading. And he seemed to be doing well enough, though he never elaborated. While … Read More … Read More

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Monopoly house

Why the home mortgage interest deduction isn’t as disappointing as I thought

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Often when I play board games, I enjoy the process of losing as much as winning. That’s why I love it when people comment on my posts pushing back against my arguments. I don’t consider myself an infallible expert in … Read More … Read More

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Ceiling Circles

Financial Cage Match: Paying down a mortgage versus investing

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This is another entry in the Financial Cage Match series, where I look at two competing financial priorities and see which one comes out on top. Here’s another entry: Paying off student loans versus investing for retirement. WARNING: This post … Read More … Read More

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Man lying down

Just making sure: Mortgage interest isn’t a reason to hold on to a mortgage

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WARNING: This post contains math. “When you have a mortgage, you get a tax deduction for all the mortgage interest you pay. So you shouldn’t pay down your mortgage early, because you’ll lose the tax deduction.” This is one of the … Read More … Read More

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Unlikely Hypocrite? Costco versus Amazon Prime

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  I’ve got retail on the brain these days. Recently I talked about the new Starbucks Rewards program, and then more recently I talked about Amazon Prime. And now it’s on to Costco. Why Costco? Because as I was reviewing … Read More … Read More

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The financial risks of Amazon Prime

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  I periodically buy things on Amazon. Not all the time, and I don’t keep up much what the giant of Seattle (the other one, not the one that makes the coffee) is up to. But I had recently put … Read More … Read More

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Why we must work, even if we don’t have to

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  So, maybe it’s starting to happen that not everyone “needs” to work in order for all of our basic needs to be accounted for. If you are given enough money to live, would you still work? A study in … Read More … Read More

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Do we all need to work?

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  I believe that we are entering an unprecedented situation in America (if not the world), where the link between the existence of workers and the need to do work no longer correlates. We are seeing the ramifications of this … Read More … Read More

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Guilt tipping, or another way that a card makes you spend more

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  Last year, I spent an entire month spending only cash. My review at the time was that it was a giant pain in the neck, but it nevertheless (somehow) saved me hundreds of dollars. Since then, I’ve gone back … Read More … Read More

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