Blog

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

Stock price on computer

Day trading, or forgetting what money is really for

Posted by on | Featured

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

Tags: , ,
Monopoly house

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

Posted by on | Featured

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

Tags: , ,
Ceiling Circles

Financial Cage Match: Paying down a mortgage versus investing

Posted by on | Featured

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

Tags: , , , ,
Man lying down

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

Posted by on | Featured

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

Tags: , , ,

Unlikely Hypocrite? Costco versus Amazon Prime

Posted by on | Featured

  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

Tags: , ,

The financial risks of Amazon Prime

Posted by on | Featured

  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

Tags: ,

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

Posted by on | Featured

  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

Tags: ,

Do we all need to work?

Posted by on | Featured

  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

Tags: , , ,

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

Posted by on | Featured

  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

Tags: , , ,

94 index cards: My results from the Priceless Surprises promotion

Posted by on | Featured

  A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Priceless Surprises promotion, a way to earn hotel points and other prizes. This promotion was sponsored by MasterCard, which presumably had a vested interest in getting you to use one of … Read More … Read More

Tags: , , ,