Blog

Blog

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

Why I still opt-out at airports

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  (Update: I don’t need to opt-out anymore because I have NEXUS.) In response to the terror attacks of 2001, airport security came under intense scrutiny. In the US, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was formed, which was mandated to … Read More … Read More

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Go, if you can, because you can

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  I’m writing this on a plane bound for Europe. I used miles to pay for this flight, so it cost me only around $100 in fees. I’m flying Coach (though I’ll be testing my own advice when I fly Business … Read More … Read More

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How not to be seen (when online)

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  There’s been a lot of talk about spying recently in the news. These accusations (most of which, as far as I can tell, are not unfounded) bring a related reminder that what we do online is all-too-easily able to … Read More … Read More

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The lesson I learned from the pre-flight safety announcement

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  After a lot of flying, many of the things we endure (security screening, etc) we tend to look at in different ways, the way that saying a word over and over slowly rotates the word in your head until … Read More … Read More

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How to plan when you fear the worst

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  I think investing is fun. I mean, you put some money aside, sit on it, and then after a while, you get more of it. Couldn’t be easier, right? All you need to do is spend some time setting … Read More … Read More

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The one category in your budget that you don’t want to forget

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  One of the tasks you do when starting out budgeting for the first time is to come up with spending categories for your expenses. These are things like transportation, groceries, clothing, things that you spend money on throughout the … Read More … Read More

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The Debt Math Throwdown (or testing the debt snowball)

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  In my discussion about how to pay off your debt, I mentioned how there were primarily two schools of thought: pay off the highest interest rate first, or pay off the smallest debt first (a.k.a. “the debt snowball”). The … Read More … Read More

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How to figure out which debt to pay off first

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  If you’re like most people, you have a few credit cards here and there, maybe a student loan payment, and perhaps a car payment. In addition, maybe you own a house and have a mortgage payment. That’s a lot … Read More … Read More

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How working for someone else is like renting

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  I like finding connections between seemingly disparate aspects of our lives. And while thinking about the self-employment-versus-working-for-others issue, I realized that there is an interesting and unlikely connection between the type of job you have and whether you rent … Read More … Read More

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Is it safer to work for yourself?

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  Safety and security are important components of anyone’s life, whether physical (we won’t be mugged or assaulted), financial (we will have enough to eat, have shelter), or any other metric. But when it comes to less universal metrics, people’s … Read More … Read More

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