Yes, Health Insurance Costs Impacted My Early Retirement (FIRE) Plans

When the topic of early retirement comes up, a common question is "Are you concerned about health insurance?" I could be a cheerleader and say "nah no big deal", but to be honest it has impacted my early retirement plans. Not only are the costs … [Read the rest]

How To Lose Your Money Investing

Sometimes the best solution to a problem comes by approaching it backwards. Charlie Munger often spoke about the principle of inversion. Instead of looking for things that you should do to achieve a goal, make a list of things you would do to make … [Read the rest]

Chase Sapphire Banking: $1,000 Bonus For New/Existing Customers ($75,000 Assets)

New bonus. Chase has a new $1,000 cash bonus offer if you upgrade to or open a new Sapphire Banking account. To qualify, you must transfer a total of $75,000 or more in new money or securities into eligible Chase checking, savings and/or … [Read the rest]

Capital One Walmart Rewards Mastercard Review: 5% Back, But With Restrictions

Today, Walmart launched their new Capital One Walmart Rewards Mastercard (credit card) and Walmart Rewards Card (store card that only works at Walmart). Here are the highlights, which unfortunately include some hoops and hurdles to jump … [Read the rest]

My Money Blog Portfolio Income and Withdrawal Rate – September 2019 (Q3)

One of the biggest problems in retirement planning is making sure a pile of money lasts throughout your retirement. I have read hundreds of articles about this topic, and there is no single solution. My imperfect (!) solution is to first build a … [Read the rest]

My Money Blog Portfolio Asset Allocation Update, September 2019 (Q3)

Here's my portfolio update for the third quarter of 2019. Most of my dividends arrive on a quarterly basis, and this helps me determine where to reinvest them. These are my real-world holdings, including 401k/403b/IRAs, taxable brokerage accounts, … [Read the rest]

The Hidden Economics of College Admissions

NY Times Magazine has an interesting longread What College Admissions Offices Really Want by Paul Tough, adapted from his new book The Years That Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us. Angel Pérez and Trinity College allowed an inside look at … [Read the rest]

Firefox Private Network: Free Browser-Based VPN Encryption During Beta

If you're like me, you take advantage of all the free WiFi you can get to avoid having to pay too much for a big cellular data plan. Coffee shops, airports, libraries, hotels, conference centers, etc. The problem is that (as Mozilla puts it) if a … [Read the rest]

Reminder: Nobody Can Predict Future Interest Rates (Especially the Experts)

The financial prediction industry is simply mind-boggling to me. There is zero long-term memory or accountability. You can make all the predictions you want about the stock market, gold prices, and interest rates, and nobody remembers your bad … [Read the rest]

Landed: Shared Equity Down Payment Program For Educators

Home ownership continues to be a goal for many people, but downpayment requirements also keep rising with housing prices. I previously posted about Unison, which offers downpayment assistance in exchange for a percentage of any future upside (or … [Read the rest]

NetNewsWire 5.0: Free RSS Reader for Mac

If you like things old-school and still follow blogs and news sites using RSS feeds, you may be interested to know that the NetNewsWire RSS reader name has gone back to its original creator and there is a new version now available as a free, open … [Read the rest]

Causes of Wealth: Reality vs. News Coverage

Our World in Data has a very in-depth page on Causes of Death from around the world. Then they asked: Does the news reflect what we die from? What if they compared what we read in the news and the raw data? Here is a chart that compares actual … [Read the rest]