It’s that time of year again. Time for everyone to go bananas about getting good deals on stuff they don’t need, just in time for Christmas! I hate the overall focus on buying, buying, buying, this time of year. While we’ve picked up a few things that we NEEDED during previous Black Fridays, overall we try to avoid the whole thing each year. This year
It’s that time of year. Technology companies announce their latest tech gadgets and phones and then crazy people line up in the streets and camp in tents to be the first to get them. It’s really kind of amazing to see what people will do for a cell phone. The Iphone 5S looks pretty much the same as the old model, does most of the
One of the financial goals we’ve made is to have our house paid off before age 55, or at least have the capability to pay it off if we want to. I know that as I get older, I’ll struggle to find a job if I lose the one I have now. I anticipate that sooner or later I will lose my job, so much
Last week I was invited to attend a financial event at the local baseball stadium. A friend of mine has been a client of a major investment/insurance company for years and was encouraged to bring a couple friends to this small event. (There were about 70 people total) I’m normally not very interested to attend speaking engagements like this but because it was at the
Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time going over my spreadsheets and playing with various scenarios for our retirement. I often wonder how long I need to work before I can walk away and have enough to last the rest of my life. In reality, I think my wife will live much longer than I will so most of my scenarios ensure that she
So, I bought a new Honda Accord Sport last week. Yes, I know, I’m a fool. Many of the gurus tell you not to buy a new car, but rather, you should buy one a couple years old to take advantage of the depreciation. From my experience and through the research I did, I found that the difference in price between an Accord that is
I’ve been kind of quiet lately. I haven’t had a ton to blog about recently, not because we are reprioritizing our personal finances, but rather because they are pretty much on autopilot. The only part of our personal finances that isn’t on autopilot is our continued desire to buy a rental property. I tried to pull the trigger on a couple different houses but lost
As you know, last week the Powerball lottery was $590 million. I had considered buying a ticket (roughly my 3rd or 4th ever) but never made it to the store to actually pull the trigger. I haven’t been tossing and turning all week wondering if I would have won. The reality is that the odds were VERY against me. There is at least one person
I’ve recently found myself surpassing some financial milestones that I never thought I’d see. Our retirement accounts are at levels that I used to just dream about when I was first starting out. Never underestimate the power of consistent contributions and compound interest, that’s for sure. As I was sitting here looking over the numbers I started to wonder why I’d always thought these milestones
There was another huge lottery winner. This time Pedro Quezada won $338 million. That’s a lot of coin. He opted for the lump sum and walked away with $152 million after taxes. Yeah, that’s still a lot of coin. If you just took a conservative 3% annually, you’d still be living on $4.5 million before taxes. Any way you slice it, you could live FAT with
