The carnival of personal finance is up and hosted at one of my favorite blogs. (My Open Wallet). Go check it out. My article, “How free is my computer” was an editor’s pick. (Thanks Madame X). Anyway, go check it out.
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I Can Lower My Monthly Payments With A 40 Year Mortgage
Great news. I received a letter in the mail today from Countrywide home loans. Apparently they’ve done the math for me and I could be paying less every month for my mortgage by switching to a 40 year loan. Here are the benefits that they listed: -Lower your monthly payments -Consolidate or pay down higher interest debt -Get cash to do the things you want to
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Rich Kids Learning About Money
This article is a crowd pleaser. Robert Frank attended a summer camp for rich kids that was specifically created to teach the children of rich people how to manage money so that they don’t just blow it all. It’s interesting to read some of Frank’s observations about these people who are mostly in their twenties: “When I got to the Skills Retreat, I thought it would
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More Progress On The Lake House
I know this is probably starting to sound repetitious but we spent the weekend out at the lake working on the house. We were able to complete the siding over the deck (cedar peak) which I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time. We also got the heat pump delivered and I wired it in. In the next couple weeks we’ll have the company
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Equity
I’m back out working on the cabin. I decided to take a couple days off this week since the weather is so nice. I’ve got a few things lined up to get completed on the cabin. I’ve asked the heating company to come out tomorrow and finish the install of the heat pump and fire the system up. I have run the wiring out for
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Breaking News?
This has nothing to do with personal finance but I found it somewhat pathetic: We have troops deployed in many hostile areas. Our national debt is skyrocketing. Politicians are all maneuvering for election day. There are a million different things that actually matter to our country and our world going on right now and CNN breaks with this? I’m so disappointed that this is what our
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I Wonder What The Rest Of The World Thinks
Yeah, I know. You aren’t supposed to care what other people think. When I see pictures like the one below though, I often wonder what the rest of the world must think. Looks like Materialism at it’s finest. Bling bling! I can only imagine how much those wheels and tires cost. They probably cost more than the whole car is worth. But, if they bought
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Qwest Does The Right Thing
On December 15, 2007 my parents had a fire at their home. The fire gutted the garage/shop and smoked the inside of their house. Days after the fire, my mother called the various utilities to stop them while they waited to rebuild and clean their house. They knew it would be months before they would be able to get back in their house and didn’t
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Amazing Vizualization Of Consumerism
When I saw these images of various consumer products that are vizualized in their various quantities I was struck with how much waste we have in this country. 426,000 cel phones are retired every day. http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/running_the_numbers/11rtn.php http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/running_the_numbers/12rtn.php 11,000 jet trails are produced in this country every 8 hours http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/running_the_numbers/ http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/running_the_numbers/02rtn.php 106,000 aluminum cans are used in the US every 30 SECONDS! http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/running_the_numbers/05rtn.php http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/running_the_numbers/06rtn.php 60,000 plastic
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How Free Is My Computer?
A lot of people talk about open source and point out that it’s the holy grail of software. I love open source software just as much as the next guy but I also like Windows. I’ve used Linux in the past (an old Redhat version and the more recent Ubuntu) but I could never bring myself to use it exclusively. Like many others, I found
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