Latest Posts
To buy a house or to rent when you have the cash
There are many calculators and advice columns about whether to rent or to buy but every single one of those assumes you don’t have the cash to buy a house outright. In this case paying a mortgage is a way to force you to build equity and that is definitely a good thing. But what … Continue reading “To buy a house or to rent when you have the cash”
December 2020 spending and a report on a failed challenge
There it is, folks. For the final month of 2020, we spend $4,350, of which $1300 was a big vet bill for a major dental on the Beagle. With Christmas presents thrown in there, I think this is pretty in-line with our general spending pattern. December did not turn out as planned, and Funky Wife … Continue reading “December 2020 spending and a report on a failed challenge”
Financial habits I am keeping (or adding) for 2021
2020 has been a crazy year, and the pandemic forced us to do many things differently. For some of those things, I can’t wait to get back to normal, but some of my new habits I hope to keep forever. Here are the keepers: Cooking at home. I never liked eating out. Not just because it … Continue reading “Financial habits I am keeping (or adding) for 2021”
Becoming financially independent is easier than you may think
Financial independence, from a mathematical point of view, is pretty straightforward. You need an investment portfolio 25 times your annual expenses. With some basic assumptions, confirmed by historical market performance, if you withdraw no more than 4% of this portfolio each year, it will last indefinitely. Financial independence is not absolute; it depends on how … Continue reading “Becoming financially independent is easier than you may think”
November Spending
As we expected, November was a big spending month. December is turning out very similar, so be prepared! Food has again climbed over $1000 for the month. In this case, this is actually OK. With Covid spiking again, I decided it is time to restock the pantry and we are back up to more than … Continue reading “November Spending”
Life without Netflix and our December Challenge
No Netflix November: November’s challenge was to survive without Netflix. As challenges tend to be, this was eye-opening. My screen time didn’t decrease, but I largely switched to Youtube, and that was great! It turns out I like to learn new recipes, and we had all kinds of delicious food, including stuffed “goose,” which I made … Continue reading “Life without Netflix and our December Challenge”
Money and Kids
Allowing your kids to make mistakes with money
One of the hardest things for me as a parent is to watch my kid make mistakes and suffer the consequences. Now, I do my best to stop her from making any really big mistakes with big consequences — I make sure her seat belt is on, I don’t let her talk to strangers online, … Continue reading “Allowing your kids to make mistakes with money”
Teaching money skills to tweens and young teens
As the Child is approaching the ripe old age of 12, it is time to teach her to the skills she will need to be able to manage her money as an adult. As every teacher will tell you, to design a good lesson, you need to start with learning objectives. So what should a … Continue reading “Teaching money skills to tweens and young teens”
Is College worth it?
My wife and I both have PhDs, and we both work in education, so it is safe to say we deeply value education. I have also been a faculty member at a large state university for the last 15 years, and I have seen many students come in, take some classes, and then drop-out for … Continue reading “Is College worth it?”
Spending Reports
Get to know us through our numbers
One fun way to get to know someone, is to check out what they choose do to with their money. It is not something that we often get to find out about people but our family is an open book so here is what we spent in 2019 together with some US national averages. Starting … Continue reading “Get to know us through our numbers“
Our August Spending
Well, it is possible that writing this blog is good for our budget. I have been keeping track of how much we spend for several years now and this is our lowest spending month in recorded history! Which shows that way too much of our spending is really discretionary. Our average monthly spending for 2019 … Continue reading “Our August Spending”
No-Snacks September
As we noticed in our annual budget analysis, our family spends way more money on food than most households. That got me thinking if we are optimizing our happiness profits within this part of our budget which lead to me going over all of our food receipts from the past two months. We have been … Continue reading “No-Snacks September”
October Spending
It is the middle of November, and I am just now posting our October spending. The election occupied all my discretionary time-to-think, and I just didn’t have the bandwidth to compute our numbers for October. But I am quite happy with the final results, and now I can get back to managing the household budget:0) … Continue reading “October Spending”
No Netflix November
No Snacks September was a fun challenge which led our family to adopt new eating habits. I thought November offered an interesting opportunity to explore life without Netflix. Maybe this will be another change we will decide to permanently embrace… Netlfix for me is a lot like junk food. I spend a lot of time … Continue reading “No Netflix November”
Happiness Profits
Does money buy Happiness?
According to an often-quoted study, satisfaction with life tops off at an income of $75K. That is barely over the average US household income of about $65K. Yet, most of us believe we would be happier if we had more money. So what is going on? As you make more money optimizing the happiness profit … Continue reading “Does money buy Happiness?“
Bullshit jobs
RIP David Graeber Many people hate their jobs, and David Graeber, an anthropology professor at the London School of Economics, told us why. David Graeber died today, so in his honor, let’s review the five types of bullshit jobs. Flunkies serve to make their superiors feel important, e.g., receptionists, administrative assistants, and door attendants. Goons … Continue reading “Bullshit jobs”
FIRE
For the novice, FIRE stands for Financial Independence Retire Early. Followers of this movement often save 50%-80% of their income to accumulate enough invested capital to be able to retire early (sometimes as early as in their 30s) and live entirely on passive income. If you hang out in the FIRE circles, you will hear … Continue reading “FIRE”
Investing
Everything you need to know to start investing
I didn’t start investing for a long time because I found it scary. My family didn’t have investments and I didn’t know anyone I could talk to about investments. My first investments were rental houses – I could see them, touch them, knew I will get a rental check at the end of the month. … Continue reading “Everything you need to know to start investing”
The Super-Power of Discretionary Income
Life is a series of experiences. Some are trivial like brushing your teeth, others are memorable, like your wedding day, or that cruise you took to Alaska. Some experiences are fun (maybe your last vacation is on your list of fun experiences), some are neutral (your list depends on your personality, washing dishes is on … Continue reading “The Super-Power of Discretionary Income”
FIRE
For the novice, FIRE stands for Financial Independence Retire Early. Followers of this movement often save 50%-80% of their income to accumulate enough invested capital to be able to retire early (sometimes as early as in their 30s) and live entirely on passive income. If you hang out in the FIRE circles, you will hear … Continue reading “FIRE”
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Funky Family Finances 