05 Oct What’s your Gazingus Pin?
Screw you Instagram. Your years of digital snooping have trained your pernicious algo to know too much about me. My yearnings, my anxities, my guilty pleasures...
money Tag
09 Aug How to make work feel like play
The best part of not having a corporate job is no longer having the Sunday Scaries. I had them every Sunday for fifteen years; or 780 consecutive weekends. My friends and I anthropomorphized this dread by giving it a name: Mr. Scary. We were young bankers...
21 Jun Should you always “protect the principal?”
Elon Musk was nearly broke in 2008, borrowing money from his homies to cover his rent. "About four months ago, I ran out of cash," he stated during his divorce proceedings. His brother Kimball confirmed his precarious position, "Oh yeah. [He’s] in debt. More...
23 Mar Passive Income: A Portfolio Approach
Passive income is the Daenerys Targaryen of personal finance. It scorches the earth of our work-centric society giving birth to freedom, pleasure and financial independence. It anchors so many calculations, such as the never-ending quest find your tipping point, or your "Number." The allure of The...
13 Mar There’s no such thing as “The Number”
Don't miss the follow-up post on the Portfolio Approach to Passive Income. The most satisfying part of Microsoft Excel is the F9 key. It ignites (some might say, "refreshes") any complex financial model; with a single tap, it can tie together tabs, inputs and conditional IF...
28 Dec Why I fully funded a 529 plan as a single 23 year old
The day my daughter was born was the day I stopped saving for her college education. Yup, you read that right. She wasn't even a day old and under some conservative assumptions, her 529 College Savings Plan was fully funded. I started investing in this...
14 Dec A simple criteria to help identify new business ideas
There's no playbook for coming up with business ideas. You could identify your own pain points to see first-hand what products could be improved. You could spot an injustice in the world and commit to its eradication. You could back into seams of opportunity using...
13 Dec Robinhood’s 3% Checking and Saving Account: The fine print
12/15 Update: Robinhood said on their blog that they "plan to work closely with regulators as we prepare to launch our cash management program, and we’re revamping our marketing materials, including the name." 12/14 Update: SIPC CEO and president Stephen Harbeck told Bloomberg "I disagree with the statement...
10 Dec Why everyone should have a high-yield savings account
Money doesn't grow on trees. And it also doesn't grow in savings accounts at brick-and-mortar banks like Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America. In fact (as of this writing) the average interest rate across all US based savings accounts is a paltry 0.09%. Yet,...
06 Dec How to overcome the “scarcity mindset”
We're surrounded by scarcity. The day starts with "I didn't sleep enough." Then the rush to get the kids fed and out the door is accompanied by the nagging feeling that as parents we're "not present enough." Next, a commute skimming articles on our phones and...