A week after graduating from college, I flew to London and spent the summer riding trains and sleeping in hostels around Europe. Two things became clear that summer. I had no interest in more formal education, and I wanted to travel a lot more. The fastest way to travel again was to find a decent-paying […]
One of my biggest failures as a parent and personal finance aficionado was waiting seven years after our first child was born to finish our estate plan. It seems that doing an estate plan is more prone to procrastination than most other grown-up checklist items, even vasectomies. (Be sure to answer the two survey questions […]
The Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge attraction recently opened at both Disneyland in Anaheim, CA, and Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL. Despite the long-awaited openings, Disney stock analysts were disappointed to see overall theme park attendance down 3% in the fiscal third quarter. Visitors to the planet Batuu meet face-to-face with the Millennium Falcon and […]
This Masterworks review was updated on 07/31/2019. Part of what I love about being a money blogger is learning about innovative startups and investment platforms. Last year, I came across one that was particularly interesting and mentioned it in a post about alternative investment ideas. Today I’m digging deeper into Masterworks, an investment platform that […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness recently. Not so much about what makes me happy, but about the mechanics of creating sustained happiness in life. Over and over again, I read about successful people I admire who have all the money they need but still don’t feel fulfilled with their lives. The actor Jim […]
More than five years ago, I started reading an anonymous money blog called 1500 Days. The writer had a similar idea to mine, to escape the rat race early and stop working on his terms instead of what’s traditionally considered normal retirement age. Since the beginning, the 1500 Days blog has hosted an almost weekly […]
What’s the difference between investing vs. gambling? Well the simple answer is math, but there’s more to it than that. In my mid-teens, I went to Atlantic City with my family for an evening on the boardwalk. I was deeply interested in money for someone my age so the idea of gambling was intriguing, to say […]
Buying compact discs (CDs) used to be a thing. That’s how we bought music back in the 1980’s and 1990’s. I spent a few thousand dollars on CDs throughout high school, college, and my early working years. One summer, I worked in a record store to earn money because my internship at a financial services company was […]
One of my new favorite podcasts is the Animal Spirits Podcast hosted by bloggers Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson of Ritholtz Wealth Management. These guys are prolific writers and tweeters who often poke fun at investment pundits and fund managers who try to predict future market returns. Turn on CNBC and there’s always someone who claims to know […]
A New York-based company called Construction Robotics has designed and built a bricklaying robot called SAM (Semi-Automated Mason) that can place up to 3,000 bricks during an 8-hour day. That’s about three times the number of bricks that the fastest human bricklayers can set. The machine requires at least two humans to load materials and finish […]
In 2002, a nineteen-year-old garbage man in the U.K. named Michael Carroll won a lottery jackpot worth $14 million dollars. Instead of making smart money moves with his winnings, he spent his fortune on jewelry and a mansion where he threw lavish parties with drugs and prostitutes. A decade later, he was broke and working […]
Last April on a long solo drive, I listened to the Mad Fientist’s interview with Vicki Robin on the Financial Independence Podcast. Vicki Robin is the co-author of , the book that popularized the term financial independence. The 2018 version includes a foreword by Mr. Money Mustache, who in 2012, wrote about the book causing a […]
After choosing a domain name and starting my blog back in September of 2013, the software behind the scenes called WordPress asked me to declare a tagline. Unprepared, the first three words that came to mind were Invest. Retire. Travel. Those three words accurately presented the message I wanted to convey to my readers so I went […]
Six years ago, we moved to the suburbs from a one-bedroom condo in a densely populated and walkable area. We wanted more space, risk-free parking, better schools, a yard for kids to play in, and a friendly neighborhood. We got all of those things. But moving to the suburbs came with a bunch of financial […]
