A number of people even in the FIRE community will often sing the praises of not paying off your mortgage. The idea is that if you can lock in a low interest rate, you can pay the minimum on it while investing the rest in something like the stock market, which will likely have higher […]
Category: Economics
Voices of Discouragement
I had a coworker at my first software job who, despite being a friend, was also insensitive and demeaning on more than a few occasions, not just toward me but also toward others. He was very technically capable, and for that reason it was hard to dismiss his technical criticism. However, one day I was […]
Reflections on Cloud Computing and Monthly Expenditures
A large portion of the software and IT industries have refocused in recent years on “cloud computing”, a term that refers to running things over the internet instead of on premises. I believe this buzzword originated from the practice of representing the internet as a cloud on old network diagrams. I’m not a huge fan. […]
Brief Thoughts on Spreading Yourself Too Thin
I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve accomplished this past year, and while I read several books that were great, I also feel that I didn’t focus enough on the books I had, as several remain unfinished. Most interesting of these books were a few I had on the Tibetan language. After my first trip to […]
Escape Velocity: Getting Your Savings to Actually Work for You
When I was in high school and college, I was “good” with money. I spent very little on myself, never bought things like DVDs or other entertainment media, and rarely bought expensive things. But strangely, this was never enough. Despite saving most of my birthday and Christmas money, my first semester of college wiped out […]
Brief Thoughts on Engine Rebuilds
I would love to learn how to rebuild an engine. I think it would be an excellent educational experience. But it’s also not to be taken lightly, as it requires space and several very specialized tools, such as an engine stand and a valve spring compressor, to name just a few. It has occurred to […]
Downsizing the Lego Collection
I think this is a good case study in downsizing. I told myself this past year that I’d like to do one or two Lego projects, somewhere along the lines of finishing a mech I started building years ago and maybe building a house or two based on designs from the 1920s. Neither has happened. […]
Food Part 1: The Economics of Emergency Food
Many years ago, my dad bought me a box of freeze-dried emergency meals. This box expired in 2019, and while I had planned to get rid of it in 2020, the pandemic convinced me to hold onto it a little longer. But it’s been several years now, and it got me researching emergency food. First […]
The Myth of the Eternal Beater Car
There is a general category of urban legend that features beater cars that simply never die. Many of these urban legends revolve around Hondas and Toyotas from the 1990s, even spawning the great “1999 Toyota Corolla – Fine AF” post on Craigslist. Many people have anecdotes of older cars seeming to last forever, or stories […]
The Importance of Owning Less
My parents moved out of state this past week. I wrote up a rather large rant on the subject, but after taking a few days to clear my thoughts, I decided to rewrite it into something maybe a little more useful. Nobody ever moves and thinks, “Wow, I’m glad I have all this stuff!” And […]