People think you’re weird if you spend too much time ‘taking it in’. We go to our locations, snap our pictures for instagram (if that’s what you’re into), and go home. But I remember when I was a child when I didn’t have the option to get up and leave. I remember I would be […]
Breathing Again
Over the past two weeks, I’ve gotten rid of a great many books, mostly technical books that either duplicated content or covered technologies I don’t need to know. My relationship with books is long and complex, but the gist of the story is that I have, for over a decade, been addicted to books. In […]
Updates and Reflections on 2018
It seems a bit odd to be writing this on Christmas Eve, as I have really nothing to reflect on about Christmas itself. But I am sprawled out on my parents’ guest bed in my old bedroom and I felt it was fitting to write here what’s been on my mind this past week. Updates! […]
Thoughts on Cars
There’s one ideal way to own a car: Pay $0 for one that never breaks down. Wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t that be one of the best deals ever? Yeah, well, too bad. Every car decision is some combination of risk. You can pay a ridiculous portion of your net worth for a new car, […]
Personal Returns on Education
One clever life strategy is to carefully select your post-secondary education to maximize its ROI in your personal life. I’m not talking so much about monetary earnings as I am about the utility of specific skills in your life when they are used for you. For example, my degree is in Anthropology. This was a […]
Comfort and Boredom
My favorite weather is “impending doom”. I use this term to describe the approach of massive storms, such as when thunderheads are rolling toward Denver over the eastern planes, or when a snowstorm is approaching and the plows are out in unison, preparing for the battle ahead. It’s exciting. A small part of me comes […]
Low Paying Jobs
Michael: “Francesca is my oldest brother’s daughter. He died many years ago, and ever since I’ve felt much more of a father than an uncle. I love her very much. I’m pleased and impressed that you had the thought to come to me before going on with your plans. It shows me that you’re a […]
Your Personal Level of Risk
There is risk to everything. Even the things we believe are low-risk have an opportunity cost, which is just another type of risk. Your personal level of risk is a huge determinant of your financial behavior. Here are some places you can put your money, starting with the least-risky to the most-risky: in-house checking account […]
The Ubiquity of Cyclical Spending
In a theoretical economy, the wages individuals earn through the value of their labor would be spent on the labor of others. A lawyer would use the wages he earns practicing law to purchase groceries from one who distributes groceries, he may also use part of his wages to make car payments to another who […]
Financially Bored
So I hit my target savings rate. Then I maxed out the 401k. Then I started working on the Roth IRA. Then I started working on my giving fund, the G-IRA. Then I finally waded through the garbage dump of red tape required to invest some of my HSA. But then what? And then what […]