I’m on a bit of a history lesson kick, watching Crash Course videos on Youtube and reading about the Great Depression. People who lived through the Great Depression understood the importance of thrift and not wasting what you had, so I’m constantly on the lookout for advice from that period. By chance, I stumbled across… Read More »
Part of the reason that women traditionally earn less than men for the same job is that they don’t negotiate their salary as often. Keep in mind too, that often the best way to increase your salary is to change jobs and negotiate for a higher pay. My rule of thumb is to always negotiate. What’s… Read More »
I like to think of myself as a fairly sophisticated consumer, too smart to fall for gimmicks. Luckily for me, the universe senses my thoughts and will occasionally give me a smackdown and snigger when I fall for something annoying. “Humility”, the universe whispers in my ear. Indeed. I forget, but there are people whose entire livelihood revolve… Read More »
We live in an incredibly and, dare I say, shamefully wasteful society. Each year, the world throws away an astonishing 33% of all food produced. Consumerism and constantly buying new crap is how we measure the growth of our economy. We throw away instead of fixing what’s broken. We upgrade to the newest electronic gadget the day it’s… Read More »
I don’t want to alienate you with my series – spending habits draining your net worth. I like to think I give both sides of the argument for each item, but for me and my lifestyle, the answer is obvious to avoid them. Here’s an incomplete list of the items I spend no money on or very little… Read More »
This is another post in my series “spending habits draining your net worth.” I finally settled on a not-ridiculous name for this series just as I’m probably nearly done with it. These are specific items that I don’t spend money on and instead I buy VTSAX. Lottery tickets Yes, of course, I understand the upside of… Read More »
I’m working on crossing off Life Bucket List Item #3 – Learn to Cook Like Mom. I’ve tried more times than I can count to cross this sucker off, but now that I’m being a bit more meticulous about the process and thinking about what worked for me in the past, I feel like I’m finally… Read More »
I’m updating my financial independence charts, but this will likely be the second to the last time. I’m devising a new visual aid to track my expenses and hope to have a new system in place by the new year. As a reminder, here is where I stood at the end of October 2015. October 2015… Read More »
This is another post in my series – “List of Items I Don’t Spend Money on That You Probably Do That Are Draining Your Net Worth!” I really need to find a better name for this series. Today’s post looks at cell phone plans. You may want to consider switching to Google’s new Project Fi. Let me say first… Read More »
I think most of the advice I dispense is common sense. Spend less than you earn. Make plans. Set goals. Document the progress. For most people (me included), it’s tough to stay motivated. Here are some tactics I used to keep my goal in sight and my financial avatar galvanized. Tip 1: Email your future self… Read More »