I remember back in my traveling days how we’d be so happy to earn $100 per day. It was our goal, and if we hit it, all was well in the world. It might not sound like a lot to many of you, but it really was an incredible amount of money for us, and here’s […]
When could you afford a dog?
I wanted to bring in a couple of ideas here, and hope you’ll help me out with how you deal with these questions… the tough one for me isn’t when I could afford a dog, rather a second car, which I’m struggling with, but let’s see what that clickbait title is all about.I still recall […]
Equity Risk Premium at 3.25%
I recently wrote a post asking you to think about how much you value a fixed rate of return. If you missed it, check it out here: How much is a fixed rate of return worth to you? I came across a post today via a twitter share from the CFA institute, which (it seems) […]
Is dry powder worth the price?
Dry powder in investment terms means having a source of funds ready to move at a moments notice. The etymology, for those who care, seems to come from the use of gun powder in battle, and perhaps was first heard when used by Oliver Cromwell. A lot of financial pundits promote the concept of dry powder, […]
Morgan Stanleys 5 indicators are green!
Holy smokes batman!Morgan Stanley announced that their 5 key timing indicators are a flashing green light to investors (not sure if that is more exciting, or more risky than a steady green light or both..) they call it a ‘full house’, from poker, that game where you gamble.Apparently, they have a set of indicators that […]
Glidepath Averaging and Diversification
The concept of a glidepath in personal finance is taken from an aircraft. As it reaches its destination the characteristics of its propulsion are adjusted to help it land safely, and smoothly.You will see this manifest itself in many ways, one might be in a Target Date Fund, here’s an image from Vanguard showing their […]
Obligations are much more important than debts
The focus on debt in low level financial planning creates a fallacy. Debt, label it good or bad if you will, is really only important if it is costing you more to hold than you can gain from its use. Being debt free, but ignoring your obligations is purposeless.With sophistication, we should consider a debt […]
What’s up with #thechart ?
There’s one of those charts out there again.. you know the ones – they are written up and then they go viral and people forget to actually care about how accurate they are, or what they are say, they just go WOW IT IS A CHART (hereafter referred to as #thechart). This one was in […]
Stockpiling gift cards?
My esteemed colleague Trevor wrote a post recently about the stockpiling of discount giftcards, and I wanted to share some thoughts on the topic. I really hate stockpiling, but there are times when I find myself also doing it, the calculation that I make is as follows: Is the discounted price today greater than […]
Average Manhattan Rents up to $4,081?
In today’s NY Post slugged ‘its basically impossible to find a rental in Manhattan’ we are alerted to an average rent of $4,081. This comes on the heels of the SFChronicle announcing $3,458 being the average for the Bay Area. These headlines may (I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt) be factually correct, but I […]