I am a proponent of the FIRE concept, Financial Independence, Retire Early. Though the first part of the statement is the key, and once you have achieved financial independence you don’t have to start knitting, it just means that you have options. Options that can include taking a year (or a lifetime) off to sail […]
Repair Ratio – Assets, Income and Correlations
Recently, in The Forum, I was discussing the strengths and weaknesses of dollar cost averaging (DCA) vs lump sum investing. While many think of DCA as a powerful financial mechanism, there are two key flaws that arise from its implementation. The first is lazy money syndrome. DCA drips money into an investment over time. that […]
Forum Digest – Personal Finance Topics
Here’s a quick recap of some topics from The Forum this week, I’ve been trying to build some detailed posts there, and hope you will come by and join the conversation, starting your own threads and sharing your ideas or questions. 529 Plans and Saving for College Education (by imjoe) I have a son who will […]
My New Years Resolutions
I lay in bed last night planning out one of my next big ventures, and this morning decided that I need to write down my New Years Resolutions, as I have quite a few things that I want to achieve. I then stopped for a moment and realized that it wasn’t new years, I thought, […]
If you can’t sell a stock, you shouldn’t buy one.
Nobody buys a stock with the intention of it going down (excluding ‘shorters’ and disgruntled spouses of course..) so when the transaction doesn’t turn out the way you expect you need to think about when to exit correctly. Holding onto a losing position is one of the most common financial flaws that people face. It […]
Betterment announces Cap Loss Harvesting Service
Andy, over at Military Finance informed me this week that Betterment had launched their Capital Loss Harvesting solution. In my opinion this was one area where they were falling behind as firms like WealthFront and Future Advisor were already offering this. I’ve previously reviewed Betterment, and looked at WealthFront and Betterment in their marketing strategies […]
My goal is to beat the system. Everywhere. I hope you’ll join me.
I remember being told off for my negative approach to discussion. If something wasn’t quite ‘right’ I would start out with a “No, that’s different”, in fact I still do it, but eradicating this is habit is on my self improvement list. The lesson I received was to look to Comedy Improv training. In that, when […]
Pirates and Hippies – lessons on Asset Allocation and Asset Location
If you can understand the essence of a concept, it is much easier to fit the pieces of the puzzle together and understand higher level aspects of it. Let’s explore Asset Allocation, and its twin Asset Location from the ground up for a change. The greatest issue that society faces today is the depth of […]
The true cost of a $5,000 Engagement Ring
Originally, engagement rings were used to lock down the good looking ladies when you popped off for a crusade. The theory being that if you were going to race off to battle invading Moorish folk, or dragons, then it was only reasonable that your betrothed had some sort of income protection in the event of your […]
7 ways to get a Credit Card without a SSN
I am often asked how people can apply for credit cards with a Social Security Number (SSN). For the most part this applies to people with certain immigration status, such as International Students, or people on certain types of visa. One such type is the H4 Visa, for spouses of H1-B visas, a very common […]