Through my travels I have had the opportunity to learn a lot about equality. I have lived in Japan where society treats women as second class citizens, and I have lived in Harlem where roots and memories run deep and it is a common to see a Black Panther tattoo on the older residents as […]
Tax Arbitrage and Hedging using Put Options
The essence of this post is that by using this strategy you can elect to pay a lower tax rate, by selling an equity later, turning the tax treatment of it into a Long Term Capital Gain, you pay a premium to protect the gain, and when the premium is less than the savings in […]
Zidisha Revisited – my experience as a lender 1 year on
In January 2013 I wrote about Zidisha, a micro-lending site that connected altruistic lenders with those in need of loans in poorer Countries, seemingly with many in Africa. In that post I compared Zidisha’s model with that of Kiva. The major reason that I was starting to dislike Kiva is that they often charge interest […]
Is there enough regulation within Electronic Finance Frontier?
I was speaking recently with someone who was seeking to leverage credit card arbitrage to reduce monthly HELOC balances. He was wondering if his plan to leverage the monthly interest free cycle of a credit card and use those funds to offset his HELOC balance was sound. In essence it was, but I suggested that […]
The Doctor Of Credit on Credit Scores..
A few days ago Matt had a post called “Is Credit Sesame Accurate?” which looked at possible reasons as to why his Credit Sesame & Experian credit scores were different. Today I’m going to go into a little bit more depth on what exactly a credit score is, and how and why they differ. What […]
Is Credit Sesame Accurate?
I have used Credit Sesame for some time now, it is termed ‘FAKO’ in that it provides a similar result to your FICO credit score, but is free, so a lot more attractive to people, as the official reports from the three big providers (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) can cost around $15-$20 per month each.Recently, […]
My Insurance Decisions
Insurance is one of those necessary evils once you start accumulating wealth. In our case, we are actually forced into having homeowners insurance, since our co-op board demands it from all residents. I use Travelers for my co-op insurance and wanted to discuss some decisions, old and new based upon my current coverage, you can […]
What has my eyeball got to do with your money?
I’m not looking at your cash, I promise, in fact it really has to do with what happened to me today… I wear ‘daily’ contact lenses, this morning as I popped open the lens I noticed it was a little misshaped, so I made a decision. Do I toss it out, open a new lens […]
My Investment is up 50% in 4 months- what can you learn from this?
To be honest with you, most of my real investing has only occurred since 2007, prior to which I was traveling the world and investing money in ice cold beers and sand dollars in exotic destinations. As such, I am always surprised when I see an investment leap up in value, and when I checked […]
Is a House an asset or liability?
I remember reading Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad back in the day and it having a massive impact on me. I think people like Kiyosaki and Dave Ramsey offer amazing value to the financial intelligence of our community, and do great work, but there are times when their views are perhaps overly simplified, or perhaps, […]