“The 20/3/8 Rule will keep you from buying more car than your life can afford.” Confession. I’m a car guy. I love cars, I love writing about cars, and I genuinely love driving. I have a particular affinity for eccentric roadsters, manual transmissions, and high performance off roaders. I even love maintaining my own vehicles… Read more

“…the only thing worse than renting is owning far more house than your budget can stand.” It seems with current real estate values and interest rates, becoming “house poor” is relatively common. 1 in 4 current homeowners meet the definition, which is owing more than 30% of your gross income toward housing costs. Of course,… Read more

“Once you consider what the target date fund is the alternative to, it really is greater than the sum of its parts.” If you hang around the personal finance space very long, particularly in the FIRE community; you will hear someone throw shade at target date funds. A target date fund is simply a “fund… Read more

     “If you think you’ll simply sit back and cash rent checks, you are in for a sad and costly surprise.” I keep running into the notion on social media, in finance circles, and among the populace in general that residential investment real estate is a good source of passive income. While the stock… Read more

                  “If you’re starting your investing journey, keep it simple.” I’ve heard much ado lately about recommendations for financial advisors. While there are many advantages to having an investment professional in your corner, there are some distinct risks as well.  While this isn’t meant to paint a… Read more

“Not having an emergency fund IS an emergency!           Fundamental to any discussion of personal finance is the topic of cash reserves, more commonly referred to as your Emergency Fund or EF for short. Your emergency fund is some measure of liquidity that stands between you and selling assets or taking… Read more

            When you talk to people about personal finance, it becomes apparent that most people you talk to have very little in the way of long-term financial plans. A quick scan of retirement and personal finance statistics gathered from any authoritative source would indicate your assessment is correct. Americans in particular tend to live their financial… Read more

In discussions over the weekend, I believe we need to define some terms regarding what successful personal finance entails.  The old term is “retirement”, which simply means to stop working. While a good many people who retire are financially self-sufficient, many are not. Retirement seems a term left over from the era of defined benefit… Read more

I’ve long been fascinated by personal finance as an area of study. I was attracted to personal finance through mathematics, a subject I’m fairly adept at and have a professional interest in. I also became interested in it through watching my professional income run through my fingers like water, never gaining much traction. Unfortunately, I… Read more

            My wife and I forgot it was payday last week. That was unusual. While she and I both have occasional bouts of forgetfulness, this wasn’t an occurrence borne of absentmindedness or the result of harried living. It was something neither of us had experienced before and it left us grateful for the realization of what… Read more