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Savings Rate: the Determining Factor in your Retirement
Whenever you talk with someone experiencing financial difficulties, it is almost universally expressed that the solution to their problems is earning more. That occurs at every income level, from folks scrapping for quarters to high earners, they all report they could achieve financial success and save a little more if they could just earn a…
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Immigrants to Wealth
A $1.7B lottery jackpot results in more math/lottery rumination this morning in the wee dark hours. I re-read the chapter in Malcolm Gladwell’s “David and Goliath” containing psychologist James Grubman’s concept of “immigrants to wealth.” His field of study specializes in the spectacular financial disasters of people who become suddenly wealthy without any preparation…ie. an…
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FICO: Not Quite What You Think It Is
FICO is an abbreviation for Fair, Issac and Company of San Jose, California. Founded by Bill Fair and Earl Isaac in 1956, the company specializes in data analytics to derive consumer credit risk and its “FICO Score” has become a fixture in consumer lending within the United States. While the exact algorithm is a trade…
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Abandoning the Nest: Housing in Your Senior Years
It seems that real estate is in the news a lot these days. With tight inventories, high prices, and rapidly rising interest rates many millennials and Gen Z folks are looking at home ownership as a fleeting possibility if not an unattainable dream. Through decades of cultural norms and government subsidized mortgages we are…
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Invest Like the Dead
“Don’t do something, just sit there.” The 2020 stock market, despite a deep but short correction in March, delivered above average returns for investors that year. Which brings up the point that most investors in 2020 didn’t get the full market return. Some moved to cash or bonds near the bottom in March, only getting…
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One Million Dollars
A million dollars is more than “not a million dollars”. Engaging in some water cooler chit chat, one of my coworkers opined that one million dollars isn’t really what it used to be and in the 30 years until his retirement it will be less money yet. Well…sort of. I understand that a cool mil…
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Good Cents Podcast
A few weeks ago, the talented Eric Rosenberg asked me to be his podcast guest on Good Cents by Payactiv to talk about the potential benefits of being a renter and some tips and tricks to get the most from your lease. It was a fun conversation and hopefully not the last podcast I get to be…
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The One Number Budget: Autopilot on Your Wealth Building Journey
“The One Number Budget really hits the sweet spot of making good behaviors easy and bad behaviors hard.” Recently we discussed Cash Stuffing as the new revision of the Envelope System and the good things such an approach brings to people new to budgeting. One of the frequent criticisms of the envelope approach is that it lacks convenience in a world inundated with…
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All You’re Worth: Your Net Worth Statement
“Tracking your net worth gives you… idea of your future economic condition.” Within the personal finance community, the term net worth statement is thrown about pretty regularly. While the accounting majors and the finance nerds will all be working with a common definition, don’t assume everyone you talk to is using the term interchangeably. For starters, your net…
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Cash Stuffing: Gen Z’s TikTok Craze is the Envelope System Reborn, and That’s Great
“Struggling to effectively budget? Cash stuffing is more than the latest TikTok fad…it’s a great idea that’s been proven for generations.” Berenice Rodriguez makes cash stuffing videos on TikTok One of the hottest things on social media financial space in 2023 is “Cash Stuffing” with nearly 100M views. For those who are curious, it’s the act…
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