the tools you need to be set free
The resounding advice for someone looking to control their finances is to know your finances. We all hear this advice: you should know how much money is coming in, how much money is going out, and ultimately where that money is going. Similar to many others, I did not follow this advice for a long time. […]
The purchase of my first car was an epic adventure. It involved six months of research, flying halfway across the country, and learning how to drive stick. In that time I went from clueless (and could-care-less) about cars to a gear-head. Or, more specifically, a Miata-head.
For a long time, I stashed my money away in a bank earning 0.01% interest. In case you are wondering, that is a very bad rate. I did not really care to check or compare, it was just somewhere to put the money. When I started my first internship I was auto-enrolled in a 401k, […]
How old were you when you had the talk? You know, the one where you sit down awkwardly with your parents, going red in the face as you both dance around a topic you would rather not broach? You know, the one where you talked about your family’s entire financial situation, including their income, debt, and net […]
Humans are funny creatures. We spend weeks getting hyped about something and lose sleep wondering when the delivery will arrive. Yet although we jump around in excitement when the package comes, we are prone to forget about it just a few weeks later. The days following the holidays don’t have the same nostalgic twinge as the […]
I didn’t spend too much time at home this month. I converted from hourly to salary at my new job so I flew down to California to go to orientation. I flew out early in order to take advantage of the weekend and crashed at a family’s place in San Francisco.
I recently started a new job, which meant reviewing the multi-page booklet of investment options for my new 401k. It gave me flashbacks to a time when I first started working. The jumble of options, percents, ratios, and expenses looked more frightening than my differential equations homework.
Despite smoke haze, August has been a great month for us. We spent weekends with family, hanging out at the lake, going to concerts on the green, and threw in a few days in Denver as well. The general trend of this month was frugality by generosity of our respective families. We are very grateful […]
The journey to FIRE– financial independence, retiring early– looks like a lot of things to a lot of different people. Some people retire to the countryside. Others retire to travel the world. Still others ‘retire’ to run their own business. No matter what the path, all the journeys have five things in common, and along […]
A travel bug scuttled around the house as I grew up, buzzing through hallways lined with photographs of faraway places. My parents met while on a three-day trek in New Zealand, so I guess it was inevitable that they would bring the bug home with them. I try to follow in their footsteps and travel […]