“It doesn’t matter what your name is!” –The Rock Should your budget be changeable like this? Occasionally, I get questions regarding rules of thumb for spending, such as what percentage of your income should you spend on housing or food or entertainment. While it’s easy to come up with plug-and-play formulae for all of your … Read more
“Low prices deceive you give away the razor. Sell the blade.” –Every MBA professor for the past fifty years “IT IS CHEAP!” That’s my Monkey Brain’s favorite saying. He knows that the soft spot in my heart is finding something on sale or something cheap. This is one of the few places where Monkey Brain … Read more
“Preparation for old age should begin not later than one’s teens. A life which is empty of purpose until 65 will not suddenly become filled on retirement.” –Dwight Moody The Sundays. Not the alternative rock band. The feeling of blah that you get on Sundays when you know you have to go to work on … Read more
“All Steve [Schwartzman, Blackstone’s CEO] kept saying throughout breakfast,” my friend told me, “is ‘how the F* is Larry Page worth $15 billion and I’m only worth $3 billion’.” –via James Altucher (source) When people think about how money relates to their personal life goals, they usually go through four stages, which are different from … Read more
“I have enough money to last me the rest of my life unless I buy something.” – Jackie Mason Budgets: turning gold into chocolate. Is that so bad? I recently wrote that budgeting when you’re working is an opportunity to practice living within your means so that when you hit retirement, you’ll be prepared. After … Read more
“Dear Math, Please grow up and solve your own problems. I’m tired of solving them for you.” –Unknown My soon-to-be wife took a leap of faith in moving from Texas to Virginia after we’d become engaged. Between Christmas and New Year’s, her family loaded her stuff up in a U-Haul, I flew down, and we … Read more
“Man is the only animal that blushes – or needs to.” – Mark Twain When I was a kid, my parents used to reward me for good grades. They would give me a dollar for every A I got on a report card. A dollar would buy four games of Pac-Man, so that was a … Read more
ReadyForZero…Debt? My Interview with Ben Feldman I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to appear as a guest poster on the ReadyForZero website. They have a pretty neat tool to help you manage and track your journey from having debt to being debt-free, since, after all, there is no such thing as “good debt.” I … Read more
“If 50% of what America ate…was really good food…you’d see our healthcare costs really go down.” –Wendy Boglioli What can we learn from an Olympian about our lives, our minds, and our wallets? I had the pleasure of speaking with 1976 Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer Wendy Boglioli about how her lifestyle has kept her healthy, … Read more
“Always be nice to bankers. Always be nice to pension fund managers. Always be nice to the media. In that order.” –John Gotti As you get older, you should look at having some fixed income – bonds, annuities, etc. – in your portfolio. There are rules of thumb associated with your age, such as 110 … Read more