In a piece I wrote last week, I mentioned that lots of people have at best only a vague idea about what the numbers in their lives look like. I also added that this I-see-nothing approach to one’s financial life is, to say the least, not optimal, and then I […]
We start with this: <> Do you know what that means? If not, then please allow me to take you back to yesteryear, and to little-you sitting in your little chair in arithmetic class, so that I can re-introduce you to your dear old friends, […]
According to The Free Dictionary, to take a powder means, “To leave a place suddenly, especially in order to avoid an unpleasant situation, as in, He saw the police coming and took a powder.” Lots of folks take lots of powders on lots of financial decisions. Doing so is never as effective […]
I’ve often said that your savings rate is the primary numeric fact underlying your overall financial health. See here, here, here and here, to just link a few. In the next breath, though, I usually have to add that, quite unfortunately, many of us are quite rotten at saving money, while just […]
A few days ago I wrote about the difference between tax-deferred retirement accounts and tax-paid retirement accounts, and commented about how the difference between the two is akin to a choice between instant gratification (for TDAs) and delayed gratification (for TPAs). So how about taking that same framework to mortgages? […]