I recently had a good talk with a close friend. As is often the case when catching up, part of our conversation involved relaying how our jobs were going, understanding, of course, that these are the lame but also important things that happen in life, and we wanted to cover our bases. His job has […]
Category: Financial Independence
On Writing About Money
So payday happened, and the total of all my accounts went past $100,000. That’s so exciting! So I shared it on Facebook. Except… Generic User: Hey, everyone, here’s the tacos I ate today! [picture] *Like* Generic User: Hey, everyone, my relationship is great! *Like* Generic User: Hey, everyone, check out this great hike I went […]
The Road Forward
Friday could be a big day for me. Friday could be the day that the sum of all my financial accounts reaches six figures. At first I was going to wait, to celebrate when it actually happens. But I realized that this is just too tenuous of a number to celebrate. It’s one thing to […]
Adventures in Tax Law! – International Part 1
If I were any good at cartooning, I would draw the following scene, stick-figure style: an agent stands guard. Out of nowhere he’s attacked by a mysterious enemy. He fights back. The struggle intensifies. It takes the two up flights of stairs and near harrowing ledges. Finally they are on the rooftop. With a split-second […]
Life v Money
Well, my 20s are over. I knew it would happen eventually. There were the early years full of anger and judgement, the middle years when I started to figure this out and finally reached the escape velocity needed to start doing the things I really enjoy, and the later years full of impossible job situations, […]
Thoughts from the Gulch
I never have been an athletic person. I still remember the humiliation of running tests in elementary and middle school, when I was usually a person or two removed from the fattest. I started walking toward the end of high school and into college, and, not having grown up in a family that really participated […]
The Protestant Stupid Ethic
At one of my previous jobs, my company put me through a profiling test often used by other companies to fire people. That wasn’t their intention here – they were, in all honesty, a very good company – but there were concerns that I wasn’t very passionate about my work. By matching my profile scores […]
Breathing Again
Over the past two weeks, I’ve gotten rid of a great many books, mostly technical books that either duplicated content or covered technologies I don’t need to know. My relationship with books is long and complex, but the gist of the story is that I have, for over a decade, been addicted to books. In […]
Your Personal Level of Risk
There is risk to everything. Even the things we believe are low-risk have an opportunity cost, which is just another type of risk. Your personal level of risk is a huge determinant of your financial behavior. Here are some places you can put your money, starting with the least-risky to the most-risky: in-house checking account […]
Financially Bored
So I hit my target savings rate. Then I maxed out the 401k. Then I started working on the Roth IRA. Then I started working on my giving fund, the G-IRA. Then I finally waded through the garbage dump of red tape required to invest some of my HSA. But then what? And then what […]