For the average Joe or Jane, working a 9 to 5 job can be a real drag… because the reality isn’t 9am to 5pm anymore. Most people I know put in at least 10 hour days now. They get-up around 6 or 7am, and then commute for at least half an hour (and some even more than an hour) to work. They don’t usually leave work until 5:30 or 6pm either. It’s pretty normal for the average person to put in a 10 hour day these days…
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Imagine for a moment, you walk into a room filled with money nerds. All eyes in the room are on you, because you’re giving a presentation on personal finance. With sweaty palms you step up the podium and do a quick mike-check:
“One million. Two million. Three million. Can everyone hear me OK?”
Those pleasantries completed, you begin with your opening line…
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Wow! Another month is gone already? Holy-heck did October ever fly by fast! I was pretty productive this October, mainly due to the kids being back in school/daycare. With the kids away, I can generally get a good 24 hours per week to work on various projects around the house…
Which is exactly what I did for most of the month of October! I was so busy trying to get all my outdoor projects done before our ”monsoon season” started, that I even missed International Octopus Day…
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What’s that? Another new all-time high? Lately, investors have been cheering plenty of new all-time stock market highs. With the S&P 500 rising 22% year-to-date, they would seem to have plenty to cheer about. It’s been a very good year for stock investors.
In fact, the last decade has seen nothing but new highs every few months. Regular as clockwork. It’s hard NOT to feel good about the returns…
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To the uninitiated it might seem like a blogger who reaches multi-million dollar status before turning 40 must have had a perfect financial track-record through life. No financial mistakes made…ever! Right?
This is hardly the case. In my lifetime, I’ve made LOADS of serious financial blunders! Almost too many to count.
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The Tako family had a rough day on Tuesday. We lost a soldier in our battle against household spending. After six long years of faithful service my cell-phone died on Tuesday morning. It did so with very inconvenient timing. I use my phone as an alarm clock, and that means when the phone died my morning alarm did not go off.
Yeah, I know — first world problem.
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When most young men and women start out in the workplace, they typically start at the bottom. The very bottom. Scrubbing toilets, cleaning floors, and taking on the most tedious boring work. They usually do the all the menial jobs that their more experienced elders wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole.
These junior workers are (of course) loaded down with student debt, and own very little in the way of assets…
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What? September is over already? When did that happen? Time really does fly! Unlike last month, the Tako family spent our September primarily at home. School started back-up and Tako Jr. #1 began the first grade!
Now that I don’t need to be watching the kids all day, I took advantage of all that extra time…
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If you spend any time around the personal finance “blog-o-sphere”, you’re bound to encounter dozens if not hundreds of articles extolling the virtues of spending less and saving more. You’re also likely to have heard the message that “anybody can reach Financial Independence” if they really put their mind to it and save 50% or more of their income.
Lately though, I’ve started to change my mind about some of these core messages…
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