Dan feeds his family of 3 for roughly $300 per month of groceries. Dan’s family dines out for a meal or snack roughly a less than one meal per person per week. Here’s how he keeps his grocery bill as low as he can:   Shop at no-frills grocery stores. This includes everything from Walmart […]

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: INVEST, SAVE, OR SPEND EVERY DOLLAR (IN THAT ORDER) Conventional wisdom says “you need to budget” your money. Then there’s the wisdom of those against budgets and their argument often goes like this: each January 1st, you tell yourself “I’m going to budget better,” but then […]

My wife, my daughter, and I recently visited San Francisco for a wedding of our friends (congrats guys!) and decided to make this our summer vacation by extending the trip for a few days after the wedding. We had a great time but budgeting was, as are all vacations, something I am always concerned about. […]

A lot of people think that they can afford something if they can take it home from the store without stealing it. Sure, you can buy it, but can you afford it? This distinction is exactly what lands so many people in credit card debt. If you need to make the minimum payments on your […]

In one of my most recent posts, I spoke about my slightly unconventional approach to paying off my car loan. In short: I paid off a very large portion of it very early on in the loan, but not all of it for two reasons – 1. to minimize my total interest paid; and 2. […]

Dan’s Unconventional Approach to His Car Loan   As I’ve posted earlier in this blog, my wife and I purchased a new car in December, 2016. The price was worked down to $26,000 and we put $9,000 down meaning we took a loan for $17,000 at 2.05% APR for 36 months. If I paid the loan […]

Statistics don’t lie; people using statistics lie. People can turn and twist numbers to tell whatever story they want. They do it for profit, marketing, perception, and a wide array of other reasons. Ultimately, it’s up to us to decipher what we’re being told and educate ourselves. But why is this important? As both a […]

This will be a short post, mostly just some simple math. My wife made salmon cakes tonight along with a side of Brussels sprouts that were seasoned with cayenne pepper and some balsamic vinegar. The salmon was canned and cost $5.52 and the Brussels sprouts I ate were probably from a package that cost about […]

How many times have you seen kids straight out of high school or fresh out of college driving a brand new higher end car? Why is it that Facebook and Instagram show us pictures of our peers “living the dream” with high end toys and exotic vacations? Millennials tend not to have a good concept […]

  The use of a vehicle, in most places outside of urban cores, still remains a necessity for most Americans. Uber, Lyft, and bumming off your friends are great, but in the case of the first two, they can get expensive and in the case of your friends… well, you’ll lose them if you keep […]