My friends told me about this ‘great’ app they found called Acorns back in early 2017. They mentioned how great it was that the program rounds up all of their credit card purchases to the nearest dollar and invests the change. My first question was something along the lines of why not just put the […]

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 […]

I bought my first stock in late 2013 (2 years after I finished college). Up until that point, all of my investment money was going into mutual funds. My bank and broker (then, USAA) would stop by Ohio State each year and impress upon students the importance of investing early and how easy it was […]

[Preface: Don and I try not to get overly political on this blog. We understand minimum wage is often a politically charged issue. I promise the following was based on a real experience, and I’ll keep the name of the restaurant I visited under wraps for reasons that should become obvious as you read the […]

It’s never too early to start planning for your retirement. I have friends who are 8 years into their professional careers and have not put more than a few thousand dollars towards their retirement. They live pay check to pay check despite making over $70,000 each year with none (or very little) of that money […]

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. […]

Stock options may sound scary and complicated, but they don’t have to be. What if I told you that you could make over 12% of the equity you have in a stock every year without the price of the stock ever changing? That would outperform most mutual funds! All you have to do is have […]

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 […]