Easy Change

So last night, a glass broke in the kitchen. Not terribly exciting....and actually quite annoying when you really just want to relax and not have to do chores. This quickly turned into a project involving fixing the vacuum cleaner because it was clogged and doesn't get emptied regularly. This vacuum has been in our house for about 4+ years and has generally done a good job but has had a few rough moments where we really thought it was done. In on circumstance, a plastic piece broke that held the hose and only with a copious amount of super glue did that damage get fixed. Now that there is a dog in the house in addition to the cat, I really wanted to make sure that I got a vacuum that could handle the pet hair so I chose the lightweight dyson DC24 animal bagless vacuum . I have an amazon card and due to the triple points, I generally prefer to buy items from them. Unfortunately, Walmart had a much better deal where I got a 90 dollar e-gift card for the same product/price. W...

Currently I live in a suburban town in southeastern Massachusetts with a condo association with a ridiculously low condo fee. There. I said it. I am sure that like any organization, there are people in my association who are happy and some who are unhappy. A year ago, I was elected to the board of trustees of my condo association. That was certainly the case then; people were unhappy at the way the property looked and how much service they were getting for the money spent. However, now it is very clear to me that the amount of money that is being spent is not enough to cover the basics on the property. What is the result? People end up spending large amounts of their time and frankly, wasting large sums of money on the property. Condo fees in townhouse style condos typically go toward building maintenance, plowing, and landscaping. In our complex there is no pool, no clubhouse, no exercise room or other shared space. The net result is that the fees can remain relatively low. Howev...

One of the most important skills, indeed, the most important skill when it comes to personal finance is the simple rule: Spend less than you make. This is a simple rule that works for handling all personal financial situations. If applied correctly and the wisdom that it imparts is correctly understood, it can determine the course of your financial future. Personally, I am continuing to work on ways that I can spend less than I make. For this to happen, I need to accurately understand all of my expenses and all of my sources of income and determine how I can track it and ensure that I take steps until my income is larger than my expenses. I have reached this point many years ago and the progress has been positive since then and I consider myself lucky. Now, I am proceeding down the path and I realize that there are two aspects to this constant quest--a shorter term aspect which consists of very specific steps that can be taken in the very near term. Then there is also a longer ter...

I found this post recently and I thought it was quite interesting to look back and see how reasonable and accurate it was since about 2 years have passed since it was written. So, I leave the full post here for you to read and my ideas/comments are at the end. To say that this month has been difficult with the spending would be a huge understatement. Just this past weekend I went overboard on the spending with clothes and christmas shopping. What's more, the car needed new brakes this weekend--420 dollars! Yikes! Yes, Christmas shopping. I know that it is early, but I still intend to be prepared and get it out of the way. That said, there are huge cutbacks this year. I'm hoping this update with help me get some perspective. First off, in our own families, we are keeping the gifts much smaller. Even though I normally give bonds to my nephews and neices I have decided to not do that this year. The bonds are normally quite small and we need to make sure we're being mo...

Thankfully, I have been debt free except for mortgage for over a year, and without a personal car payment on my own car for more than two years. My car is approaching 200,000 miles and knowing deciding what kind of car to buy has consumed a lot of time for me and I find myself wondering what the best kind of car is to get when the time comes. Budgeting the money for a new car is a major motivation for this. And in order to know how much to budget, I have to consider what kind of car I will purchase which is the subject of this post. In terms of changes since I last bought a car, I now have a pug. As a result, there is more fur than you can shake a stick at and I am considering a car with a hatchback/cargo area for the dog where he could be safe and comfortable as opposed to being stuck with having a bulky crate in the back seat. Other than that, I know that I want to maintain with either a small or mid-size car, but nothing larger (although truth-be-told, I'd love to have one)...

One of the biggest things that has made it possible for me to be able to improve my personal financial situation is the maintaining of a freedom fund. A freedom fund is a different bucket of money that is used for clear and present expenses coming in the next 12 months. This is entirely separate money from your emergency fund. The Emergency fund is some bucket of money that is set aside as insurance against loss of income for unavoidable expenses. When something happens and the income is lost, it is difficult to adjust lifestyle immediately. In fact, when you typically lose your income, there can be difficulty adjusting because you now have larger amounts of available time and this may coincide with some residual depression/anxiety resulting in an uptick in spending. If you're anything like me, there are a series of expenses that you'd cut immediately if there was a loss in income. Then there are probably a series of expenses that you'd cut only if absolutely necessary...

This weekend, Donald Luskin had an interesting and compelling piece in the Wall Street Journal that forecasted the impending doom to stock and bond prices were we to see the adjustments that are slated for the end of the year. I encourage you to read Donald Luskin 's piece to see if you agree with him. Then come back here....its ok. I will wait. For me, what is most interesting about this piece is not the doom-and-gloom scenario that Luskin is talking about. Instead, it is about what to do next? I recently found myself wondering what the correct next course of action would be in light of such a decline and how I might reduce risk to be better positioned. I am fortunate enough to be in the high end as far as US Household Income is concerned and measured. And of course, these numbers change all of the time and there is very little certainty about things. So, the question becomes, if you are lucky enough to be well positioned, you have more to lose if you're sandwiched. Of c...