Category: Personal Finance
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Inflation: What is it and what causes it?
Inflation is defined as an increase in prices and/or a fall in the purchasing power of money. Simply put, if prices go up or the value of your money erodes, you’ve got inflation on your hands. We’ve seen this a LOT in the past few years, as the prices of virtually everything have gone up.…
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How I Saved $243 on a Flight to Hawaii
First off, for those of you who don’t know, Rakuten is a website that offers cash back at various businesses, from stores to hotels to restaurants. They get a commission from these businesses for getting you to shop there, and they then pass some of that commission on to you to encourage you to shop…
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How to Travel if You Can’t Afford It
One of the things that I hear the most from people is that they want to travel more, but their budget is too tight. Even when money is tight, there are a few minor things that you can do to supersize your travel budget. Credit cards that offer cashback or rewards points can be a…
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Saving Money
Saving money doesn’t have to be super difficult; it just requires a little bit of self-awareness and a quick look at your finances. I have gotten a ton of questions/comments from people about how they wish that they could save more money, either to shore up their finances or to be able to afford something…
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Billionaires and Taxes Pt. 2: The Only Two Certainties In Life
Many of you have probably read/seen Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. For those of you who haven’t or don’t remember the origin story of the deathly hallows, check out the video below. As we see in the Deathly Hallows, the three brothers each take different paths in life, but in the end, Death gets…
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Billionaires and Income Taxes
One of the questions that I get asked the most is why billionaires are allowed to pay so little in income taxes. After all, it seems like we don’t go a single day without some news outlet talking about how much the net worth of some billionaire increased and how small their tax bill is.…
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Planning For Retirement
Okay, for the most part, this stuff makes sense. How do I put it all together though? Here’s how I handle planning for my retirement: Put money in my retirement accounts (IRA and 401k in my case) so that I can take advantage of the tax benefits Invest that money into index funds like the…
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Choosing Your Investments
So how do I choose what to invest in? For most of you, you don’t have to worry too much about choosing your investments yourself – chances are, your 401k/403b will come with a financial advisor who manages your account for a small fee, and they can help you figure out how to structure your…
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Dollar Cost Averaging vs Buy The Dip
So the market moves in cycles. How do I know when I should start buying? There are common methods that are used for this: A) Buying the Dip: When your chosen investment falls by a certain amount (aka the price dips), you start buying. People often choose different criteria for what they consider “the dip,”…
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Market Cycles
Let’s start off this post with a question: What do forests and the stock market have in common? They both tend to follow cycles. Forests tend to follow a cycle: They start from a few seeds and some fertile soil. Over time, those seeds grow into a lush, green forest. The forest becomes too overgrown…
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