I put in some insane hours at work lately. Management gave me a spot bonus. I treated myself to a Kindle. Not a Kindle Fire tablet, a real Kindle — Kindle Touch to be exact. I bought it refurbished, at 20% off new. It came in a sealed box, with a clear plastic sheet covering […]
Latest Blog Posts
Not Necessary to Tell Banks About International Travel
Urban legend says you must notify your credit card or debit card banks before you travel internationally so that they won’t block your cards. I used to believe it. Every time before I left, I would religiously call the banks and tell them the dates and the countries I was going. This last time when […]
Savings Secured Loan: Good Or Not?
I received an interesting offer in the mail from my credit union. It’s for a savings secured loan. The credit union offers to give me a loan if I pledge an equal amount in my savings account as collateral for the loan. If I pledge $10,000, they will lend me $10,000. If I pledge $50,000, […]
5 Stages of Grief and Low Interest Rates
I heard about the five stages of grief but I hadn’t really looked into it. When I read about it on Wikipedia, I thought the model fits very well how savers grieve about low interest rates. Denial "Rates have nowhere to go but up." "The Fed only controls short term rates. Low short term rates […]
ACA 3.8% Medicare Tax and Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)
Now that the health care reform law is upheld by the Supreme Court, the 3.8% Medicare tax on unearned income for high earners is also here to stay. It will come into effect in 2013. Just to recap, the chart below shows how it works: The tax is on unearned income — interest, dividend, capital […]
Vanguard Index Fund Lost $25 Million On Facebook
Facebook stock did poorly since its IPO. It opened on May 18 at $42. Now it’s at $21. Nevertheless, as I predicted in the previous post When Will Your Index Fund Buy Facebook Stock? Vanguard still added Facebook to the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund soon after the IPO. In the fund’s list of […]
Lifestyle Design: Choose What You Do
I’ve been thinking about this for some time. This is a follow-up to the previous post Lifestyle Design: Choose Where You Live. I took this picture during my vacation to help make the point: It was taken on the famous Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru. The classic Inca Trail takes four days and […]
Sell Cash-Secured Puts: Get Paid for Your Rebalancing Commitment
The previous two posts Pay a 30-Year Loan On a 15-Year Schedule and Borrow 30-Year and Invest The Difference showed how you can save money if you are committed to making higher monthly payments on your mortgage. This fits into a general theme: pay a lower price if you commit to something and you make […]
Payment Flexibility Insurance: Pay a 30-Year Loan On a 15-Year Schedule
Paying a 30-year mortgage on a 15-year schedule costs a lot more than getting a straight 15-year mortgage.
Professional Help vs Do It Yourself
If you want the luxury of not understanding anything about investment, a financial advisor will do it all for you. It’s just that it will often cost you a lot of money. You should still have an advisor, but a low-cost one.