You can use MaxiFi online financial planning software to model big financial decisions such as retirement and housing. It’s is inexpensive and useful.
Is It Worth Moving to Lower Cost of Living After You Retire?
Use this calculator to quantify the higher cost of housing in a very high cost of living area to decide if it’s worth it to stay put after you retire.
Our Experience in Building a Home Over Buying an Existing Home
Why we built a home as opposed to buying an existing home. Building a home can be a satisfying experience if you don’t mind investing the time and energy.
Beyond the Numbers: a Closer Look at Renting By Choice
Renting by choice looks good on paper but real life is more than numbers. Here are 9 things I learned that a buy-or-rent calculator doesn’t tell you.
Relocating for Retirement: Buy or Rent – Old Rules and New Rules
Some of the old rules for buying versus renting when you’re relocating are either outdated or don’t apply to everyone. Here are some new rules.
Paying Off Mortgage Did Not Lower My Housing Cost
The largest cost of owning a home free-and-clear is the opportunity cost of the money tied down to the home. Full cost of housing includes both cash expenses and the opportunity cost.
Happy Trails With Income Poor
This is the third and final installment on my Asset Rich Income Poor strategy. The road to asset rich sounds simple at a high level but it’s not that easy at the details level, because every decision you make has tradeoffs. The tradeoffs affect the final outcome in ways you can’t know for sure. I […]
Lifestyle Design: Choose Where You Live
Reader KD’s guest post about looking at the big financial picture really put many of my posts to shame. I post many small tips and tricks here and there but they often fall on the trees side rather than the forest. Most of them aren’t even trees, but twigs and leaves. Getting an extra $5,000 […]
Looking At the Big Financial Picture
[This is a guest post from long-time reader KD.] In this day and age of financial blogs, coupon sites, and one-click online shopping, savings are easy to find and easy to replicate. The question I end up asking myself is what difference did these savings have on my bottom line? More often than not, in […]