Quick! What is your marginal tax rate? If you answered “I don’t know”, then welcome to the club! Pull up a chair and sit down for a spell. Most of us do not know what our marginal tax rate is… which is really too bad. It’s one of the more useful pieces of information to […]
When I was younger, I was convinced that student loans are an anchor. I believed that the best course of action was to eliminate them as soon as humanly possible. Full stop – no further discussion needed. Paying off student loans ASAP was a sign of being a mature adult. One did not carry debt […]
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. There is money in your kitchen! The room of your home where you keep your fridge and your stove, your pots and your pans, your cutlery and your crockery is a treasure of stored value. The way to find this money is to use your kitchen […]
Quick! Take a look at your current net worth. If you had known 10 years ago that it would be what it is today, would you have been angry if you had been forced to save more money??? The reason I ask is because I’m getting older. And the older I get, the more I […]
Let me tell you a little secret about myself… I’m not good at math! Luckily for me, higher level math is not required for success in personal finance. Oh, I have a firm handle on the basics – addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions & exponents. However, the higher level stuff like algebra, calculus, and trigonometry […]
Per Diem… it’s a phrase that means “an amount of money paid per day.” In the world of personal finance, it’s a phrase that is not used nearly enough. I want you to commit to a per diem. That’s right. I want you to pay yourself some amount of money every single day. I’ve written […]
The management expense ratio (MER) is the percentage of your portfolio that you pay to the company that sells you the index fund, exchange traded fund (ETF) or mutual fund that you hold in your portfolio. The fees for these products must be disclosed to potential buyers. Thanks to the wonder that is the internet, […]
It’s taken me a few years but I finally understand how to create money from real estate re-financing. It’s another aspect the money-making magic of properly investing your money. Right off the top, I want to tell you that I have never done this. In other words, my understanding of the process is only theoretical […]
The question often arises about whether it’s better to invest your money or to pay down debt. My position is that you should do both. The reality is that the younger you are, the more time your money has to compound if invested. From the tiniest acorn did the mighty oak grow, and all that. […]
It’s been 4.5 months since the World Health Organization declared that the globe was in the grips of a pandemic. Since then, there has been much upheaval in people’s lives due in no small part to the financial impacts of lost jobs, the inability to travel, and social isolation. What are we supposed to do […]