Category: Personal Finance

A New(ish) Podcast

I have been finding a lot of great new podcasts and the “classic casts” have been cranking out really strong episodes lately, so I should be set with these curation posts for a while (I was kind of casting about for something to highlight the last couple of weeks).  This week I want to flag a brand new (to me) podcast. Continue reading “A New(ish) Podcast”

I’m Just Saving…June 2018

It is time, yet again, for the monthly airing of my private financial laundry.  My hope is that maintaining a journal of my savings will help provide additional motivation to save and allow me to spot trends.  It will also serve as a record, so that I can look back an analyze trends.  I also try to throw in some personal finance observations with each post.   Continue reading “I’m Just Saving…June 2018”

I’m just saving…May 2018

It is time for the monthly airing of my private financial laundry.  I hope maintaining a journal of my savings will help provide additional motivation and allow me to spot trends.  The theory is that if my savings are not behaving as expected, I will drill down and figure out what happened.   Continue reading “I’m just saving…May 2018”

I’m just saving…April 2018

It is time once again, dear reader, for the discussion of my private financial laundry.  I hope maintaining a journal of my savings will help provide additional motivation and allow me to spot trends.  If you are more interested in investing topics, feel free to move along, as I won’t be discussing my new, huge, Disney/Netflix merger arbitrage position in this post. Continue reading “I’m just saving…April 2018”

I’m Just Saving…Personal Finance Diary

Ok so no one commented eager to read about retail REITs, so I’m going to do a personal finance post.  For those of you more interested in posts about investing, “move along, nothing to see here.”  I hope this will not crater my readership, but I thought I would start regular posts (likely monthly) tracking my savings and marketable securities levels.  This will serve a diary for me and hopefully as motivation. Continue reading “I’m Just Saving…Personal Finance Diary”

Buying What No One is Selling

I was just looking at the ads on my site and on another couple of finance sites and was inspired to post this. On my site (although I have been proactive about rejecting ads) and others you will see ads for peer-to-peer lending services, privately traded real estate investment trusts, initial coin offerings, tax liens, gold, oil and gas leases, etc…

Most of these have serious fee, tax, or other short comings.  This led me to think, “Maybe good investments are the ones that no one is selling?” continue

Series I Treasury Bonds

This will be a quick post.  I wanted to suggest a few “year end” sort of personal finance moves for the more retail investor types among us.

First, you should max out your tax advantaged accounts.  If you are unable to max them out for 2017, you should increase your contribution in the new year to move in that direction.  In the future, I plan a post about why we should automate our savings. For now, pay yourself first by automatically saving.  If you are not able to max out available tax advantaged accounts, consider increasing your contributions by 100% of any raises you receive (50% if you are particularly strapped for cash).  I will leave the Roth versus Traditional analysis for your consideration.  Go to the MadFientist blog for more information to be used in making your decision.

Second, you should consider buying $10,000 (or whatever you desire your bond allocation for this year to be) in U.S. Treasury Series I savings bonds (“I Bonds”).  There are compelling reasons why investors should purchase zero additional bonds until they have purchased all of the I Bonds the U.S. allows each year. Continue reading “Series I Treasury Bonds”