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Everybody Loves Your Money

Living for today - Planning for Tomorrow

Archives for 2010

It’s Hard to Sit Still in this Economy

I’m such a dunce.  I have been spending way too much time thinking of things to spend money on these days.  I’ve dealt with at least 3 bouts of car lust over the past couple months and have been thinking about home improvement projects too.  Will someone please duct tape me to a chair to bring things under control? I’m sure a psychologist could help

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Should I Leave My Company During the Great Recession?

A friend of mine recently sent me a message to tell me that his company was hiring for an IT position that he thought was a great fit for me.  Ever since my friend started at his company I’ve thought about how great it would be to join him there.  There are a number of reasons for this but the top two are that I’d

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Sneaking Money From Mom and Dad

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before but I agreed to be the PTA treasurer at my daughter’s school this year.  So far it has been relatively uneventful.  It mostly entails writing lots of checks, balancing a budget each month and reporting facts and figures during the monthly meetings. Besides writing lots of checks, I’ve also been receiving a lot of money to deposit in

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The Big Picture: A Satellite View of Real Estate in Florida

I don’t know if you ever check out “The Big Picture” from the Boston Globe but they have some fascinating photos.  Today’s subject is a look at real estate in Florida from the sky.  There is a lot of excess capacity in Florida and some of these photos help tell that story. Anyway, it’s definitely worth a look: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/09/human_landscapes_in_sw_florida.html

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Facebook is a Whole New Way to Keep Up With the Joneses

It used to be that people would compare themselves with their family, friends and neighbors.  It makes sense, if you think about it.  People are most likely to compare themselves to what and who they see on a daily basis.  If your neighbor buys a new car, you might be more inclined to feel the need to get yourself a new car.  I mean, if

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Fascinating Article About a Family Facing the Tax Cut Expiration!

I happened upon an article today about a Law Professor named Todd Henderson.  Todd discusses how unfair the expiring tax cuts are to his family.  I’m not going to try to summarize it too much.  Go read it HERE.  Seriously, go read it.  It’s interesting but what is FAR more interesting is the comments. There is a second article related to this HERE.  This was

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Down, Down, Down, Down, Down

We received our tax assessment for the 2011 tax year today.  Our assessed value dropped by $42,000.  That’s on top of a $92,000 drop last year.  WOW.  Our assessed value has dropped by $134,000 in two years.  If someone had told me that was going to happen a few years ago I would have looked at them in disbelief.  Our home value has dropped by

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The Case of the Imploding Life

Over the last few months my wife and I have been watching the implosion of some acquaintances of ours.  Let’s call them Jack and Kris.  When we first saw Jack and Kris we thought they were doing well.  They drove two nice cars, had a nice new house and always dressed well.  As we learned more about them, it was clear they were spending money

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Average College Debt in the US

Well, this wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but I guess the main thing to realize is that this is the average.  If you are helping to increase the average, I’d say you are in bad shape, but if you are able to complete a college degree with average debt or lower, it seems like a good investment.  I mean, many people

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