Living for today - Planning for Tomorrow
For the first time in a long time, we spent the weekend at home. We decided about a week ago that we were long overdue for just taking it easy and staying home on a weekend. We had absolutely nothing on the agenda for the entire weekend which was both good and bad. My wife would call it a good thing. She’s much more comfortable
The time has finally come. Our little girl is growing up and is entering kindergarten this Sept. While I am feeling many emotions ranging from fear of the unknown to happiness that my daughter is growing up, I also feel a bit of excitement that we’ll be seeing a very large expense reduced. For the last couple years we have been paying over $800 per
Congratulations to Frugal Zeitgeist for paying off her NY apartment. She managed to do it in 6 years, 7 months and 3 days with no huge financial windfalls. She took the route of sacrificing a few things along the way and applying everything she could towards the mortgage. I noticed that she refinanced a couple years in to a 15 year 5.125% mortgage which also
This weekend I was driving down the road when I noticed a reader board outside a small town bank. The message on the board said, "Increase your summer fun with a home equity loan". Really? In 2008? The sad thing about this is that I’m sure someone will take that message and borrow money to make their summer more fun. I was hoping that people
Interesting article that talks about the total net worth of the US and then divides that by the price of oil. It turns out that 400 billion barrels of oil would buy the entire US. Saudi Arabia and Iran have just enough proven reserves to cover it. http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/HowMuchOilItdTakeToBuyTheUS.aspx If only oil wasn’t such a valuable natural resource and we had other alternatives. Oh, and then
We all know someone that doesn’t save a dime. Maybe that’s you? The reasons people cite for putting off saving are many. There is only one problem with all of these reasons. No matter how good your reason is, your future self won’t accept it. The best reason in the world won’t help you pay your bills when you are older. That really good reason
Over the last year I’ve been involved in a community decision to upgrade a shared water system in our neighborhood out at the lake. I had absolutely no idea what kind of high stakes drama I would be involved with when we made the decision to build our place out there. In the last year I’ve seen grown men and women so angry that you’d
Wow. July is finally upon us. For months now, we’ve been making plans for various exciting events this month. For starters, it’s our daughter’s 5th birthday this month. Instead of spending a ton of money on a huge party, we have decided to take a little bit more reserved approach. We have invited just a couple of our daughter’s friends and their families out to
This doesn’t sound all that different than an article you might read in the US. The only difference is that Macedonia has a 35% unemployment rate and poverty is huge. Families use the motto "You only live once" to rationalize the huge expense and potential debt for years. They actually get bank loans to throw the parties. I think that most of these parties are
There I was. Patiently waiting in the turn lane at an intersection. I was about 4 cars back at the light. Traffic had built up behind me and there was a brand new green Toyota Camry right behind me. All was well. As the light turned green I started to anticipate being able to go forward. I hadn’t moved an inch when I felt a
