Make your own refried beans

Published in March 31st, 2008

If you’re new here, this blog will give you the tools to become financially independent in 5 years. Here is how I did it and here is how I currently do it. The method is robust and replicable (no need to win the lottery, start a blogging business, or win at real estate), but not [...]

Marriage

Published in March 30th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in Personal

10 Comments

XGF sent this funny youtube movie. I’ll have to ask DW for comments. Me, I have no comments

Saturday Roundup – 500 subscribers in 4 months

Published in March 29th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in announcements, blogging

10 Comments

According to feedburner, there are now more than 500 people who regularly read my staggering thoughts of genius what I write. I don’t know exactly how feedburner counts, but in the past few days the subscriber number has really taken off adding over 100 new subscribers in a week. I don’t know why, because I’m [...]

A modest prediction for the next 20 years

Published in March 28th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in Strategy

8 Comments

Predicting the future always provides an excellent opportunity to make a fool out of oneself. One is almost destined to be wrong on some part or the other. If nothing else, the timing might be off, or the details may not be exactly right.
I have noted that whereas pre-1980 predictions mostly envisioned the future as [...]

Minimalist inspirations

Published in March 27th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in Philosophy

7 Comments

I find great utility in being a minimalist. Having less stuff makes it easier to maintain, move, and store. This frees both precious time and money, which can be used to reach a higher standard of living(*) Forsooth, I can not rationalize the tendency to accumulate stuff for the sake off stuff at the expense [...]

How to do original research

Published in March 26th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in How to, Philosophy

9 Comments

I have a confession to make. I write a personal finance blog, but I rarely read other personal finance blogs. There is a reason for that. Here is the reason. I find that once anyone get actively involved in any community, they will start to (subconsciously) adopt the thinking modes of the community almost like [...]

Spring Holiday

Published in March 25th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in household

5 Comments

I had today (Monday) off. Last week I noticed that Monday was marked as “spring holiday” on the calendar. It took me a few moments to figure out that this probably meant Easter. Ah, the separation of church and state when taken to the point of confusion.
Thus today was spent much like I imagine retirement [...]

Big on methods, poor on fundamentals.

Published in March 24th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in Strategy

4 Comments

There is an abundant swath of personal finance tools, 10 step programs, weight loss programs, etc. that are all intended to fix our problems. This country is HUGE on methods but poor on fundamentals.
To beat obesity, you’ve got to consume less and burn more. There is no alternative. And to do that, you’ve [...]

Saturday Roundup – A safety moment (with taxes)!

Published in March 22nd, 2008

Posted by Jacob in announcements, economy

1 Comment

Today we’re going to one of the tax companies to get our state taxes done. Hopefully they will give us a discount since I already did the federal return myself. In 2007 we were apart time resident of two states. The tax consequences of that can be described in one word: PAIN! Mostly the problem [...]

Diversification

Published in March 21st, 2008

Posted by Jacob in Finance, Strategy

9 Comments

Diversification is a method of avoiding non-systemic risk. Non-systemic risk is the kind of risk that involves uncertainty of individual components. Systemic risk is the kind of risk that involves uncertainty of all the components taken together. Indexing for investing is a typical example. Diversifying avoids the risk of individual stocks but it does not [...]

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