FI for the People

Be good. Be smart. Get good grades. Challenge yourself as much as practicable. Get into a good college and do well there. Get a well-paying job. Get promoted, then lather, rinse, and repeat. Save money (“save” being undefined). Buy a house. Get married. Take nice vacations and buy lots of nice things (“nice” = expensive,…

Having prattled on blogged about who knows what personal finance for going on five years, you might assume I’m not just a little interested in the subject. And, for the 1s of you who read my Money, Man! series of posts, about money in general. Some might even call me obsessed about these subjects.  The…

I’m a big fan of JL Collins. He’s smart, an entertaining writer, and good at making big (and often complex) subjects very understandable. In short, everything I’m not. Like me. In addition to his blog, JL’s written a few books. The most recent is Pathfinders: Extraordinary Stories of People Like You on the Quest for…

Dear Reader, no one’s likely to ever call me an extrovert. But I’m no hermit or shut-in. Likewise, I’ll never be called a techie. But I’m no neophyte. Where the rubber hits the road for me is social media. See, I have profiles on several of the major platforms. And I visit them often. But…

Hello, again, Dear Reader! All the ones of you!  In my last post, I rambled on about discussed the importance (to me, at least) of automating payments. Both of the push and pull variety.  I hung my head in shame, admitting that I’d failed to automate pull payments such as retirement account contributions after starting…

A lllooonnnggg time ago, before Earth was fully formed . . . that is to say, when I was in my early 20s, my Dear Old Dad told me that I needed to open an IRA account. You know. To save for retirement. Having no idea what an IRA account was, and then thinking not…

First off, my disclaimer: I’m just some idiot random guy on the interwebs. None of anything on this blog, including what follows, is advice on what you should do. Just some entertainment random musings that you can take for what they’re worth which isn’t much. Do ya’ feel lucky? Well do ya’, punk? I’ve read…

Those of my 1s of Dear Readers who are old like me were adults at the time of the George “Dubya” Bush U.S. presidency from 2001–2009 may remember Dubya’s secretary of state, Donald “Rummy” Rumsfeld. Said Dear Readers likely will recall that he was . . . uuummm . . . somewhat controversial. And by…

Last fall I started seeing an icon for the TV show Suits when I’d fire up Netflix. The icon was eye-appealing enough for me to make a note to myself to look into the show details.  In the meantime, I met someone who’d watched the show. She explained that it’s about a buncha lawyers in…

One of my mentees (whom we’ll call Pat . . . because why not) in a mentoring program I’m involved with will graduate from high school the week this blog post goes live. Pat’s bright, capable, and an eager learner open to new information and perspectives.  But when it comes to personal finance education, Pat’s…