I'm taking the Live Below the Line challenge, which means eating for 5 days on just $1.50 a day. After a shopping trip and a few cooking experiments, here's my menu for next week (4/29-5/3). Rules Even though the challenge rules allow it, … [Read the rest]
WiseGeek has an interesting article on What Does 200 Calories Look Like?, where it photographs the portions of several foods that equal 200 calories and sorts them by weight. Here's broccoli next to peanut butter on the same plate: I thought … [Read the rest]
I recently learned about Live Below The Line, an annual anti-poverty campaign which challenges people to feed themselves on the equivalent of the extreme poverty line for five days. According to the World Bank, that works out to spending less than … [Read the rest]
Time for fun with charts! A famous chart in the early retirement community is The Crossover Point from the book Your Money or Your Life, which shows that you've reached financial independence when your investment income equals your monthly … [Read the rest]
AFter calculating the new savings bond rate, I noticed that from March 2012 to March 2013 the inflation rate per the Consumer Price Index was only 1.5% over the past year. Whenever you see the government announce a relatively low inflation numbers, … [Read the rest]
New inflation numbers for March 2013 were just announced, so it's time for the usual semi-annual update and rate predictions. New Inflation Rate September 2012 CPI-U was 231.407. March 2013 CPI-U was 232.773, for a semi-annual increase of … [Read the rest]
(This post is part of a new series taking a closer look at some popular portfolio holdings.) The Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund is one of the largest funds in the world, and definitely the largest index fund. For individual retail … [Read the rest]
Originally posted here on December 3rd, 2005: Thinking about goals and the future some more, I have this picture in my head of our dream future in 5-10 years: - I work at a job I enjoy for only 20 hours a week - My wife also works at a job she … [Read the rest]
Here is a check-in on the trailing 10-year total returns for the David Swensen model portfolio, courtesy of ETFPM.com. Last update was in 2011. As a reminder, here is the model portfolio asset allocation with representative ETFs: 30% Domestic … [Read the rest]
In many investing books such as David Swensen's Unconventional Success or Bill Schultheis' The Coffeehouse Investor, you may see model portfolios that include an allocation to smaller companies and/or real estate investment trusts (REITs). … [Read the rest]
Car pricing website Edmunds.com just finished up a year-long series called the Debt-Free Car project. Their goal was to explore an alternative to "Buy Here, Pay Here" car lots, which target lower-income folks with poor credit. These lots usually … [Read the rest]
Here’s the April 2013 update for my peer-to-peer lending portfolio, the last of three "real money" portfolios being tracked monthly as part of my Beat the Market Experiment. See also the $10,000 Benchmark and $10,000 Speculative portfolio … [Read the rest]
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