Like many folks, I recently enjoyed the excellent musical Hamilton for the first time on Disney+. I'm a bit embarrassed to say it was also very educational (yes, I know its not 100% historically accurate). I never really thought about how … [Read the rest]
US Treasury Yields Lowest In The History of the Republic
Rational Expectations: Advanced, Specific, Practical Portfolio Advice
The fourth and final book in the "Investing for Adults" series by William Bernstein is Rational Expectations: Asset Allocation for Investing Adults. In Book 1: The Ages of the Investor, I learned to take advantage of a lucky streak in stocks and … [Read the rest]
Money in Excel Review – Good For Budget Tracking, Bad For Investments
Thanks to generous assistance from a reader, I was able to spend some time poking around the new Money in Excel template for Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscribers. Does it fulfill its promise of helping you "see all your financial accounts … [Read the rest]
NBC’s Peacock TV Streaming Service Has a 100% Free Tier
Just a quick note that there is a new streaming service, Peacock by NBC Universal. What makes it different than Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and other services is that it has a 100% free tier (with ads) that includes a lot of decent content including … [Read the rest]
Country Time Bailout: Kid’s Lemonade Stand $100 Stimulus Check
The summer lemonade stand remains the iconic entrepreneurial opportunity for kids. Well, maybe not this summer. Country Time Lemonade is starting the Littlest Bailout Relief Fund, which is a $100,000 fund to send $100 stimulus checks to 1,000 … [Read the rest]
Pizza Hut Camp Book It! Kids Summer Reading Program
Some of you may remember the Pizza Hut "Book It!" program during your elementary school years that encouraged reading using free pizza as a reward. Well, it still exists in the form of Camp Book It!: Parents, join us for our first ever Camp BOOK … [Read the rest]
Protecting Your Portfolio From Hyperinflation, Deflation, Confiscation, and Devastation
The third book in the "Investing for Adults" series by William Bernstein is Deep Risk: How History Informs Portfolio Design. As before, I'm just trying to pull out a few practical takeaways rather than summarize the entire book. In Book 1: The … [Read the rest]
Free Social Security Tool for Optimal Benefit Claiming Strategy
Update: The free Open Social Security tool has been updated to include a new "heat map" visualization that illustrates the relative values of claiming Social Security at different ages. Details here. Here is a sample graph for a couple with … [Read the rest]
3 Months of SiriusXM Streaming + Echo Dot For $1
Here is a SiriusXM promotion link where you can sign up for a free 3-month trial of either their Essential or Premium streaming tiers (includes Howard Stern) and also get an Amazon Echo Dot (3rd Gen) smart speaker for only $1. After signing up, … [Read the rest]
Bask Bank Review: Earn American Airlines Miles As Interest (5,000 Mile Referral Bonus)
Updated with my own experience and new referral bonus. Bask Bank is a FDIC-insured savings account that pays you American Airlines (AA) miles instead of cash interest. Every $1 earns 1 mile a year. For example, $1,000 kept for a year would earn … [Read the rest]
Best Interest Rates on Cash – July 2020
The Fed rate is still at zero, which has bought us back to the time when anything above 2% APY is newsworthy (and there ain't much news). The only reason to pay attention is that being willing to switch bank accounts can still beat out Treasury … [Read the rest]
The Money Hamster Wheel, Part 2: Multiple Solutions, Not Just More Money
In Part 1: Identifying the Problem, I shared Lawrence Yeo's unique take on money and the hamster wheel metaphor, where we just keep spinning and can't get off. Since then, I have thought more about how best to slow things down by instead attacking … [Read the rest]