Personal finance boils down to recognizing, and acting on, good deals in their proper context. What’s a wise finance decision for one person could easily be a foolish decision for another. In deciding whether something is a good deal, it’s often useful to quantify its cost in terms of something familiar. While raw amounts like … Read more
The pillar of responsible personal finance is to spend less than you earn. If you’ve heard that once, you’ve heard it thousands of times. There are three ways to work towards spending less than you earn: One area that discourages people with finding ways to spend less is that “spending less” often translates to “doing … Read more
A washer and dryer are mainstays in many households. They are in our household, for sure. We bought a used washer and dryer set four and a half years ago. Over the past couple of weeks, the washer was whining loudly. First we heard it within the drain cycle, then in the spin cycle. When … Read more
Personal finance, and the difference between good and bad deals, are always a matter of context. What could be a great deal in one context could be a lousy deal in another. Sometimes spending more money is better than spending less; other times, it’s the opposite. When I read this article on Money Talk News … Read more
A colleague whom I respect a great deal talked with me at the end of last week. He has a way of breaking complex things down into very simple, but profound, terms. He was explaining how a particular process works, and he appealed to my science background. He talked about the concepts of ground, and … Read more
We really, really like us some Amazon. For convenience, time savings, speed — and most of all cost — Amazon has a ton to offer. Some of the groceries we get are a bit pricey because common ingredients don’t agree with some family members. Often, Amazon comes through with the right products at a good … Read more
A few weekends ago, we went to a community yard sale at the YMCA. One of the tables there had a number of children’s books from the 19th century that were in excellent shape. Our nine-year-old daughter likes little things — little baskets and boxes with lots of little compartments, little figurines, etc. These books … Read more
Software as a product is a strangely complex beast. Freeware, commercial software, open-source, closed source, crippleware, nagware, bloatware, software as a service, tiered usage, service contracts, upgrades — software comes in all kinds of flavors and reasons for disdain. And as someone who lived during the rise of Microsoft, we sure loved to hate Bill … Read more