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Why You Shouldn’t Care About Other’s Finances
It’s Black Friday as I type this, and most of the USA is out shopping, including me. A few others are opting not to shop at all, and that’s fine, I totally respect that. However, I just got to thinking… in this personal finance world, have we become too voyeuristic? Why do People Care About Other’s Finances? As personal finance gets more mainstream and other people start retiring early, we become fascinated with certain people (bloggers, vloggers, or PF ‘celebrities’). Some publicly show how much they are earning online or through their various businesses, some posted how they managed to retire early and how they’re doing it. Have we become…
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2017 Budget Year In Review
It’s that time of year again. No, I don’t mean Christmas. I mean dusting off the transaction history for this past year from Personal Capital (link) and sifting through…(checking total amount of transactions)…2,097 transactions! Boy, what fun it is to calculate net income…yeah. It has certainly been an interesting year. The first half of the year was largely focused on travel, and mid-way through the year, Peter changed jobs and work locations. Let’s take a look at the numbers and then we’ll provide a summary of the good, bad, and ugly. Please note that we will publish only the percentages of our expenses compared to our after-tax income (or disposable…
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How we fund and afford our travels
People always ask us how we can afford to travel this much, and we try to make it as transparent as possible by posting our travel expenses on this blog. However, what they really don’t know is HOW we can afford to spend all that money on travel. Living in the USA, I’ve realized that it is a land of opportunity, and also a land of many temptations. In this country, the opportunities are endless: from travel hacking, mistake fares, and other ways to make extra cash and get discounted deals, we truly are spoiled for choice. However, despite the vast richness of the country, I keep hearing people…
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Buying vs Renting a House – Which One Is Better?
A battle that is debated continuously in the personal finance world. If you want a simple answer, it will depend on your situation right now. Here, we discuss some of the pros and cons of each and why we ultimately became homeowners ourselves. The perks of buying a house I mean it doesn’t even have to be a house-house. You can decide to live in a townhouse, or a condo, or even in a trailer or tiny house. Once you decide to buckle down and buy, there are a few things we considered such as: Cost of renting vs monthly mortgage payments Most people (like us) can’t afford to buy…
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A European Castle Proposal
I proposed to Ruby on April 20, 2015, in a historic European castle. In a small town. In a small country. In true fairytale fashion, she said yes, and fireworks blasted into the sky! Ok, so there were no fireworks, but she did say yes, and yet that proposal was a month in the making, and almost didn’t happen. Not even Ruby knows the full story, so this is the first time I’ll be revealing the behind the scenes look at “The European Castle Proposal”. Step 1: The Ring Obviously, for a proposal to work, the guy has to buy (or make) a ring! If you’re not Ron Swanson…
