I'd like to introduce you to Jeffery, my kegerator… I built Jeffery back in 2014. He cost about $1,500 in parts to make and is the cornerstone of my homebrew operation. I’ve been brewing my own beer, cider, and hard seltzer for about 7 years now, and while I still like sampling local craft beer and buying the odd case from the store, most of what I drink these days is
2 Big Investing Mistakes That Actually Made Me Smarter
Back in 2013, I bought 25 shares of Tesla stock. I remember seeing electric cars starting to pop up around my neighborhood at the time and thought they were so cool! Like most beginning investors, I checked the stock price every 15 minutes after making the trade. (Actually that’s a lie -- I probably checked the prices every 5 minutes! 🤣). My $1,350 investment in
Why I’m Transitioning Away from Rental Properties
First, I must preface: this is not an anti-real estate post. I think real estate is an excellent wealth building tool, and don’t want to discourage anyone out there from buying rental properties. That being said, I’m thinking about downsizing my rental portfolio this year, and don’t have any plans to buy more properties in the near term. A few people reached out and asked
Net Worth Report #4 – “Knock at the Door”
Before we get to the net worth update… I came across this funny old post from a couple years back called “Money Trails”... Basically, it tells you how far your money will let you travel if you line up all your dollar bills, lengthwise, in a single long straight line... Here’s how it works: Convert the length of your dollars (6 inches per $1 bill) to feet... $542,510
6 Tips to Becoming a Ninja Tax Organizer
I used to hate filing my taxes. Every year I would complain, procrastinate, make excuses, then finally on deadline day I would take a messy stack of forms to my tax guy and cry for last-minute help. It wasn’t fun at all. Then something changed. I grew up. I put a system in place. And lucky I did! Today, even though my tax situation is more complicated than most families’,
2021 Financial Goal-Setting and the Fresh Start Theory
Have you ever heard of the “fresh start theory”? It’s basically a theory that people are more likely to tackle and achieve their goals if they begin them on a landmark date ... Like the 1st of the month, their birthday, January 1st, or any date of significance. Landmark dates are motivating. They mark the exact date when you stop being the old you, and start being the new
Merry Christmas! 10 Original Santa Jokes for You 😱 🎅🎄🤶
(Warning: We never said these jokes were any good...) How did Santa do on his performance review? ---> He absolutely sleighed it! And did the elves finish all their work projects on time? ---> Yep, they wrapped them all up quite nicely! What about the reindeer, they must be exhausted... ---> Yeah, they’ve been hoofing it all year. Did all the
Should you include your primary home in your net worth?
I got a question recently from a reader about my net worth tracking... “I was curious why you're not including your primary residence in your net worth equation? I know many people say it's not an asset. It's your home, you have to have a roof over your head, etc. Just wondered the reason. I include ours in the equation but didn't know if that's the typical way. :)” This
Repairing a Damaged 570 Credit Score All the Way up to 820!
My original idea for this post was to find a few people with perfect 850 credit scores and interview them. I’m really curious to see what a “perfect” credit profile looks like! But, while I was out searching for these folks, I stumbled across a whole range of people with really interesting backstories. Here’s a note I received from a guy called Keith… “I don’t have
HM Bradley: A 3% Interest Checking Account Based on your Savings Rate
I just learned about a cool new bank that some of you nerds might like. It could be a great tool if you are currently building up an emergency fund, saving up a down payment for a house, OR, if you want to earn a decent interest rate on an existing pile of cash! This bank is called HMBradley, and they offer a 3% interest rate on regular checking accounts. Pretty dang
