A weekly roundup of some of the more interesting and helpful personal finance articles I’ve read recently. The ultimate alternative investment: happiness (A Teachable Moment). Some uses of money pay much bigger happiness dividends than others. Your superpower – not sucking at money (White Coat Investor). While I’m not crazy about the language used in […]
A weekly roundup of some of the more interesting and helpful personal finance articles I’ve read recently. How online shopping makes suckers of us all (The Atlantic). Online retailing is driven by very sophisticated science, and you are at the center of constant experiments. Cash is king no more (NY Times). Philosophical musings on our […]
As cash-hungry states look for new sources of revenue, several are now allowing advertisers to put paid messages on the sides of school buses. Currently, seven states allow advertising on school buses: Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah. Six others are considering the idea: Florida, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Washington. […]
The New York Times recently ran a series of six essays offering various explanations for the generally poor job we Americans do with savings. One blamed the disappearance of defined benefits plans, which, without any conscious effort on the part of workers, provided a steady income in retirement. That same writer dismissed the efforts of […]
The Great Recession has impacted all of us. For some, the impact has been painful (think job losses). But the financial downturn also seems to be fostering widespread personal changes that, if they stick, have the potential to improve our lives. U.S. News & World recently summarized some of the key recession-induced changes that researchers […]
“I do want to point out, friends, that time is of the essence. There is no time to waste, so don’t complicate your lives unnecessarily. Keep it simple — in marriage, grief, joy, whatever. Even in ordinary things—your daily routines of shopping, and so on. Deal as sparingly as possible with the things the world […]
There are a number of parallels between the worlds of nutrition and finance. On the negative side, people tend to describe a budget in the same terms they use to describe a diet – it’s something one goes on, as in, “Poor Brian, he’s on a budget.” However, as was pointed out in a New […]
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. – […]
Does it seem as though the packages lining grocery store aisles are getting smaller? They are. It’s a strategy some packaged goods manufacturers are using to pass along their higher costs. Instead of raising the price on a normal sized container, they are shrinking the container but charging what they used to charge for the […]
The science of shopping is a hot topic, with a number of journals helping marketers get inside the minds (and wallets) of their customers. A recent Chicago Tribune article summarized some of the recent research. “Shopping momentum” was the topic of a recent Journal of Marketing Research article. Researchers have found that the first purchase […]
