• Financial worry warts

    It’s not a perfect relationship, but among people who are wealthy (probably you), I have noticed something sort of strange: The people who worry the most generally have the least to worry about (these people are typically over-savers and under-enjoyers), and the people who hardly worry at all often have the most cause for worry

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  • Marble and leather

    The greatest book title I’ve ever seen–at least in the realm of finance–is about 75 years old and comes from an author named Fred Schwed: Where Are The Customers’ Yachts? The book takes a hard look at the many less-than-savory practices of brokerage firms and the finance industry at large at the time (but also now), with

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  • The great weight

    A really weird thing about money is that no amount of it can shield you from that great weight, that oppressive, worrying weight that can hit you like a 2×4 at random moments in the day or night. What is that weight? I don’t know. Yours is certainly different than mine, though we may have

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  • Go with the grain

    At the recommendation of a friend I’m reading Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons, which is a wonderful little book distilling some of the legendary golfer’s most fundamental thoughts about the game with laymen like me. Well, within about five minutes of starting the book I came across one of those thoughts that made me stand up and

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  • Killer deer and cuddly fees

    Aside from the occasional rabid deer, you’re not generally going to find one that poses any sort of active threat of violence. Eat everything in your garden? Sure. Gore you to death with their antlers? Not likely. Yet, who am I to argue with the Center for Disease Control? As this article at Vox summarizes,

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  • It’s all relative

    If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time you may have seen the term “lifestyle creep” come up a few times. It’s a fascinating concept with an equally emotive name, and it has all sorts of implications in the practice of long-term financial planning. Lifestyle creep is, more or less, the natural but potentially

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  • I had a lunch date with my wife today, and I was reminded of just how incredibly profound contentment is. Contentment is one of the most difficult concepts in the entire world for rich people like me to grasp, because it’s the least obvious and most backwards path to walk down when all of the things

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  • I played golf on Sunday with a couple buddies at an old public course ten or fifteen miles east of Raleigh. I didn’t keep score for myself. Now, before you call me a communist or worse, let me say I’m a firm believer that “keeping score” is generally an important part of getting better at something. BUT, it

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  • I love food so much. I mean, how good is eating? Here are a few of my favorite meals: The Coq au Vin from Coquette The ribeye at Stanbury The Dirty South at Chuck’s (make it a double…) The Arugula Salad with grilled chicken from Bella Monica Steak tacos with black beans, cheese, and guacamole

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  • Gas lines

    People in Raleigh are going absolutely crazy about the gas shortage that I warned people about yesterday (and which was known to be coming last week). Reminder number 561,783,991 that too often we don’t do important things until they become terribly urgent. And even then, we often don’t do them as well as we should, because we’re

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