Category: Money
-
You still have to do the work
You can join a gym. You still have to go. You can commit in January to start eating better. You still need to be eating broccoli when August comes around. You can read about saving. You can nod in full agreement to the importance of saving. You still have to…
-
Take things to Goodwill
I typed “how to declutter” into the magical Google search box and got more than 3.5 million results (in 0.30 seconds!!). But, um, you don’t really need to read any of those articles. You don’t even need to read this one. Just, go find some things to give away to Goodwill. It’s…
-
The un-usual way to make it as someone who spends money
Farhad Manjoo, the inimitable tech-writer at the New York Times, wrote a wonderful piece last week about MailChimp, the tech company responsible for helping lots and lots of small businesses do email marketing. The title of the piece is “MailChimp and the Un-Silicon Valley Way to Make It as a Start-Up,”…
-
Is “financial literacy” useful?
Is that sacrilegious of me to ask? Maybe. I think there are multiple answers here, because the question is actually multiple questions. On the one hand the question is: Is “financial literacy” in its ideal format useful? And the answer to that one’s easy (though maybe not terribly practical): YES. I…
-
How much money do you make?
Maybe a better question is: How does money make you? Seriously, what does it do to you? And what do the things you spend it on do to you? I’ll be honest. I wish my wife and I made more money. I wish the prospect of one of us staying…
-
Eames Eiffel chairs for your dollhouse
In today’s edition of crazy things you can buy with your money, here’s an article from the Wall Street Journal about how people (and by people, I mean adults) are renovating their dollhouses to reflect modern architectural tastes. And of course, you can now buy a tiny Eames Eiffel chair…
-
Preparation and Dr. Seuss
I meant no harm. I most truly did not. But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got. I biggered my factory. I biggered my roads. I biggered my wagons. I biggered the loads of the Thneeds I shipped out. I was shipping them forth to the South! To…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…