I’m in the middle of a terrific book by Daniel Kahneman entitled Thinking Fast And Slow. This book was given to me by my good friend Keiki, and for good reason. It’s changing the way I think about consciousness. It also provides hard evidence for something that I’ve suspected for a long time. Namely that my […]
Archive | June, 2014
Harvesting Value
One of the best things about not having advertising on my blog, is that I feel completely comfortable making recommendations. There’s no money being made here. There’s no conflict of interest. And while my opinion may be flawed, it is certainly not corrupt. It’s no secret that I think that Betterment is an excellent investment […]
Under Pressure
I have already written about indulgences. By definition indulgences are unnecessary. Food is a necessity. But fancy-schmancy olive oil pressed with lemons certainly is not. Poofy purebred cats cannot be claimed to be necessary. So buying one of those can fairly be called an indulgence. Vacations too are not part of the survival equation. They […]
Slow Motion
When I first moved to Portland from Los Angeles, I couldn’t believe how fun it was to drive here. Driving in Los Angeles had meant spending three hours a day trapped in my car going 10 to 15 miles an hour in bumper-to-bumper. During those rare times when there was not a traffic jam, there […]
Fevered Rantings
Forgive me, This will be a bits and pieces post. There will be no philosophical nuggets, or new miles game angles. I’m wrapping up (I hope) four days of a nasty little enterovirus infection which of late has limited my diet to white rice and saltines, and my weekend activity to febrile napping and visiting […]
Your Fears Are Naked
It’s easy to imagine that reading this blog, a reader might become confused. Since I spend so much bandwidth writing about money, and how to save it, and how to avoid paying taxes on it, and how to spend it wisely, the natural tendency might be to assume that I am inherently inclined to be […]
Addition by Subtraction
Walmart. Yucko.I haven’t exactly made my feelings about Walmart secret.And let’s be honest, I open myself up to a lot of criticism with my anti-Walmart stance. (Most of it well-deserved.)Am I being elitist?Absolutely.I would definitely earn some Everyman points by nonchalantly walking by the recycle center, replete with meth addicts dumping crushed beer cans into […]
Page Turner
The main tension in my pursuit of early retirement is quite simple (and enviable I’ll concede.) I love my job. And it’s not just that I like what I do during the day. (I get a kick out of shooting the breeze with my patients and getting to know them and finding out what’s troubling […]
Manufactured Crisis
There are many interesting questions in personal-finance. And one of them is; how much cash does one need for an emergency fund? There are many schools of thought on this one. Conventional wisdom seems to be that you should have six months living expenses set aside in an FDIC bank account. Others argue that you […]
The Ultimate Indulgence
Within the early retirement ethos, the act of spending money on an incidental item can take on an almost religious significance. After all the central lesson of the new frugality as I perceive it is this: spending money is spending freedom. So each dollar frittered away represents an hour or an afternoon or a day […]
Recent Comments