My father passed away on September 8, 2018. He was 70 years old. I find it somewhat ironic I'm publishing this post today, September 11. Social media is rightfully flooded with "Never Forget" posts.
This past Sunday marked the one year anniversary of my dad's passing. I was having my morning coffee when it hit me. I felt sad, again. I still vividly remember getting the call from my brother this time last year.
Last week we were on vacation at my in laws house. Close family friends joined us for the trip and a couple of nights were spent around the table competing in the board game called Wits & Wagers. We paired up into teams of two with each team consisting of an adult and a kid. If you know anything about our family, we trend toward the "more competitive" side of the ledger. It was an intense couple of nights. Well, about as intense as a game of Wits & Wagers can get!
On Friday, Jill & I will celebrate 11 years of marriage. Hard to believe it’s been 11 years. Seems like just yesterday I was smashing wedding cake in her face.
We've been through a heckuva lot in those 11 years. Obviously we had our gaggle of kids in a short period of time and, I imagine like many other married couples, we've dealt with our share of challenges, too.
To quote my father-in-law, it's been the best 10.5 years of my life! Haha.
Our youngest son, Sutton, is playing baseball again this season. The team is comprised mostly of 7 year olds. So far, we've had a few practices and two games. And let me tell you…they stink.
Seriously. They're not good. After our last game Jill said to me, "It's like watching The Bad News Bears."
And she's not wrong.
Before you start thinking "Wow that's horrible,” or “How can they say/think such things," hear me out.
Interest rates have gone down again. In fact, last week the benchmark 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell to 4.4 percent, the lowest point in over 13 months. I imagine you’ll be getting calls from your lender, banks, etc. about refinancing. This tends to happen when rates go down.
I have a confession: I think refinancing a mortgage is a bad idea.
If you've been following along with the blog, you've probably figured out a few key themes I like to use when it comes to financial planning. Themes like: Focus on Financial Factors You Can Control, Life Is NOT A Straight Line, Rate of Savings > Rate of Return, Planning > The Plan, etc.
And where your money goes, and why.
That's what we're talking about this week.
ecently Jill & I took a quick trip to surprise her mom and this required us to fly down to Miami. As we boarded the plane, I peeked into the cockpit. The pilots were in there, doing their pre-flight checks. We moved on down the aisle, took our seats, and prepared for takeoff.
For us, getting to Miami was as simple as booking tickets, boarding the plane, and buckling up. The pilots had a little more on their plate.
I think we're all prone to inertia in some shape or fashion, be it financially or otherwise. Guilty as charged.
You wouldn't know it by looking at me but I've put on some weight this year. I don't watch my weight. I've always been thin and eat fairly well most of the time. And I've always been pretty active. Like most people, I go through phases of working out. Generally it's pretty regular and I'll take some time off here and there. This year has been a challenge for me…
On May 10, 2008 my wife Jill & I were married. On that day I became a father to my stepson, Jackson. Later that month I started my career in the financial services industry with a measly salary that I was responsible for building and growing.
On June 17, 2009, Jill & I had our first child together.
Now imagine we met with a financial planner who…
Recently I saw the trailer for Top Gun 2. I love the original Top Gun movie. I'm not sold on the sequel - are they ever any good?
One of my favorite lines from the original Top Gun movie occurs when the Top Gun class is in session outside and Charlie is debriefing the pilots on the MIG fighter jet. Maverick interjects and well…watch for yourself.
Last week I showed you the financial planning formula. Here it is again
Pop quiz: of the four factors in our formula, how many of them are variable?
If you answered all of them, go ahead and give yourself a round of applause. One of the issues with our formula is…
Today is Wednesday, July 3. And tomorrow, July 4, we'll celebrate our nation's anniversary of independence. We will let freedom ring. We'll proudly wave our American flags. We'll drown our kids (and ourselves) in red white and blue. And then at the end of the day, we'll shoot off some fireworks.
It will be awesome.
Independence for our great nation did not come easy. In fact, the Revolutionary War lasted from 1775 - 1783. It took our country eight long years to achieve independence. And since this blog is (mostly) about money, the irony of The Revolutionary War happening over taxation is not lost on me.
Our daughter AnnaMay is ridiculously impulsive. She flitters from one activity to another, often leaving a trail of unfinished activities in her wake. Some days it's like a human tornado tore through our house.
And she can rarely walk by Jill or me without some form of physical contact. Maybe a touch on the back, a little "love" punch on the arm, or some type of quasi kung fu maneuver. She *has* to touch us. We love her unconditionally and we realize this is who she is, part of her DNA. She's impulsive.
Budget. It's a dirty, dirty word. Go ahead and say it out loud. See how many people around you avoid eye contact with you or give you nasty looks. I'm telling you! It's right up there with the dirtiest of the dirty words. It conjures up feelings of anxiety, fear, and even downright disgust in many people. Why? I'll tell you why.
Budgets can feel constricting, suffocating, and demanding. They ask of you to stay within the confines of the box. They come with defined borders.
And we don't like them! For many reasons.
On Friday, Jill & I will celebrate 11 years of marriage. Hard to believe it’s been 11 years. Seems like just yesterday I was smashing wedding cake in her face.
We've been through a heckuva lot in those 11 years. Obviously we had our gaggle of kids in a short period of time and, I imagine like many other married couples, we've dealt with our share of challenges, too.
To quote my father-in-law, it's been the best 10.5 years of my life! Haha.
Our youngest son, Sutton, is playing baseball again this season. The team is comprised mostly of 7 year olds. So far, we've had a few practices and two games. And let me tell you…they stink.
Seriously. They're not good. After our last game Jill said to me, "It's like watching The Bad News Bears."
And she's not wrong.
Before you start thinking "Wow that's horrible,” or “How can they say/think such things," hear me out.
If you don't know about the Nintendo Switch - well I didn't know much about it, either. All I know is it was one of the hottest items for the holidays. As the kids ramped up for Christmas, all we heard about was the Nintendo Switch. And they put on the full court press. Like Nolan Richardson Arkansas basketball circa 1990’s full court press. Honestly, it was exhausting. Every list for Santa included it. And they must have made like 15 lists each.
Jill and I talked about it and ultimately the kids did not get a Nintendo Switch from Santa.
Before you go yelling “Bah Humbug!” and calling us Scrooges, hear me out.
Last week’s blog post I talked about refinancing and used this analogy:
Math ≠ Money
According to Reuben Hersh, an American mathematician and academic, math can defined as follows:
For example, if I told you 2 + 2 = 4, you could not dispute that. This is a fact. If I told you 2 + 2 = 5, you could…
To get started, I'm going to ask you a few questions. Don't worry, they're simple. Let's go:
when did you graduate from college?
when did you get married?
what's your address?
how many square feet is your condo/apartment/house?
I imagine the answers among all of you reading this are quite varied. I also imagine if you asked the same exact questions to your best friend, neighbor, or co-worker, you're most likely going to get answers totally different than yours.
Let's try a few more questions. Also very simple questions:
Our youngest son, Sutton, has lost 4 teeth in the last two months. Unfortunately for him, they are his top 4 front teeth. That's right, all of them in a row. So as you can imagine, the Tooth Fairy has been to our house at a pretty good clip.
Sutton has also been socking away some Tooth Fairy cheddar at a pretty good clip, too. Tooth Fairy in the StranClan house pays $2 per tooth. The Tooth Fairy has a stout collection of the very rare $2 bill as well as…
This summer I've been fortunate to coach the All Star baseball team our son, Thomas, plays on. I've been coaching our kids' sports teams for nearly 10 years now, but this is my first time coaching a team where every kid is a good player. They are all good at catching, throwing and hitting. They're All Stars but they're not Major Leaguers (yet!). In fact, they're only 8 years old. A few are only 7.
And as 7 & 8 year olds are prone to do, they make mistakes like missing a ground ball or throwing the ball to the wrong base or any other number of mistakes we can make on the ballfield. So this summer we've created a catch phrase:
“It’s okay to…
What did you do this morning? If you're like most, you woke up, got ready for your day, and headed off to the office. Maybe you drove, maybe you took the train or bus, or maybe you walked down the hall to your home office.
No matter your route, you went to work. And you probably got paid.
Stop reading this if you could retire today.
In my pre-kid life, I consumed ALL of college basketball. I knew about every team in the tournament and watched as many games as I could all season long. This year, I think I watched maybe two college basketball games from start to finish. I'd never even heard of Lipscomb.
So I'll let you in on how I picked my bracket this year, you know, if you want some expert advice:
Some of you may not be familiar with my personal story. Long story, short: my wife and I went from having 1 kid to 5 kids in a span of 2.5 years. Five kids. That was over 6 years ago. Today, they are 14, 8, 7 & 7 (twins!), & 6 years old.
Raising kids, being a parent, it's not that much different than dealing with your financial life. And of course, both are intertwined. Because let's face it, kids are expensive! Let's discuss:
Recently, my wife had to travel for work. She was gone for 4 days during the school week and 2 days on the weekend. And since Sutton started kindergarten this year, it also happens to be the first year we haven't had full-time child care.
No problem, right? The kids are on the bus at 9a and off the bus around 4:30p. I'm a very engaged parent. Plenty of time to work, too. I got this!
Only it happened to be a week with two half days at school (SERIOUSLY?!). Thomas decided it was a good week to channel his inner Mike Tyson and use his siblings as punching bags. Oh, and it was Sutton's…
