The Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, meaning I get money if anyone clicks on them then makes a purchase. Cal Newport is an assistant professor of computer science at Georgetown University. He’s written a number of advice books for students at different levels (How to Be a High School Superstar, How to Become a […]
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Properly Pricing Things
I wrote a post on another blog I run, that talked about selling farm fresh eggs. It was the first post on that blog to provoke an e-mail from a reader, and it was interesting as the e-mail was to tell me I was dead wrong on how to price eggs, and walked me through “the […]
Book Review: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life
The Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, meaning I get money if anyone clicks on them then makes a purchase. Scott Adams is most famous as the cartoonist behind Dilbert. Leading up to his success with his comic strip, and since achieving his success with his comic strip he has attempted all sorts of […]
Financial Inertia
Years ago I read a quote from Thicken My Wallet, the Canadian lawyer and retired blogger, that “the financial industry preys on inertia“. It was true back then in 2007, and it remains true today in 2022. For whatever reason, once people have made a financial decision, they’re loath to revisit it. The financial industry […]
What the Heck is a Reverse Mortgage?!?
At breakfast this morning my wife had a great question, “what is a reverse mortgage?” We see them advertised all the time, with happy old people enjoying life because of their reverse mortgage. A mortgage is something that helps you buy a house, so what the heck does a reverse mortgage do? A reverse mortgage […]
The Difference Between Real and Nominal Values
I took a single economics class during my undergraduate, and I LOVED it! There are a number of incredibly useful concepts that can guide your thinking in all sorts of situations. Opportunity cost is a great way to consider alternatives and has helped me make better, more rational decisions. The difference between real and nominal values is […]
Buying Real Estate For 20% Below Asking
The following is a free, easy-to-implement, legal, and moral approach to buying real estate that can easily let you buy for 20% below the asking price. This works for all types of property, including residential, condos, multi-units, or commercial. I have successfully purchased properties using this approach in radically different markets (once in Canada, many […]
The Meaning Of “Retirement”
I’m often interested in the meaning of words, phrases, or concepts. Semantics, nomenclature, whatever you want to call it, I find it interesting how much variability there is in what we all mean when we say different things. Think of words like “capitalism” or “feminism” – these probably mean something different to every person who […]
Goals Are Garbage
My thesis, both from my own life experience and from multiple authors I’ll cite later in this post, is that focusing on systems, your craft, or what you need to get done – how you do things – rather than a grand “dream” is a more productive way to accomplish what you want in life […]
Work as Insurance During Early Retirement
On an old blog that I’ve shut down, a reader named JD left a comment on my when can I retire post that I thought was interesting and worth revisiting. Ideas like the 4% rule assume that we commit to a particular strategy, slavishly follow it, and never deviate or make any course corrections. It would be impossible to model all […]