It’s interesting how people make decisions and form beliefs. An argument could be made that people rarely think about the facts and come to a rational decision – instead, they make an emotional decision then come up with rationalizations for it after the fact. Even if we pretend people do make decisions based on the […]
Business
What Are Options?
It’s common in newspaper articles to read references to writing calls, buying puts, and tech companies offering lucrative stock options to employees. It’s easy to get bogged down in the terminology and be left scratching your head. Options are an advanced topic and not something you want to recklessly get involved in. It’s very worthwhile […]
Amateur Landlords
Nelson at the now sadly defunct Financial Uproar recently had a great post called Don’t Rent From An Amateur Landlord. The basic idea was that if you’re renting from someone who is new to real estate, they will be a pain as a landlord. They’ll be so nervous about having the bulk of their investment capital tied up […]
A Simple Technique For Determining Market Rent
Whenever someone tries to rent out their property for the first time, what to charge for rent is the big question. Friends and family will happily indulge us with fantastic sums no one will actually pay. If you’ve shown your apartment to prospective tenants, you’ll realize how inscrutable they can be. Many novice landlords have […]
Picking A Real Estate Agent To Work With
The standard advice for finding a real estate agent to work with is to get a referral from a friend or family member. If a friend or family member *IS* a real estate agent, they’ll probably already have expressed to you that they expect you to work with them. This is fine for what it […]
My Definition Of Rich
A while back, Nelson at (the now defunct) Financial Uproar recently posted about definitions of rich according to a variety of celebrities and polls. I love posts about semantics, and the range of responses to this one shows that “rich” is a complex term. Chris Rock’s comedy routine about wealthy vs. rich is great. In some versions of […]
You Don’t Need An Emergency Fund, Chump!
Big Cajun Man (aka Alan Whitton aka the “Clown Prince of Personal Finance”) at Canadian Personal Finance Blog wrote a post a few years ago about universal advice that all personal finance blogs agree with. I agree with all 6 of his statements, but in the interest of being contrarian, I thought I’d play the devil’s advocate and argue against […]
Do You Owe Your Mother $1,000,000.00?
I only listen to podcasts while on road trips, but I love catching up on Freakanomics when I’m traveling. A few years back they had a great episode called Should Kids Pay Back Their Parents for Raising Them? The introduction dealt with a football player who got an NFL contract and, at the party to celebrate, […]
Book Review: Early Retirement Extreme
A few years ago Nelson Smith at the, sadly defunct, Financial Uproar posted a pretty funny review of Early Retirement Extreme by Jacob Fisker called “I Read Early Retirement Extreme So You Don’t Have To”. I read this book myself, and never wrote up my thoughts on the book, so I figured it’d be worth adding my $0.02 to […]
Are Dividends Magic?
It’s interesting, especially after reading investing history, to live through a period of “irrational exuberance”. I’ve been investing throughout the dot-com boom, the subprime meltdown, and the continued Canadian real estate bubble. One enthusiasm, which seems to be limping towards an end, is the wild enthusiasm for dividends. What Is A Dividend? Equities – stock […]