The Real Estate Crowdfunding Capital Stack: Equity vs. Debt

Before I share more about my real-estate crowdfunding experiments, I wanted to take a quick step back in order to provide better context. Just as ETFs and mutual funds are separated into stocks and bonds, real estate can be separated into two … [Read the rest]

The Stock Market Boom / Bust Cycle: Where Are We At Now?

There appears to be a trend of everyone is getting their "stocks are highly-valued" calls on record in so that when the next drawdown occurs, they'll have their "I told you so" ready to go. I should probably do that too. Example: Goldman Warns … [Read the rest]

Lemonade Insurance Review: Home & Renters Insurance With No Incentive To Deny Your Claim?

Updated July 2018. Lemonade continues its rollout - see map above. Get a free quote from Lemonade and see if they are cheaper than your current homeowner's or renter's insurance policy. Feel free to leave a comment about whether they were more or … [Read the rest]

Free Limited-Edition Gund Teddy Bear with $100 Amazon Gift Card

Each holiday season, Amazon teams up with Gund to create a limited-edition teddy bear. Gund is known for their quality stuffed animals and they do everything from Elmo to Curious George to Boo the Dog. Amazon Prime customers can now get a free … [Read the rest]

Best Interest Rates on Cash – December 2017

Short-term interest rates are rising. Don't let a megabank pay you nothing for your idle cash. Here is my monthly roundup of the best safe rates available, roughly sorted from shortest to longest maturities. You could also use this information … [Read the rest]

Buy It Nice or Buy It Twice: Kitchen Tools and Cookware (Extended Edition)

(Added some items.) When buying kitchen items, I am firmly in the "pay for quality" camp. Reader Chris sent in the following question (edited for clarity): I read in your website about cast iron pans and KitchenAid mixers. I want to buy a … [Read the rest]

US vs. International Stocks: Historical Cycles of Outperformance

One major question in portfolio construction is how to allocate between US stocks and non-US stocks. Over the last 10 years, US stocks have outperformed International stocks significantly. However, as the following chart shows, they tend to take … [Read the rest]

Howard Marks Memo on High Stock Market Prices and Risk Management

There seems to be a lot of angst about the stock market these days. It's been going up, up, up. Is it too high? Will there be a crash? Accordingly, I just caught up on the most recent Howard Marks memos - There They Go Again... Again [pdf] and … [Read the rest]

Giving Tuesday 2017: Matching Donations

Tuesday, November 28th is Giving Tuesday 2017. Black Friday, Cyber Monday... don't forget that this time of the year is also huge for charities. I've saw a stat that 40% of donations occur in the last six weeks of the year. Here are some ways you … [Read the rest]

Amazon Cyber Monday Deals Week: Kindle Unlimited, Fire Tablets, Echo Dot, Smart Plugs, Fire TV

Updated. Amazon has switched it up now to their Cyber Monday Deals Week List. Some of the Amazon device deals are still available, plus a few different Amazon offerings and lots of "flash" temporary deals. Bose QC25 Noise-Cancelling … [Read the rest]

Raise.com: Additional $10 Off Gift Cards Cyber Monday (11/27 Only)

Raise.com lets you buy and sell gift cards online and instantly via app, and according to them they are the largest online marketplace for gift cards. They offer a 1 Year Money-Back Guarantee against gift cards that don't have the promised … [Read the rest]

Stock and Bond Returns from 1926-2016: Rarely Average

The Vanguard Blog has an interesting scatter plot of annual stock and bond returns from 1926-2016. The vertical axis is bond returns (broad US bond indexes), with the blue shaded areas indicating bond returns between 3% and 7%. The horizontal … [Read the rest]