Live Below The Line Challenge: Sample $1.50/Day Menu Nutritional Information

I'm taking the Live Below the Line challenge this week, which means eating for 5 days on just $1.50 a day. I plugged all the ingredients from my $1.50 per day Sample Menu into the food diary at MyFitnessPal.com, and below is a screenshot of my … [Read the rest]

How Our Interests Change As Get We Closer To Retirement

Stephen Wolfram, of Mathematica and WolframAlpha fame, used his natural language analysis tools to crunch through a huge set of Facebook data. The results are some interesting visualizations, including a series of charts about how the popularity … [Read the rest]

Live Below The Line Challenge: Sample $1.50/Day Menu

I'm taking the Live Below the Line challenge, which means eating for 5 days on just $1.50 a day. After a shopping trip and a few cooking experiments, here's my menu for next week (4/29-5/3). Rules Even though the challenge rules allow it, … [Read the rest]

What Does 200 Calories Cost? A Visual Guide (Economics of Obesity)

WiseGeek has an interesting article on What Does 200 Calories Look Like?, where it photographs the portions of several foods that equal 200 calories and sorts them by weight. Here's broccoli next to peanut butter on the same plate: I thought … [Read the rest]

Live Below The Line Challenge $1.50/day – What to Eat?

I recently learned about Live Below The Line, an annual anti-poverty campaign which challenges people to feed themselves on the equivalent of the extreme poverty line for five days. According to the World Bank, that works out to spending less than … [Read the rest]

Your Entire Financial Life in One Deceptively Simple Chart

Time for fun with charts! A famous chart in the early retirement community is The Crossover Point from the book Your Money or Your Life, which shows that you've reached financial independence when your investment income equals your monthly … [Read the rest]

Tracking Inflation: Consumer Price Index vs. MIT Billion Prices Project

AFter calculating the new savings bond rate, I noticed that from March 2012 to March 2013 the inflation rate per the Consumer Price Index was only 1.5% over the past year. Whenever you see the government announce a relatively low inflation numbers, … [Read the rest]

Savings I-Bonds May 2013 Upcoming Rate: 1.18%

New inflation numbers for March 2013 were just announced, so it's time for the usual semi-annual update and rate predictions. New Inflation Rate September 2012 CPI-U was 231.407. March 2013 CPI-U was 232.773, for a semi-annual increase of … [Read the rest]

Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Review: What’s Inside (VTSMX, VTSAX, VTI)

(This post is part of a new series taking a closer look at some popular portfolio holdings.) The Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund is one of the largest funds in the world, and definitely the largest index fund. For individual retail … [Read the rest]

Don’t Forget To Be Awesome

Originally posted here on December 3rd, 2005: Thinking about goals and the future some more, I have this picture in my head of our dream future in 5-10 years: - I work at a job I enjoy for only 20 hours a week - My wife also works at a job she … [Read the rest]

Swensen Portfolio 10-Year Trailing Returns Redux

Here is a check-in on the trailing 10-year total returns for the David Swensen model portfolio, courtesy of ETFPM.com. Last update was in 2011. As a reminder, here is the model portfolio asset allocation with representative ETFs: 30% Domestic … [Read the rest]

Total Economy Portfolio: Adding Small Value Stock, REIT Exposure

In many investing books such as David Swensen's Unconventional Success or Bill Schultheis' The Coffeehouse Investor, you may see model portfolios that include an allocation to smaller companies and/or real estate investment trusts (REITs). … [Read the rest]