After a long period of trying and a month before our planned IVF procedure, we recently found out Mrs. MMB was pregnant! We were being carefully optimistic so we kept things rather quiet until now. We just had another ultrasound at 20 weeks that … [Read the rest]
Personal finance in theory is simple. Earn more, spend less. We all know that. But what makes it hard is changing our behavior, and much of that behavior is controlled by habits that we can't stop. A new book called The Power of Habit: Why We Do … [Read the rest]
There will always be debate regarding investing in actively-managed stock pickers vs. passive index followers. But even for active managers, costs matter more than star ratings and past performance. The lower the expenses, the less headwind year … [Read the rest]
If it wasn't for the ads on my Kindle (no good offers recently... boo), I wouldn't even know that Amazon had their own Groupon-clone called AmazonLocal. I don't even bother subscribing to any new copycat sites other than Groupon and Livingsocial, … [Read the rest]
Bronnie Ware was a nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last weeks of their lives, and recorded her experiences in a blog. She wrote an excellent post about the most common regrets of the dying, which … [Read the rest]
I have been lending some money to people through Kiva microfinance to help alleviate poverty since 2007. While reinvesting some funds that were paid back, I noticed that I just reached $1,000 in money lent out through 40 loans of $25 each. Kiva … [Read the rest]
The NY Times has a regular column called "The Ethicist", and it recently talked about credit card rewards. A reader writes in and asks: When shopping at big retailers, take up the offer for a new credit card to take advantage of the, say, 10 … [Read the rest]
The Calafia Beach Pundit has an interesting discussion on TIPS (inflation-linked bonds). What caught my eye was a nice chart of historical TIPS real (after-inflation) yields vs. Treasury nominal yields. The difference is what inflation would … [Read the rest]
Just as theorized by a previously-mentioned academic paper about target funds, a new Bloomberg article talks about how some mutual fund providers like PIMCO and Invesco are now adding things like commodities futures, options, and currency swaps into … [Read the rest]
I know that there was some noise when the Mac OS X 10.7 Lion was released and Quicken 2007 for Mac was reported by Intuit to be incompatible with any computer running the new operation system. Next, they release Quicken Essentials for Mac which was a … [Read the rest]
Charlie Munger is best known as the long-time friend and business partner of Warren Buffett, and officially as the Vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Even though he is Buffett's partner in investing, Munger is different in that he does not enjoy … [Read the rest]
I've gotten to the part in The Snowball that involves Charlie Munger. A very interesting person, although perhaps not someone I'd like to have a beer with (I'd feel stupid), he is probably best known as Buffett's long-time friend, business … [Read the rest]
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