Finance

A road trip to a cheap (luxury) rental car

When we got married we were strapped for time and money. So instead of going somewhere far, we decided on a road trip close to home. After all, paying an exorbitant amount to live in California should have some perks. We decided to take the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles to Redwood National Park, [...]

Read the full article →

Managing our time : The myth of multitasking

Texting and driving, talking on the phone while walking, Facebook, Twitter, work, email, IM, Pandora. Multitasking has become the way of life.   Right now, as I type this, I have 23 tabs open in my Chrome browser. I also have the following applications open – Excel, InkScape, PowerPoint and Live writer, each of them with [...]

Read the full article →

So you think you can beat the system.

When I was researching my reflexive or reflective brain post and doing the 10 vs 100 balls exercise, I thought I should be able to do more than just follow the probability. I figured I was capable of figuring out the system and so should be able to pick the right ball – the classic [...]

Read the full article →

Blogging and life lessons from the financial blogger conference

As many of you know, I was at the first annual financial blogger conference last weekend. I wanted to do a recap as soon as I got back, but I wanted to take a step back, digest everything and write a post that will not only be useful for bloggers but also for readers without [...]

Read the full article →

Should you Buy or Rent? Calculator + Inforgraphics

I am an immigrant to this country and let me tell you, the American Dream resonates with me.  For someone who came to this country with next to nothing, the possibility that I can, through just hard work, be able to own my own white picket fence house with the 2 cars, is mind blowing. [...]

Read the full article →

Intentional or Intuitive? What drives your investment decisions?

Anyone who has read the basics of investing knows that the secret is to buy low & then sell high. Sounds simple enough right, but over and over again we do the exact opposite.  Why? There are plenty of investing scams. When we read about them in the news we are surprised that people can’t [...]

Read the full article →

Free financial planning – Financial planning days

I recently talked about finding a financial planner for the middle class. Here is a way to do that for free – Financial planning days. Financial Planning days is an initiative by various financial planning organizations to educate the public on major personal finance topics and offer free counseling to manage their finances better.  I [...]

Read the full article →

$1000 emergency fund? 6 months expenses? 1 year salary? Throw them all out the window!

When I first started getting serious about having our financial house in order, the first piece of advice I got from all the experts was – have an emergency fund. OK, got it, I will work on that! Umm… but how much should I have? No idea. The advice I got ranged from $1000 baby emergency fund to [...]

Read the full article →

Targeted saving accounts : How we save for our dreams?

I have mentioned many times in the past that I am a fan of goals. Setting goals and working towards them has been the most successful way for me to achieve anything, my career, finances or weight loss. It allows me to easily track my progress and adjust my priorities. I think a lot of [...]

Read the full article →