a hackers guide to managing your money
In 2010, I found myself attending the Finovate Fall event in New York City. Even though I’d been a personal finance blogger for over five years, I hadn’t heard of so many of the companies presenting. I took a lot of meetings those couple days including one with a young guy planning on changing the […]
In college, I was required to live in campus housing for my entire Freshman year. At Carnegie Mellon, that meant Donner Hall. We were in the basement floor, affectionately called the Donner Dungeon. For what it’s worth, I really enjoyed my time in the dungeon. I became lifelong friends with many of the guys on […]
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who love spreadsheets and, Weirdos. I jest. But only a little bit. 🙂 I’ve been tracking our net worth for many years using an Excel spreadsheet. It started as a “budget bible,” a name and template borrowed my friend Melinda, but soon evolved to only […]
When I was younger, I remembering playing chess with my dad and always losing. I didn’t play a lot and I was never more than a casual player. Starting around Thanksgiving of last year, I started playing online a little bit more. I’m somewhere around a 1200 on Chess.com (15/10 time controls), which puts me […]
When I’m buying something, I tend to use a credit card. It’s easier to keep track of expenses when you put it on a card and it’s often faster too. But there are those times when cash is preferable. I try to use cash at smaller stores, to give them a break on the merchant […]
When I first started blogging, I didn’t go to conferences because I had a full-time job. After I quit to blog full-time, I started going to all kinds of conferences. I went to massive internet marketing conferences like Pubcon and Affiliate Summit, I went to smaller fintech conferences like Finovate, and I even went to […]
My sister is a high school teacher in South Boston. For many years, before having children, she would spend a month or so teaching in England with a summer program. It was part vacation, part side hustle, but 100% trip to England. It’s never bad to keep your skills sharp while getting a mini-vacation in […]
When peer to peer lending platforms like Prosper and Lending Club first appeared, people went crazy for them. It was a new asset to invest in and people were analyzing them to find an edge. “Investing” in unsecured personal loans sounds risky but with it being so new, no one knew exactly how risky. The […]
Southwest is my favorite airline. A few years ago, I got their business and personal Chase credit cards, scored Companion Pass, and we haven’t looked back since. As they’ve added new international locations (and Hawaii!), the value of Companion Pass has only gone up. Chase and Southwest have partnered up to offer an even bigger […]
Wondering if Survey Junkie is legit or a scam? When I first heard about it, I had the same thoughts. There are a lot of survey companies out there and some of them aren’t worth your time. Others are. If you’re like me, I bet the name threw you off. But when I dug a […]