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• The 3 Things My Kids Learned About Budgeting at the Grocery Store

My wife went out of town with friends for the weekend so I have our 4 kids for the day. I took them to play at their favorite park. When lunch time came around they all wanted to eat at McDonalds. Rather than eating at McDonalds I thought it would be fun to have a […]

• Who Else Wants to Talk to Their Kids About Money?

Do you talk openly about money with your kids? I’ve always wanted to be able to talk opening to my kids about money & finances. My kids’ ages are 11, 8, 6, & 3. My 8 year old is particularly curious about money and how much things cost. Whenever he asks questions about money I […]

• My Favorite New Toy

In a past (employment) life I used to program document management systems that worked with high speed scanners. We were an authorized Canon dealership so we sold high speed Canon scanners to go with them. I worked on a web based tool that allowed you to scan and file documents. It worked using ActiveX so […]

• Investing in Yourself

Right now I’m sitting in a room with 700 people. We have all come together for ng-conf – a programming conference for AngularJS. My first programmer conference I ever attended was DjangoCon 2012. I loved it. Why do I love programming conferences? It’s a chance to learn about best practices and what others are doing […]

• Some Deals Just Aren’t Worth It

I love getting a deal! That’s why I like getting great deals on hotels at Priceline.com. The name your own price feature is great, but I recently ran into a situation where I had to shell out some “stupid tax” all in the name of getting a deal. For our 13th anniversary, my wife and […]

• Overcharged on a Loaf of Wheat Bread

Yesterday I stood in line at Smith’s Marketplace to return some clothes. There was a lady in front me also waiting in line. It looked like she had just finished grocery shopping. She was sharply dressed and was carrying her daughter on her hip – probably about 2 years old. When it was her turn […]

• Falling Out of Love with STUFF

When I was young we didn’t take many vacations. It never really bothered me. I knew we couldn’t afford it. I didn’t really care much though. I lived in a small town and frankly, I was kind of scared to leave it. Besides, I didn’t understand why people would spend money on vacations when they […]

• Buddy the Dog

I hate dogs. There I said it. I know a lot of people will hate me for saying it too. I didn’t know I hated dogs until we got a great dane a couple of years ago. I quickly realized there was nothing I like about dogs. I don’t like their smell, their slobber, their […]

• Mid-life Unwinding

My wife and I spent the weekend working on our house. We just had all the 2nd floor painted – turned all the oak white. We were switching out all the electrical outlets and switches to more modern white plugs and switches and listening to Pandora. I suggested we listened to an audiobook. “Which one?” […]

• Following Dave Ramsey’s Five Rules of Home Buying

I’m a Dave Ramsey fan. But I don’t always follow his advice. The part I have never followed is his guidelines for buying a home: Debt Free 3-6 Month Emergency Fund At least 10% down payment 15-year (or less) fixed rate mortgage House payments at or below 25% of monthly take-home pay Since learning about […]