Personal Finance Advice

It’s the time of year when many people resolve to get their finances in order. As with dieting, this is also the time of year when all the fads compete for your attention. You start to see ads for everything including computer software, apps for your phone, programs/groups that promise to solve all of your [...]

I wrote last year that I like to look for money when I walk around. I find a minimum of $50 a year and would estimate that I clear over $100 most years (in helps living in Japan where they have $1 and $5 coins). I received an email asking me where are the best [...]

As I mentioned in the previous post, this was the first time that I really have had a chance to see the shrine since our other visits were always when the shrine was packed with people. here are a few shots I took around the shrine: Small shrine to pray for the horse the Ebisuten [...]

At the end of each year I pick a quote that I would like to embody the coming year. This is the one I have chosen for this year: Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all – Helen Keller I chose this one because I haven’t done much of the exploring that [...]

One of the special moments that occurs when children are growing up is the loss of their first teeth. To celebrate this special occasion, parents often leave a small amount of money under the child’s pillow in exchange for the tooth that has been lost. Here are some ideas to make the exchange a memorable [...]

Have you ever wondered why coins have a musty, metallic odor after they have been in your hands awhile? You may have assumed that it was the coins being dirty, but in reality it isn’t the coins at all – it’s you. That’s right. That smell is your own body odor. According to a recent [...]

Let me begin here by saying that I hate tipping. Having lived 10 years in Japan where there is absolutely no tipping for anything, every time I come back to the US I cringe at the thought of having to figure out how much I should tip and who I should tip. I could take [...]

I started making this list a while back when others were making them and never got around to finishing it. Nate was doing some work on the blog and saw it saved and said that I should finish it. I have reservations and I’m wondering how many of you are going to be saying “what?!? [...]

While this is usually not the place where you would come for information on stars the likes of Britney Spears (but hey, it’s not often a personal finance blogger like me finds an excuse to legitimately place a photo of Britney Spears in their blog – or even write about her ), I found it [...]

I saw a brilliant marketing move as I walked through the San Jose airport today on my way back from Seattle. In the middle of the San Jose airport is a bar/cafe. This is nothing unusual except for the name of the cafe which is “The Expedia.com Cafe” The brilliance of it is that they [...]

As you may have noticed, Nate and I decided to make some changes to the blog this weekend. These were long over due and we think that it looks a lot better (we’ve always known we needed the change from the basic look we had before, but time has always been an issue). While I [...]

An interesting piece over at Mother Jones from last May listing a number of statistics about money that make you pause and think. It’s certainly worth a visit to read them all (over forty), but here are a few that caught my eye: Oscar performers and presenters collectively owe the IRS $1,250,000 on the gift [...]

Michael Stadther is at it again. In 2004 he released a book titled A Treasure’s Trove that had clues hidden within the pages and anyone who could decipher them would find 12 18-karat in gold tokens hidden throughout the continental United States (which could be redeemed for one-of-a kind jewels of the characters in the [...]

It was a few months ago when copper prices rose to the point that the pre-1982 pennies that were made out of 95% copper had a copper content value of more than 1 cent. This week zinc prices reached $1.80 per pound mark (what pennies are made out of today) which means if you melt [...]

I was fooling around with the new Text Link Ads Calculator (we do not use Text Link Ads on this blog, but do use them on some of our other sites) and realized that this gives a peak into the value of personal finance bloggers sites in comparison with others. While the actual numbers given [...]

I was fooling around looking at photos at local live when I came across this quite interesting photo which actually caught a small plane flying over Bill Gate’s house (click on the photo to enlarge): 1. Points to Bill Gates house 2. Points out the plane caught in the photo What are the chances? Catching [...]

For those that have an interest in why we make the financial decisions that we do, an interesting article on neuro-economics was recently published in the TimesOnline that is definitely worth a read: Imagine that you are sitting next to a complete stranger who has been given £10 to share between the two of you. [...]

For those looking for the easiest way to fold a t-shirt perfectly every time, here it is. If I can do this, absolutely anyone can. My wife taught me this (she’s from Japan) when she got tired of my folded t-shirts of all shapes and sizes. Enjoy and pass along!

Kind of hard to believe that I have been blogging here for an entire year. As with a lot of this, time has just flown by. As I seem to do with most anniversaries, I’ve taken a bit of time to sit back and reflect on what was good and what wasn’t so good over [...]

For those of you that have an interest about how the brain affects our decisions in regard to money, you’ll want to take some time and read a thorough (but rather long) article on neuroeconomics in the New Yorker. A few of the observations from the piece: On people’s dislike of losing money: During the [...]