On the heels of our mortgage refinance, I thought I’d put together a rundown of all the things we did two years ago to get our old house ready for sale. What follows is a rundown of all the ‘major’ stuff that we did just prior to putting our house on the market…
1. Had [...]

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I frequently find myself musing about the possibility of an retiring early. It’s not that I dislike my job. Rather, I’m just really, really attracted to the idea of total financial independence. While we have four relatively young kids, and thus have a few more obstacles than the average family, I’m still a big fan [...]

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According to a recent blurb from Consumer Reports, your cost of living might be increasing faster than government inflation statistics seem to indicate. Based on official numbers, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 4.1% from December 2006-December 2007. Not surprisingly, the numbers vary substantially across categories. Indeed, gas was up 29.6%, heating oil was up [...]

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Just five days ’til we head out of town…
Not much else to say. Here are some recent articles that caught my eye…

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As a followup to my earlier note about refinancing our mortgage, I wanted to point out an interesting way of looking at things…
In the comments to that post, Laura brought up the concept of the mortgage “crossover point,” which is the point at which you are paying more toward principal than toward mortgage interest.
In looking [...]

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About two weeks ago I sat down with Turbo Tax and did a quick run-through to see roughly where we stand with regard to income taxes. While I’ve written previously about common income tax deductions, as well commonly missed income tax deductions, today I though I’d share our biggest income tax deductions.
1. Charitable contributions [...]

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This is just a quick note to say that we closed on our mortgage refinance yesterday, and are now the proud new owners of a 15 year, fixed-rate mortgage at 4.875%.
For the sake of comparison, we were 21 months into a 30 year fixed rate mortgage at 6.375%. The original balance on this loan was [...]

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Given that the USPS has announced yet another stamp price increase, I thought that it might be interesting to look at stamp price increases over time. What follows is a graph of the price of postage for a one ounce piece of mail from 1885 through the 2008 price increase.

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In case you haven’t heard, the so-called economic stimulus package (including the ever-popular tax rebate) has now been signed into law by President Bush. Referring to the stimulus package as “a booster shot for our economy,” he remarked that “We have come together on a single mission and that is to put the peoples’ interests [...]

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With all of the recent volatility in the stock market, I thought I’d talk a bit a bit about a turn of phrase — “shorting” a stock — that I’ve heard quite often over the past few weeks.
Shorting a stock (or executing a “short sale“) essentially involves borrowing shares of a stock such that you [...]

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