Exactly one year ago, we arrived in Spain on our 81-day, do-it-yourself, family study abroad in Spain. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since we left. Following a gentle nudge, I put down some thoughts on the lessons we learned from our journey. Lessons We Learned It wasn’t as expensive as we thought… Continue reading What I Learned Spending 81-days In Spain
With the annual benefit enrollment period closing at work, it got me thinking about whether I could contribute to a health savings account (HSA). I’ve had HSA accounts with two previous employers, but my current employer doesn’t offer it. Could I still open an HSA on my own to get additional tax savings? HSA Requirements… Continue reading Can I Contribute to an HSA?
It’s that time of year, again: benefit open enrollment. What? It’s only September, you say? Don’t most benefit periods start at the beginning of the year? Turns out, not always. The startup I work for just celebrated its fourth anniversary and the benefits calendar nearly coincides, running from October 1st to September 30th of the… Continue reading The FSA Crystal BalI
Each month, I find that there’s a bunch of small topics that don’t warrant their own post but that I want to share nonetheless. Here are some from August. Beach House In North Carolina In the eight years that we’ve lived in Virginia, we’ve rented houses near the beach on the southern coast of North… Continue reading August 2020 Update
This week my oldest daughter headed off to college. She’s excited and we’ll see how well the university keeps the kids safe during the pandemic. She’s pretty good at following rules but I’m not so sure how well her peers will follow rules. Either way, she’ll be coming home around Thanksgiving and we’re still waiting… Continue reading Gaining Independence
Despite wanting to reduce the number of financial accounts that I have, this month was a giant step backward. Not only did I sign up for a Suntrust checking account to score a $400 bonus offer, but I also opened up six(!) new Virginia529 accounts, one for each of my kids. At the same time… Continue reading Setting up accounts with Virginia529
Last week I achieved a 600-day streak on Duolingo. I started the Spanish course almost a year before our trip to Spain to help me prepare for the experience. With that milestone fading into the rear-view window, I thought I’d put together a post about my experience trying to learn Spanish. First, my experience with… Continue reading Learning a New Language
I jog regularly with two guys who, like me, both have college age kids like me. During our most recent jog, I explained the benefit of paying for college through a Virginia 529, even if you don’t have much time for the contribution to grow. After the run, I realized that a blog post with… Continue reading 529 Example Scenarios
Not many years after building a supercharged allowance system for my kids to teach them the power of compound interest, I started looking for ways to expose them to additional ideas about personal finances, economics, and life in general. I decided to institute a family book group involving my three oldest, ages 13, 15 and… Continue reading Financial Economic Book Group (#1)
One challenge that first time investors face is where to invest. The options are nearly infinite, with the financial industry creating new products every day. The myriad of choices are overwhelming. I propose the following four levels of investing. A beginning investor could start at the first level and as their education and stomach for… Continue reading Level Up Your Asset Allocation
