When I read about Earning an Easy $250+ with Uber Eats, I pretty much ignored it. While I’m generally on board with overcomplicating my life, chasing bank bonuses and sticking it to The Man, usually it involves larger sums of money and requires talking to no one. Oh, and doing no work. Getting in my… Continue reading Sticking It To The Middle Man: Uber Eats Deal
Over the past two-plus decades, I have accumulated over 500 logins and passwords. I suspect that’s more than the average web user, but probably not by much. Keeping track of these all in my brain would be impossible. Of those logins, I only remember four of them: my computer login for work, my computer login… Continue reading Why I use a password manager and why you should too
Today is my last day at StartupInc. When I joined four and a half years ago, we were a motley crew of sixteen. Now, we’re nearly 300. I joined shortly after the series A round and watched the company grow through B, C, and D rounds. From my vantage point, the company’s trajectory is solid,… Continue reading A New Gig
Happy Labor Day! I graduated from graduate school over 16 years ago and got my first “real” job at MegaCorp. I switched jobs in January 2013 to LittleCorp, which was bought within a year by DumpsterFire. Later, in January 2017, I left DumpsterFire for StartupInc, and I’ve been here for over 4 ½ years. Over… Continue reading A Tale of Salary and Inflation
Last month, my 2000 Honda Civic LX turned twenty-one. Most of its 156,498 miles were earned during the first seven years of its life when it was our only vehicle. When I bought it in 2000, I drove it off the lot, brand new, for $15,631. What I didn’t know at the time is how… Continue reading How to get a brand new Honda Civic for $4,000!
My wife and I have a long running inside joke. We’ll be considering a purchase, be it a thing or an experience, and one of us will turn to the other, asking “how much did we pay for this the last time?” The other spouse will reply, “I don’t know. But I know how we… Continue reading Using Quicken to Track Personal Finances
I finished 63 books in 2020, three more than 2019 but eleven fewer than 2018. Of those 63, only two of them were physical, paper books. Twenty five of them were audio books, but the remaining thirty six were on my Kindle Paperwhite. I love my Paperwhite. It’s my second e-ink Kindle, replacing my Kindle… Continue reading I love my Kindle Paperwhite
It’s the end of another year. Here are some end-of-year financial “chores” that you might consider as we close out 2020 and head into 2021. Adjust W2 Withholdings I track my expected tax burden in a custom spreadsheet and tailor my withholdings to be as close to zero as possible. I’m okay with underwithholding, but… Continue reading Year End Financial Chores – 2020 Edition
Over the past twenty years I’ve had checking accounts at nine different brick-and-mortar banks, including: First Security (defunct), Wells Fargo, Charter One (defunct), Fifth Third Bank, Washington Mutual (defunct), Chase, PNC, Suntrust, and M&T. Why so many? After all, changing banks can be a bit of a pain. Most of the changes were due to… Continue reading Branchless Banking
In 2017, Equifax announced they had a security breach where the personal information of 147 million users was released. As far as breaches go, this was a big one. If you are American and have bought a house or car in the past couple decades or even just used a credit card, it’s highly likely… Continue reading Why I Have Frozen My Credit
