Interest rates are slowly inching upwards. Don't let a megabank pay you 0.01% APY or less for your idle cash. Here is my monthly roundup of the best safe rates available, roughly sorted from shortest to longest maturities. I focus on rates that … [Read the rest]
Savings I Bonds November 2017 Update: 0.1% Fixed, 2.48% Variable Interest Rate
Posted on November 1, 2017 // 16 Comments
Update 11/1/17. The fixed rate will be 0.1% for I bonds issued from November 1, 2017 through April 30, 2018. The variable inflation-indexed rate for this 6-month period will be 2.48% (as was predicted ;) ). The total rate on any specific bond is … [Read the rest]
Scare-Testing Your Risk Tolerance on Halloween
Posted on October 31, 2017 // 5 Comments
It's Halloween as I finishing writing this, and soon little ghosts and ghouls will be lining up to score treats from my great-aunt. She's lived through some amazing times. It's really hard to predict how you will handle a scary situation until … [Read the rest]
Book Review: A History of Gold in the United States
Posted on October 30, 2017 // 1 Comment
Having been born after 1971, I have never lived in a time when the dollar was backed by gold. In an effort to learn more about the gold standard, I recently finished One Nation Under Gold: How One Precious Metal Has Dominated the American … [Read the rest]
XKCD on Credit Card Reward Optimization
Posted on October 29, 2017 // 4 Comments
XKCD has some clever observations about the pursuit of credit card rewards: I definitely spend more time thinking about optimizing things than is... optimal? rational? That's why I started a website, so I can justify it as a business pursuit! … [Read the rest]
Morningstar Star Ratings, Still Less Useful Than Expense Ratios
Posted on October 27, 2017 // 2 Comments
For investment nerds, the recent Wall Street Journal article The Morningstar Mirage was high drama. The subtitle got straight to the point: Investors everywhere think a 5-star rating from Morningstar means a mutual fund will be a top performer—it … [Read the rest]
Early Retirement Income Update 2017 Q3: Do I Have Enough Yet?
Posted on October 24, 2017 // 16 Comments
How do you know when you portfolio is enough to retire on? You have to figure out a withdrawal strategy first. This is a tricky question and full of worries about running out of money. You could take out a fixed amount (i.e. $50,000 a year). … [Read the rest]
Early Retirement Portfolio Asset Allocation, 2017 Third Quarter Update
Posted on October 23, 2017 // 22 Comments
Here is an update on my investment portfolio holdings after the third quarter 2017. This includes tax-deferred 401k/403b/IRAs and taxable brokerage holdings, but excludes things like our primary home, cash reserves, and a few other side investments. … [Read the rest]
Housing Has Higher Long-Term Returns Than Stocks?
Posted on October 22, 2017 // 12 Comments
I finally got around to reading an academic paper that looked a bit dry but had a great title: The Rate of Return on Everything, 1870–2015 [pdf] by Jorda, Knoll, Kuvshinov, Schularick, and Taylor. I wonder which of the authors came up with … [Read the rest]
California Residents: Southwest Credit Card Companion Pass Shortcut Offer
Posted on October 19, 2017 // 4 Comments
If you are a California resident, check out this special offer on the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Credit Card that provides a shortcut to the SWA Companion Pass: Plus Consumer (CA Only), $69 annual fee, 40,000 point bonus Premier Consumer (CA … [Read the rest]
Social Security Provides Majority of Retirement Income for Most Americans
Posted on October 17, 2017 // 8 Comments
The Washington Post has a rather depressing article on The New Reality of Old Age in America, which includes the following chart about Social Security: For 1/3rd of recipients age 65+, Social Security represents 90% or more of all their … [Read the rest]
Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman on Mental Accounting
Posted on October 16, 2017 // Leave a Comment
Richard Thaler won the Nobel Prize for Economics this year for his pioneering work in Behavioral Economics. Of course, he promptly said he would spend the prize money "as irrationally as possible". Here's a light-hearted Q&A from the NY Times. … [Read the rest]
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