While the vast majority of my money that’s invested are in a few different mutual funds, I do have a smaller portion of my portfolio in individual stocks where I try to beat the market. Note that I really don’t believe that it’s possible to beat the market in the long term, but that doesn’t […]

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One of the costs that we face in America that is rising far faster than inflation is health care. In this country, the vast majority (though by no means all, sadly) of Americans have some form of health insurance which helps to relieve medical expenses. Health insurance is typically earned through a benefit of employment […]

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If you found this blog through my guest post over at Blogging Away Debt, welcome! Also, if you’ve come via the pfblogs.org network, welcome too! However you got here, I hope you stay awhile and take this journey down the road of personal finance with me. Mahalo nui loa!

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A few posts back I discussed what my portfolio in my 403(b) plan looks like; it’s not quite what my model portfolio is because my 403(b) plan doesn’t offer two of the three funds I like enough to have in my model portfolio. But pretending I could have exactly the funds I wanted, let’s see […]

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A few posts ago I questioned if waiting on my holiday shopping cost me more or less than it otherwise would have. Today, I have the final totals.
The vast majority of my purchases this year were gift cards. Nearly all of those were bought at the local Foodland or Safeway, not (just) because of convenience, […]

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As mentioned in a previous post, no amount of discounting actually saves you money; it just lets you spend less money than might be expected on things you may or may not want or need. While I am loathe to buy a membership to have the pleasure of shopping there, I have spent quite a […]

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Today at Uncommon Cents, this blog was The Perfect Storm. The day started for me with realizing that my post had been selected to be the guest post of the day over at Tricia’s great Blogging Away Debt, followed by Mrs. Micah reviewing this blog over at StumbleUpon, the most traffic (by more than triple!) […]

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I love my iBook. I really do. I’ve had it for a long time now: I ordered it in October of 2004. I even got a Visa extended warranty for it, so it’s still covered until 2008. In the last year it’s gotten a motherboard swap, a battery change, and a hard drive upgrade; it’s […]

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Since I got so much nice feedback on yesterday’s post on what an index is, I thought we’d once again take a trip backwards, this time on Christmas Eve (insert “It’s a Wonderful Life” jokes here), let’s discuss what a mutual fund is.
A mutual fund is a form of investment that takes money from many […]

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It was pointed out to me the other day that I discussed index funds before I really discussed an index. Considering that this blog is supposed to be about simple personal finance, perhaps we need to go back in time to discuss what an index actually is.
An index is a theoretical portfolio of stocks or […]

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