November 2009

Let us count our blessings

November 24, 2009

How lucky we are. How incredibly lucky we are to have been born when we were born and where we were born. Every now and again, I cruise the Web looking for my grandparents and great-grandparents, whom I never saw and about whom I know only some tantalizing hand-me-down legends. Because the pool of public [...]

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Would you buy a house near a Walmart?

November 23, 2009

Mighty Bargain Hunter has a new money site, called Cash Commons. It’s pretty interesting: readers ask questions, others answer them, and people earn “reputation points” whose value is unclear but which make for a fun gimmick. One of the questions, “Is having a Walmart hundreds of feet from a property a good or a bad [...]

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Paper

November 22, 2009

Like dust, paper sifts into my house and settles on the countertops and furniture. If I don’t get to it, before long it stacks up in great dunes of paperwork, forms to be filled out, bills to be paid, statements to be entered in Quicken or Excel, junk to be filed away. Whether its ultimate [...]

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What’s more important than a Costco card?

November 21, 2009

Student A (engaging a discussion about the current Presidential administration): I registered to vote, but I didn’t actually vote. I wish I had… Student B: When I turned 18, I got my Costco card. Getting your Costco card is more important than voting!    

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Assets reviving

November 21, 2009

Well, even though unemployment doesn’t seem to get any better, the economy is said to be recovering. And as a matter of fact, my savings are starting to come back. Last March, investments hit a low point of $420,565, having lost just under $160,000 in ten months. This month, the balance is at $480,753, a [...]

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Do you use all your vacation time?

November 20, 2009

Brip Blap posts an interesting rumination on the question of why Americans tend not to take all the vacation time they’ve earned. I sure don’t: my most recent paycheck says I have 324 hours coming (with almost seven hours accumulating each pay period, that will come to more than 350 by the time the job [...]

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